Thorpe Cloud rises straight out of the village, a conical limestone hill of 287 metres that guards the entrance to Dovedale. Footpaths run up three sides of it. The climb is a proper scramble rather than a stroll, steep enough to feel like an achievement, and the view over the gorge at the top is the reward. Older children manage it happily.
The village itself sits below, on the east bank of the River Dove, four miles north of Ashbourne at the southern edge of the Peak District. Stone cottages, a few more affluent homesteads, and a main part that lies in a cul-de-sac off the through road. One local guide calls it "a surprisingly peaceful spot," which holds true even on summer weekends when Dovedale draws crowds barely a mile away.
The pub is The Old Dog, on Spend Lane. Until 2012 it was the Dog & Partridge, described in contemporary reviews as "a rather miserable grimy place." Two years of refurbishment turned it into a country inn, and it now trades on muddy-boot lunches and Sunday roasts with all the trimmings. A TripAdvisor reviewer found it "beautifully restored... a lovely warm atmosphere, lit with candles and heated with real fires." There's a rotating selection of real ales, including a stout, and a beer garden. The whole pub is dog friendly; one visitor noted the staff brought their dog a bowl of water without being asked. It can be a pricey choice given the portion sizes.
There is no shop, butcher or deli. For provisions you drive the four miles to Ashbourne, the market town that bills itself as the Gateway to Dovedale and sells gingerbread. The Izaak Walton Hotel and the National Trust tea-room at Ilam Park sit just outside the village.
The walking is the reason most people come. Less than a mile away are the Dovedale Stepping Stones, reached across the fields past the back of the Izaak Walton Hotel, leading into the limestone gorge with its Lion's Head rock and the archway of Reynard's Cave. The Limestone Way, a 46-mile bridleway, passes through, as does the Peak District Boundary Walk. The Tissington Trail runs close by along a former railway trackbed.
That trackbed is what became of Thorpe Cloud station, on the old Ashbourne–Buxton branch. There's no active station now, and the buses toward Ashbourne are the seasonal, infrequent kind, so you'll want a car.
The Church of St Leonard is Grade I listed, its Norman core built in the reign of King Stephen. It holds an eleventh-century tub font, one of only three in Derbyshire, and a Breeches Bible in which Adam and Eve wear breeches rather than fig leaves. It was originally just a chapel of Ashbourne, becoming independent in 1299.
Domesday recorded the place as "Torp," among the smallest fifth of English settlements at fewer than five households. It stayed with the crown until 1245.
Every November, runners set off from here on the Dovedale Dash, a four-and-three-quarter-mile cross-country race first run in 1953. They have been doing it ever since.
