Alstonefield Village

Alstonefield Village

Alstonefield is a small village in the Peak District National park, in an area known as the White Peak. The Peak District National Park covers 555 square miles and was the first of the National Parks, established in 1950.  Alstonefield lies on the borders of Derbyshire and Staffordshire on the watershed between the valleys of the Dove and the Manifold rivers. It has less than 250 residents but it possesses such unity and confidence that it has won the best kept village in the Community Council of Staffordshire Award competition on numerous occasions.

The fields are a rich, verdant green and the countryside is rolling between the spectacular valleys of the rivers of the Dove, the haunt of trout and a magnet to fishermen, perpetually flowing between the steep slopes of Wolfscote Dale and Dovedale with their dramatic rocky outcrops to the East and the, frequently dry, Manifold Valley to the West, both of which dip down abruptly. The outcrops in Dovedale have romantic names; Dovedale Castle, Lover’s leap, the Twelve Apostles, Lion’s Head rock and Tissington Spires while the natural caves are known as Pickering cave and the Dove holes. Wolfscote Dale is more open than Dovedale and the smaller rocky outcrops of the Peaseland Rocks look brighter in the sunshine.

Manifold valley, which is just beyond the parish boundary, loses its river in dry weather and becomes a rocky bed. It has the prominent escarpment of Beeston Tor and the largest local cave, Thor’s cave in an escarpment that dominates the valley.

The main part of Alstonefield village is around the picturesque village green with “The George” and the spreading trees. It is within easy distance of St.Peter’s Church and the old Hall, but it stretches along the Rakes; a name given to old Lead mining sites, which occupies the ridgeway between the two valleys.

The Parish of Alstonefield includes the hamlets of Hope, Stanshope and Milldale to the South, while it extends North almost up to the hamlet of Hulme End.

The hamlet of Hope has a pond which has never been known to dry and was the site of England’s first co-operative cheese factory. Twenty farmers started the Alstonefield Dairy Association in 1874 and began producing Derby cheese until transport improved and bigger dairies emerged which took the trade away.

Hopedale is a dry valley which runs from the hamlet of Hope to Dovedale, joining Dovedale at Milldale where Viator’s bridge, known to Isaak Walton, crosses the river to Derbyshire. The steeper side of the dale faces South and the path from Dale Bottom to Alstonefield Village is known as Sunnybank.

The prominent barrow known as Steep Low is just to the West of the village and is famous because it is one of the last places in England where a gibbet was used for execution.