High endeavours
THE High Peak District of Derbyshire hides its secrets well. When, in 1698, the intrepid English horsewoman Celia Fiennes rode from Chatsworth to Bakewell in the picturesque valley of the Wye, a tributary of the Derwent, she described the pretty market town as ‘standing on a hill, yet you descend a vast hill to it which you would think impossible to go down… the common people here know not above 2 or 3 miles from their home, but they of the country will climb up and down with their horses those steep precipices’.
From the 17th century onwards, wealthy Derbyshire mine-owners built fine country houses on the steep hillsides of the Peak District to make the most of spectacular valley views,
