place

Tunstead, Derbyshire

Derbyshire geography stubsHigh Peak, DerbyshireTowns and villages of the Peak DistrictVillages in Derbyshire
Monument to James Brindley, Tunstead
Monument to James Brindley, Tunstead

Tunstead is a village in Derbyshire, England, situated above Great Rocks Dale north of Buxton. It should not be confused with Tunstead Milton, which is roughly five miles to the north west. It is in the civil parish of Green Fairfield. It is famous as the birthplace of James Brindley, pioneer builder of Britain's canals. He was born in 1716 in a farmhouse on the edge of the village and with the encouragement of his mother he became an apprentice millwright in Leek. By 1875 the farm had fallen into ruins, marked only by an ash tree, when a monument to his memory was placed in nearby Wormhill. By 1958, the ash tree had also gone, and the Derbyshire Archaeological Society planted a sapling in its place and erected another monument. Tunstead is also famous for the quarry, on the other side of the old Midland Railway line from Millers Dale to Chapel en le Frith. Being just outside the boundary of the Peak District National Park it is probably the most extensively worked in the area, yielding high-quality limestone exceptionally free of volcanic rock.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Tunstead, Derbyshire (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Tunstead, Derbyshire
High Peak Wormhill

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Tunstead, DerbyshireContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 53.2718 ° E -1.838 °
placeShow on map

Address


SK17 8TB High Peak, Wormhill
England, United Kingdom
mapOpen on Google Maps

Monument to James Brindley, Tunstead
Monument to James Brindley, Tunstead
Share experience

Nearby Places

Wormhill
Wormhill

Wormhill is a village and civil parish in the High Peak district of Derbyshire, England, situated east by north of Buxton. The population of the civil parish including Peak Dale was 1,020 at the 2011 Census.Wormhill was mentioned in the Domesday book as belonging to Henry de Ferrers and containing 20 acres (81,000 m2) of meadow. The name is said by the English Place-Name Society to be derived from the Old English 'Wyrma's hyll'.There was a tradition of wolf hunting in Wormhill in the fourteenth century. It was said that a living was made by some and that an annual tribute of wolfheads was shown. It has been reported that the last wolf killed in England was at Wormhill Hall in the 15th century.From 1863 to 1967 the village was served by Millers Dale railway station, some 2 miles away, which was on the Midland Railway's extension of the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway. The disused railway line is now the Monsal Trail bridleway. A footpath south of the village leads to the nearby River Wye in Chee Dale. The Peak District Boundary Walk runs past Wormhill on its way from Buxton to Peak Forest.It has memorials to James Brindley, pioneer builder of Britain's canals, who was born in 1716 in the hamlet of Tunstead within Wormhill parish. The well in Wormhill is dedicated to Brindley. As part of the annual well dressing festival the Brindley well is decorated each year and there is also a smaller well dressing in the churchyard of St Margaret's Church in the village. The lower part of a cross shaft and its stepped base stand in the churchyard. A sundial dated 1670 tops the broken shaft. Only the base of the church tower is medieval; the rest of the church was "almost rebuilt" in 1864, and a transept added in 1904–10.Near the church and Brindley's well can be found the old village stocks. At the north end of the village lies the hamlet of Hargate (now part of Wormhill), where the industrialist Robert Whitehead and notorious mill owner Ellis Needham once lived.

Blackwell Mill
Blackwell Mill

Blackwell Mill is a location in Derbyshire, near to the village of Blackwell near Buxton, but not part of it. There was once a corn mill on the River Wye which may have dated from 1066. Most of it has disappeared, apart from the weir. What is left is marked as an Ancient Monument. It stands at the meeting point of several valleys: Great Rocks Dale, Chee Dale and Ashford Dale. In times past the Manchester Turnpike forded the river. It marks the northern end of the public path from Bakewell, used by walkers and cyclists, called the Monsal Trail. The trail follows the trackbed of the former Midland Railway main line from London to Manchester. Blackwell Mill lies between Bakewell and Buxton, on the Midland's attempt to extend the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway into Manchester. This point was the south curve of the triangular junction which it built when it, instead, extended to New Mills. There was a railway station variously called "Blackwell Mill" or "Blackwell Mill Halt". Long enough only for one carriage, it was reputed to be the smallest passenger station on British Railways. It consisted of two short platforms, with no buildings, apart from a small shelter, which although derelict is still standing despite. The station was last used in June 1966 and officially closed in 1967. The halt was for the railway workers who lived in the still-existing, and still occupied, eight terraced cottages nearby in the valley. The station was also included in a Pathé News film in 1938.Passengers and goods from Buxton wishing to transfer to or from the Midland Main Line travelled past this point, to then change trains at Millers Dale. The branch carried on into Buxton along Wye Dale, crossing the main A6 road and the river by a high twin-arched girder bridge, before entering Pig Tor Tunnel (191 yards), where it emerged into Ashwood Dale, followed by the 100-yard (91 m) Ashwood Dale Tunnel.

