Distance: 13.7 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: hard
Get the route via: Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
Walk in the heart of Derbyshire’s White Peak from Youlgreave to Tideswell, taking a long route avoiding the River Wye via Laithkill Dale, Monyash and Miller’s Dale.
The Story
The Walk
Getting Back
Cathedral of the Peak
With a population of just over 1,800 Tideswell is one of the Peak District National Park’s settlements. Indeed, after Bakewell, the area’s only town, it is probably the most substantial settlement.
Located in the north western part of the limestone White Peak, Tideswell matches Edensor, on the opposite side of the Peak in having a distinctively pronounced local name: Tidza.
Supposedly this name comes from a “tiding well” on the northern edge of the village. A spring so impressive Thomas Hobbes, best known for his miserablist, realist, political philosophy, declaring it one of his “Seven Wonders of the Peak”. A series of locations explored in his 1636 travelogue, written while he was working at Chatsworth House as a tutor in the household of the Duke of Devonshire De Mirabilibus Pecci: Being The Wonders of the Peak in Darby-shire, Commonly called The Devil’s Arse of Peak. Another theory for how Tideswell got its name, and the one accepted by no less an authority than the English Place Names Society, is that it is named after an early medieval king called Tidi.
Either way, the chief piece of local folklore associated with Tideswell is that a farmer from the village freed his cow from a gate by sawing its head off. A tale which has led to the village’s residents being called “Saw Yeds” by those from nearby. In typical versions of this tale the cow is killed by this action, it is not a magical cow capable of regrowing its head, which may make the farmer’s decision seem rash, even highly foolish. But in commentary it is typically seen as being an example of Tideswell people being canny with money, and perhaps cruelly in some eyes, viewing the gate as more valuable than the cow. To this day the story is enacted annually as part of the village’s mummers play performed during Wakes Week.
Myths about animal cruelty and foundational political philosophers fuming over springs aside Tideswell is perhaps best known for its parish church. In keeping with the village’s feel of being a little bit like a town, its late medieval Anglican church St. John the Baptist is huge, and set in an expansive, shady churchyard. A setting not unlike that of the far smaller and much more ramshackle looking St. Mary’s in Wirksworth, far to the south. The size and prominence of St. John the Baptist which is visible from most parts of Tideswell has led to it being christened the “Cathedral of the Peak”. A designation it even carries alongside its saint’s devotion on the Church of England website.
The Walk
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.
This walk begins from the bus stops in Youlgreave village centre to Tideswell, taking a long route via Laithkill Dale, Monyash and Miller’s Dale.
From the centre of Youlgreave where you alight the bus, head west, walking along the road at the top of Bradford Dale, towards the village’s edge.
At the edge of the village there is a junction where you take the right hand fork carrying on straight ahead.
Just after the fork, on the right hand side of the road there is a stile which you climb into a field. Here the path winds upwards across sheep pasture.
On reaching the top of the hill, you cross a lane, and are then able to make quick progress across pasture and through scattered woodland over the plateau.
Soon, you begin the steady descent to Cales Dale, a craggy little offshoot of impressive Lathkill Dale.
Soon you join the Limestone Way long distance footpath and ascend to reach Ash Grange Farm’s large farm yard.
Make your way straight through Ash Grange Farm before continuing across open fields towards Monyash, following a straight well worn path, which presently turns into a bridleway style track.
Upon reaching Monyash, walk straight through the village, passing the village pond, and the green where a cafe and pub are situated.
Just past Monyash a well maintained bridleway runs off to the left climbing a low hill next to a small housing development created from a converted farm. Before reaching a junction where you turn right, heading along a bridleway towards Flagg, a smaller village adjacent to Monyash.
At Flagg you cross a main road, and turn left, walking steadily uphill along the main road through the village.
Then next few miles after Flagg are along roads steadily winding up towards a high ridge with commanding views back across the Peak District, and to the west towards the limestone quarries near Buxton, and the gritstone moors beyond that which mark Derbyshire’s boundary with Cheshire, the place where the East Midlands meets the North West.
Eventually reaching the top of the ridge, the roads you walk along become ever quieter and patchier, until finally petering out in favour of a bridleway.
Cresting the ridge, you descend down the well maintained bridleway into the valley which carries the A6 from Bakewell to Buxton and on towards Great Manchester. Out east in the distance I can see the radio mast on Eyam Moor, pointing the way towards the Derwent Valley and Sheffield the other side of the eastern gritstone edges.
On reaching the side of the A6 you cross and begin heading steadily downhill, first along roads, then along a well maintained footpath towards the bottom of Miller’s Dale where the River Wye flows towards Bakewell and its confluence with the Derwent at Rowsley.
Reaching Miller’s Dale you emerge beside the busy road down to Miller’s Dale village and keep on walking, heading to the right, continuing downhill towards the River Wye at the bottom of the dale. Take care as you do so, because while the road is long and straight, cars travel very fast and there are relatively few places to stand in as they pass.
At Miller’s Dale, village you cross the Wye, and head to the right, along the road through the village, passing a small, now derelict seeming, Anglican chapel constructed in the early 20th Century when Miller’s Dale with its quarries, dairy farming, and station on the old London to Manchester Midland Railway mainline was at its peak of economic significance. These days the old railway line is the Monsal Trail.
Beside this chapel, you leave the Limestone Way, heading right, down to a quiet lane which runs along the northern bank of the River Wye. Head along this lane past the Angler’s Rest pub and towards the edge of Miller’s Dale village.
Walk along the lane beside the Wye, past towering limestone cliffs, until you are beneath where YHA Ravenstor stands.
Here you reach a small car park, just after which you turn left and begin walking up a well maintained path towards Tideswell Dale.
Follow this path up Tideswell Dale until you emerge in a car park beside the B6049. Here turn right and carry on along the side of the road, up the upper part of Tideswell dale towards the edge of the village.
Soon you pass the sign, and walk past the first houses in the large village of Tideswell. It has some of the characteristics of a town, including St. John the Baptist a large medieval church nicknamed the “Cathedral of the Peak”.
Upon reaching the village’s large main square, ringed by a mixture of retail outlets and houses, as well as where the bus stops are situated, you are amidst Tideswell’s heart.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
At the time of writing in October 2025 Tideswell as served by four bus services. All of which ran on week days, three on weekends, too. The primary bus was the 65 from Tideswell to Sheffield Meadow Hall, via the eastern Hope Valley and Sheffield city centre. Some 65s also ran to Buxton. Both Sheffield and Buxton have mainline railway stations, Sheffield’s serving destinations across the UK. Other buses like the 66 ran once a day to Chesterfield in the evening. While the 173 ran on weekdays and Saturdays multiple times a day between Castleton and Bakewell, both of which have bus connections to destinations across Derbyshire and Sheffield district.