West Derbyshire (UK Parliament constituency)

Harboro' Rocks (or Harborough Rocks) is a dolomitic limestone hill near the village of Brassington in the Derbyshire Peak District. The summit is 379 metres (1,243 ft) above sea level with views across to Carsington Water. Harboro' Cave is a natural cavern in the rocks where archaeologists have found evidence of human occupants since the Ice Age. Satirist author Daniel Defoe reported in his book Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain (published in 1726) that a poor family of seven was living in the cave. Defoe described how the father was a lead miner and was "lean as a skeleton, pale as a dead corps" but that they "seemed to live very pleasantly". The cave is a protected Scheduled Monument. There is a settlement site and chambered cairns nearby. The Golconda lead mine, on the north east side of the hill, was part of the Gell family's Griffe Grange mining liberty, which ran from the summit of Harboro' Rocks to Via Gellia. The mine dates back to the 1700s and the mine shaft is over 100 metres (330 ft) deep. Golconda is a name used for wealthy mines, after the famous Indian Golconda diamond mine. The mine's tunnels enter natural caverns such as the Great Shack. After closing in 1913, the mine was reopened in 1915 to mine baryte until 1953. Furnace-lining bricks have been manufactured from local quartz sand at Harborough brickworks for many years (recently by Hobens Minerals and previously by Swan Ratcliffe).Most of the White Peak is a carboniferous limestone plateau. This unusual jagged outcrop of dolomitic limestone offers interesting buttresses, arêtes and pinnacles for rock climbing (and some easy bouldering) with over 100 graded routes.Nearby Rainster Rocks is another dolomitic limestone crag and is the site of a Romano-British settlement and field system from the 3rd century. The remains include enclosures with walls made of upright boulders (orthostats) and earthwork terraces. Excavations have found pottery fragments, metalwork and coins. The site is a listed ancient Scheduled Monument. Rainster Rocks was also a popular rock climbing location (with over 80 graded routes) and has been climbed for over 100 years. However the landowners have imposed an outright ban on climbing there since 2018.The land around Harboro' Rocks is designated as "Open Access" land for the public, following the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.The High Peak Trail and the Midshires Way footpaths follow the same route along the south west side of the hill. The Limestone Way long-distance footpath passes the north west side of the hill.

Longcliffe is a crossroads hamlet in the English county of Derbyshire. It lies on the B5056 road where it is crossed by the Brassington-Elton road. The Midshires Way long-distance footpath and the Peak District Boundary Walk skirt the same route south and west of Longcliffe.Longcliffe is close to Hoe Grange Quarry, the first Butterfly Reserve in Derbyshire. The company relinquished permitted reserves within Hoe Grange quarry in order to promote the site's wildlife. The reserve is managed by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust.