Peter Dale (Derbyshire)
Peter Dale (Derbyshire)

Peter Dale is a short dry crag-sided valley near Buxton, Derbyshire, in the Peak District of England. There is a farmland plateau on either side. The northern end of the valley leads into Hay Dale at Dale Head and the foot of the valley leads into Monk's Dale. Hay Dale and Monk's Dale are both part of the Derbyshire Dales National Nature Reserve managed by Natural England. The Carboniferous limestone rocks of all these dales were formed 350 million years ago from the shells and sediments of a tropical sea. The landscape was then sculpted by the ice sheets from the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago.The walking along the flat valley floor is easy except for a couple of short rock-strewn sections. The Limestone Way long-distance footpath runs along the length of the gentle valley floor. The Peak District Boundary Walk trail passes the northern end of the valley. The Pennine Bridleway runs across the southern end and then parallel to the dale about 1km to the east (through the hamlet of Wheston). Where the Limestone Way crosses the A623 road (about 1 km north of Hay Dale), the route of the old Batham Gate Roman road runs east–west.Peter Dale's limestone cliffs are well-suited to rock climbing, with 25 graded routes on Main Crag.Access into Peter Dale from the south can be made from the hamlet of Wormhill along the Pennine Bridleway. From the north there is a footpath from the village of Peak Forest (on the A623 road) through Dam Dale and Hay Dale.

Chee Dale
Chee Dale

Chee Dale is a steep-sided gorge on the River Wye near Buxton, Derbyshire, in the Peak District of England. The Wye valley continues upstream towards Buxton as Wye Dale, while downstream are Miller's Dale village and valley.Chee Dale has a protected nature reserve (close to the village of Wormhill), which is overseen by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. The reserve contains ash, yew and rock whitebeam woodland on the cliff sides and abundant wild flowers including cowslips, early purple orchids, rock rose and the rare Jacob's ladder. Dippers are often seen darting low above the river and bobbing on rocks in the river. Other birds nesting in the valley include blackcap, chiffchaff and willow warbler. Chee Dale is part of the Wye Valley Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), running for 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) east of Buxton. The Monsal Trail bridleway runs for 8.5 miles (13.7 km) from Topley Pike Junction (at the head of Chee Dale) to Rowsley near Bakewell, along the disused Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway line. It passes through Upper Chee Dale and then enters Chee Tor Tunnels 1 and 2 through to Miller's Dale.There is also a riverside footpath along the length of Chee Dale with several wooden footbridges over the river. Sets of stepping stones allow walkers to pass the foot of the cliffs.The crags of carboniferous limestone in Upper Chee Dale and of Chee Tor cliff in Lower Chee Dale have extensive rock climbing routes. These include the overhanging Cornice and Chee Tor. Chee Tor has the Chee Tor Girdle route, a 167-metre (548 ft) horizontal traverse 20 metres (66 ft) above the cliff base, first climbed in 1964 by Chris Jackson and J. Atkinson.At the head of Chee Dale, Great Rocks Dale enters from the north, at the former railway stations of Blackwell Mill and Chee Dale Halt. Great Rocks Dale is a dry valley and is the site of Tunstead Quarry, one of the largest limestone quarries in the UK.The Pennine Bridleway crosses the River Wye over a footbridge at Blackwell Mill. Access into the deep gorge is limited. Miller's Dale car park is the obvious place for visitors to get into Chee Dale. At the west end of Chee Dale there is Topley Pike layby with limited parking by the A6 road. There is also a short steep footpath into Chee Dale from Wormhill.

Hay Dale
Hay Dale

Hay Dale is a short dry valley near Buxton, Derbyshire, in the Peak District of England. It is part of a longer valley that runs for approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) north–south from Peak Forest (on the A623 road) to the River Wye at Millers Dale. This valley has several names along its length: from the northern end running downhill these are Dam Dale, Hay Dale, Peter Dale and Monk's Dale. There is a farmland plateau on either side.Hay Dale is part of the Derbyshire Dales National Nature Reserve. Natural England manages the reserve which covers five separate dales of the White Peak (Lathkill Dale, Cressbrook Dale, Hay Dale, Long Dale and Monk's Dale). The Carboniferous limestone rocks of the reserve were formed 350 million years ago from the shells and sediments of a tropical sea. The landscape was then sculpted by the ice sheets from the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago. The reserve contains ash woodland, limestone grassland and many wildflowers including early purple orchid, cowslip, common rock rose and thyme. Butterflies are abundant and include the brown argus. The Limestone Way and the Peak District Boundary Walk long-distance footpaths run along the length of the gentle valley floor. The Pennine Bridleway crosses the northern end of the dale, dividing it from Dam Dale. Where the Limestone Way crosses the A623 road about 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Hay Dale, the route of the old Batham Gate Roman road runs east–west.Access into Hay Dale from the north is via a footpath from Peak Forest through Dam Dale. From the south, the dale can be reached from the village of Wormhill along the Pennine Bridleway and through Peter Dale. A minor road running west from Wheston marks the southern end of Hay Dale and the start of Peter Dale.