Bakewell

Why base here

Bakewell is the largest town inside the national park and the natural base for the White Peak’s limestone dales rather than the Dark Peak’s moorland. It has held a market since a charter of 1254, and the Bakewell pudding, not tart, is said to have been invented by accident at what is now the Rutland Arms around 1820, when a cook spread egg and almond paste over jam instead of mixing it in. The town’s former railway station, closed to passengers in 1967, now marks the start of the Monsal Trail, the old Midland Railway line converted to a walking and cycling path through the dales toward Buxton.

On foot versus by car

The Monsal Trail runs directly from the old station, flat and surfaced, and needs no car at all: Hassop, the next former station along the line, is an easy there-and-back on foot or by bike. Lathkill Dale, a National Nature Reserve, is a short drive to Over Haddon, from where the dale opens out below the village. Chatsworth and the gritstone edges above Baslow and Curbar, including Curbar Edge, are a few miles northeast by car. Monsal Head, with its view over the viaduct and Monsal Dale, is a short drive northwest.

Practicalities

Bakewell has had no passenger trains of its own since 1967; the nearest are Buxton and Matlock, both requiring a bus connection into town. Several pay and display car parks serve the centre, including the former station car park at Coombs Road. The A6 and A619 both pass through the town, crossing the River Wye on the medieval Bakewell Bridge. As the biggest town in the park, Bakewell has the widest range of shops, cafes and services of any base on this list, at the cost of being the busiest, especially on market day and summer weekends.

With children

Bakewell earns its families tag mostly on the strength of the Monsal Trail, which leaves directly from the old station on a flat, surfaced trackbed with no stiles and no navigation, wide enough for pushchairs and toddlers on bikes. Hassop, the next former station, is a sensible turning point rather than an obligation: Peak District Kids puts the round trip from Bakewell station at 3.4km, and nobody has to finish even that to call it a success. For a child who can walk further, Lathkill Dale from Over Haddon is livelier, a nature reserve where dippers and kingfishers work the river past two old bridges and a Victorian weir, though a sign at the water’s edge asks visitors not to paddle, so this is a looking walk rather than a splashing one. Monsal Head needs no walking at all: park at the top, look down onto the five-arch Headstone Viaduct and Monsal Dale below, then eat at one of the cafes or the pub around the car park, a reasonable finish to a day when smaller legs have already done the Monsal Trail earlier on.