Brassington is a village and civil parish in the Derbyshire Dales district of Derbyshire, 16 miles north west of Derby. The parish had a population of 573 at the 2011 census.The name, spelled Branzingtune in the Domesday Book, is thought to mean "Brand's people's place". Most of the houses in the village are built of local limestone, and most are 200 or 300 years old; there are 20th-century houses at the south end of the village. The oldest dated house, named Tudor House since the late 19th century, was built in 1615. It is located on Town Street (grid reference SK232543) and was an inn until 1820, when it was bought by the parish and was used as a workhouse until 1848. There were 15 inmates at the 1841 census, but the number rose considerably in 1845, when the Brassington Poor Law Union was wound up and Brassington joined the new Ashbourne Union. The Brassington workhouse, augmented by the nearby George and Dragon pub, served the new union while a new workhouse was built in Ashbourne. The workhouse could hold 130 inmates. The house has been a private house since 1848, and its owner in the 1890s added the words Tudor House to its 1615 datestone. This has the initials of Thomas Westerne, its builder, and his wife Anne. The Norman church, repaired and enlarged in the 19th century, stands on the north side of the steep valley in which the village lies. There were formerly three Nonconformist chapels, two of which are now closed and one demolished. The former Congregational chapel, at the northern entrance to the village, is now the village hall; the Primitive Methodist chapel, built by its members in 1834 above the church on the hillside, is a private house; the Wesleyan Reform chapel, at the west end of the village, was demolished in 2007. A house built on the site incorporates a plaque formerly set high on the chapel's frontage and a brass commemorative plate. In addition to the village hall, a meeting place was provided in the 1990s by a British Legion building in the village centre. There are two pubs, the Olde Gate (where Bonnie Prince Charlie’s soldiers were billeted on their march to London and some of the oak beams came from ships of the Spanish Armada) which has a 1616 datestone and a largely 19th-century interior, and the Miners Arms, which was modernised thirty years ago, and which was once the venue for the manor court and the lead miners' Barmote Court. The school was built in 1872, after the passing of the 1870 Education Act, and is now a primary school. In addition to agriculture, which still provides employment for a few villagers, Brassington was for centuries dependent on lead mining. The rough ground to the east, west and north has the hillocks and hollows of hundreds of abandoned mines; there are also remains of the miners' buildings on some of the sites. There is current employment in the village in heavy goods transport, steel fabrication and furniture manufacture, though most of the villagers are employed elsewhere. Until recently, there was no shop, but in July 2014 the village became the second in the UK (after Clifton, Derbyshire) to have a 'Speedy Shop' installed by local business Villagevending.com. The shop sells a range of essentials and other items using an automatic retailing machine styled like a traditional shop. There are bus services to Ashbourne and Wirksworth. The nearby Harboro' Rocks and Rainster Rocks are dolomitic limestone outcrops. Harboro' Rocks has a history of mining lead and baryte. Harboro' Cave is a natural cavern which was occupied as far back as the Ice Age and it is a Scheduled Monument. The remains of a Romano-British settlement at Rainster Rocks is also a protected Scheduled Monument.The Limestone Way long-distance footpath passes close to the village.

Aldwark (Old English "the old fortification") is a small upland village and parish in the Derbyshire Dales district of Derbyshire, England, about 8 miles (13 km) WSW of Matlock by road or 5 miles (8 km) as the crow flies. Close by are a number of Neolithic burial sites, the most notable being tree-crowned Minninglow, visible for many miles around. The village is just within the boundaries of the Peak District National Park. The 2001 census recorded a population of just 39 for the parish; over 100 years ago, the township's inhabitants numbered 40. At the 2011 Census the population had increased to 180. In the 18th century Aldwark was probably busier, being a stopping point on the stagecoach route from Buxton to Derby. There are three listed buildings in the village – Green Farmhouse, Ivy Cottage and Lidgate Farmhouse – all designated at Grade II.

Grangemill is a village in the English county of Derbyshire. The hamlet is made up of a cluster of houses, a farm and a pub called the Hollybush. There is a former cheese factory in the village, and the workings of this are still on display. The population as taken at the 2011 Census is included in the civil parish of Aldwark, Derbyshire, The majority of the settlement is within the Ivonbrook Grange parish, however Grangemill lies at the crossroads of the A5012 and B5056 roads which is within Brassington parish. It is on the south-eastern boundary of the Peak District National Park. The Limestone Way long-distance bridleway passes through Grangemill. The Peak District Boundary Walk also runs through the village.There are several quarries that surround Grange Mill, in which all extract limestone from the area. The most noticeable being the Brassington Moor Quarry.

Ible (pronounced 'eyebull', or 'ib-ull') is a hamlet in Derbyshire, England, just within the Peak District National Park.It is near the Via Gellia valley, the historic market town of Wirksworth and village of Bonsall, and is on the route of the Limestone Way and the Peak District Boundary Walk.The name of the hamlet is derived from the Old English for "Ibba's Hollow".

Ivonbrook Grange is a civil parish within the Derbyshire Dales district, in the county of Derbyshire, England. Largely rural, Ivonbrook Grange's population is reported with the population of neighbouring parishes for a total of 180 residents in 2011. It is 130 miles (210 km) north west of London, 15 miles (24 km) north west of the county city of Derby, and 3+1⁄2 miles (5.6 km) south west of the nearest market town of Matlock. Ivonbrook Grange is wholly within the Peak District national park on its southern edge, and shares a border with the parishes of Aldwark, Bonsall, Brassington, Ible as well as Winster. There is one listed structure in Ivonbrook Grange.

