70 Best Days Out in the Peak District
The Peak District National Park was founded on 17 April 1951, the first national park ever to be created in the UK. It covers 555 square miles of the most beautiful parts of Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, Yorkshire and even parts of Greater Manchester.
To celebrate the 70th birthday of our very favourite place, we’ve collected together what we consider to be the 70 Best Days Out in the Peak District to inspire you to visit more of this wonderful area. Have a browse through our collection below to get suggestions for entirely new spots to discover, or to remind yourself to revisit old favourites.
You’ll find all the region’s best attractions in here, as well as the most popular beauty spots and a few hidden gems as well, not to mention some wonderful little villages and many of the vibrant towns on the borders.
Join us in celebrating the very best that the Peak District has to offer, not just in this special birthday year but in every year to come!
Ilam is just about as perfect a Peak District village as you could hope to get! With a collection of pretty cottages set in the most idyllic location, and only a short walk from the popular beauty spot of Dovedale, it’s a great place to spend a day.
Read MoreMany visitors to the Peak District may already know or have been to Dovedale; it's one of the most popular beauty spots in the National Park and indeed one of the most visited natural sites in Britain, attracting over a million visitors every year. The easy access paths through the valley and the delightful river with its pretty stepping stones make it a firm favourite with families and day-trippers. Despite its popularity it's still not difficult to escape the crowds, however, particularly if you walk a short distance away from the main valley, and the nearby dales of Hall Dale and Milldale will reward you richly for just a little...
Read MoreFor a walk along some of the finest gritstone edges in the Derbyshire Peak District, with spectacular views in all directions, it's hard to beat this route across Froggatt Edge, Curbar Edge and Baslow Edge with the wide vistas of the stunning Derwent Valley laid out below. This 8 mile walk takes you along all three edges and then descends gently on moorland trails and returns to the start point via the pretty villages of Curbar, Calver, Froggatt and Grindleford, on country lanes, field tracks and shady woodland paths alongside the River Derwent.
Read MoreThe romantic ruins of Peveril Castle stand on a hilltop high above the pretty village of Castleton in the heart of the Peak District. Mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, this is one of England’s earliest Norman fortresses. It’s one of only 48 castles recorded at that time, and the only one in Derbyshire. Its historical significance is recognised by the fact that it’s a protected Scheduled Ancient Monument, designated to be of international importance.
Read MoreArbor Low is a stone henge situated just outside the pretty town of Bakewell. It's regarded as being one of the most important Neolithic sites in the UK, and very few henge monuments are as well-preserved. Thought to have been established in around 2500 BC and in use until the Bronze Age, Arbor Low was one of the first ancient monuments in the UK to be given statutory protection in the late 19th Century.
Read MoreIf you've never spent a day in and around beautiful Bradfield, you've really missed a trick! Only 7 miles out of Sheffield but surrounded by the most wonderfully wild countryside, Bradfield straddles the border of the Peak District National Park in Yorkshire. It's the largest civil parish in England and it's made up of two villages: High Bradfield, which is situated on the hillside, and Low Bradfield, which sits down in the valley alongside the River Loxley.
Read MoreA day out at Crich Tramway Village, located just a short distance from the lovely town of Matlock, is a fabulous way to spend some time, with plenty to keep the whole family happy - including the dog! It's home to the National Tramway Museum, which takes you through a hundred years of tramway development from 1860 – 1960, and also features a beautifully-recreated period village, complete with a vintage pub, café and olde-worlde shops.
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