The Hopton Incline was the steepest stretch of conventional, adhesion-worked standard gauge railway in the UK. The incline was situated in sparsely populated, exposed limestone uplands in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England. It is possible that steeper stretches were to be found in sidings, but the Hopton Incline was on the former Cromford and High Peak Railway's single-track main line as inherited by British Railways.

Carsington is a village in the middle of the Derbyshire Dales, England; it adjoins the hamlet of Hopton, and is close to the historic town of Wirksworth and village of Brassington. According to the 1991 Census, the population was 111, increasing to 251 at the 2011 Census.

St Margaret's Church, Carsington, is a Grade II* listed parish church in the Church of England: 122  in Carsington, Derbyshire.

Hopton Hall is an 18th-century country house at Hopton, near Wirksworth, Derbyshire. It is a Grade II listed building. The Manor of Hopton, anciently the seat of the de Hopton family, was acquired by the Gell family in 1553 by Ralph Gell (1491–1564) who also purchased lands at Darley Abbey and Rocester.John Gell was created a baronet in 1642 (see Gell baronets). The Baronetcy was extinct in 1719 and the estate passed to John Eyre in 1732 via his mother Katherine Gell, daughter of 2nd baronet John Gell, at which point Eyre added the surname of Gell. The house has its origins in the 16th century when it was built by Thomas Gell as a two-storey, three-bay manor house. It was extended and remodelled by Philip Eyre Gell in the late 18th century. The north entrance front has three storeys and seven bays, flanked by tower wings with pyramidal roofs.Notable members of the Gell family include the religious patron Katherine Gell, Philip Gell's younger brother, Admiral John Gell and Philip's son Sir William Gell.Philip Gell's daughter and heir married William Pole Thornhill MP, on whose death the estate passed to his kinsman Henry Pole, later known as Henry Chandos-Pole-Gell (High Sheriff of Derbyshire) in 1886. The estate of some 3,700 acres (15 km2) was broken up in the 20th century, a major part being sold to a water authority for the creation of Carsington Reservoir. The house itself was put up for auction in 1989, passing out of the family. The present owner is Sir Bill Thomas and his family, a former senior vice president of Hewlett-Packard Europe who was drafted in by Ed Miliband to chair Labour's "small business taskforce". Thomas and his wife Julie have opened their formal gardens and lake to the public during February and early March for the woodland Snowdrop Walk and during the summer to the Rose Garden. Both periods allow access to the 30 acres (12 ha) of grounds and 2 km (1.2 mi) of signposted paths.The document collection of the Gell family of Hopton Hall is held by the Derbyshire Record Office.

Minninglow (or Minning Low) is a hill in the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire, located within the White Peak area at grid reference SK209573. Within the clump of trees crowning the hill are a Neolithic chambered tomb and two Bronze Age bowl barrows. The chambered tomb (Derbyshire's largest) and barrows are a Scheduled Monument. The chambered tomb comprises an oval cairn of 45 by 38 metres (148 by 125 ft) surviving to a height of 2.4 metres (7 ft 10 in) and containing two complete chambers made of limestone slabs, and at least three other incomplete chambers. The tomb was excavated by Thomas Bateman in 1843 and 1851 and was described by Nikolaus Pevsner as "one of the most impressive of Derbyshire's surviving prehistoric burials". The barrow is considered to be a multi-period site, the oldest chamber dating from the Early Neolithic period but with other finds indicating use in the Late Neolithic or early Bronze Age, and also the Roman period. The two bowl barrows, also excavated by Bateman, date from the Bronze Age and also show signs of Roman disturbance.Although it is within 200 metres (660 ft) of the High Peak Trail between Parwich and Longcliffe, there is no public right of way to the site. Since 31 January 2007, however, concessionary access has been granted by the landowner, allowing the public to walk to and explore the site. The concessionary path from the High Peak Trail is signposted with a wooden sign similar to a public footpath sign and there are wooden markers on the route to the barrow. About one kilometre northwest of Minninglow hill is the massive Minninglow Embankment on the former Cromford and High Peak Railway, the trackbed of which now forms the High Peak Trail. This Grade-II-listed structure, constructed from local limestone and earth in the 1820s, is a pre-Victorian example of civil engineering on the grand scale. There is access from the car park and picnic site about 200 metres (660 ft) further along the High Peak Trail at grid reference SK194581.