A new bridge fortunately now improves traffic flow so that most of the village is off the main thoroughfare.
Very close to the village is Cliff College one of the Methodist Church's premier lay training college. There is an excellent bookshop that can be used by the public and great public gatherings are held at the Colege on White Sunday and Monday each year. The College is run as a Christian community and emphasis is laid upon a disciplined devotional life both personally and corporately. Each day begins with morning prayers and other services, group Bible studies, house fellowships and prayer meetings are regular features of life at Cliff. Students are encouraged to take paret in voluntary community service in the neighbourhood...youth work, hospital visiting, and helping the elderly.
Cliff College has been a centre of learning and of missionary work since 1873, but it was not until 1875 that a certain Henry Guinness heard of the property and subsequently purchased it. The property at that time was in a state of disrepair and an advance party of students began to repair those parts of the building that required attention. The walls were decorated, ceilings painted and the grounds cleared of rubbish and weeds. Later a Mr Dening who hailed from Bath visited the neighbourhood. He had recently been ill and he felt the need for country life rather than that he lived in town. When he walked into Cliff he had no idea of the plans that were being laid. The students he talked with suggested that perhaps he was the man to organise and run Cliff. Dening and his family moved there under the direction of Henry Guinness and here he started the work of training the young men in Bible Study, prayer and prectical work around the farm...and so it was that Hulme Cliff College (as it was renamed) began its work of training all types of men to become evangelists. Guinness spent some £15,000 on beuatifying the grounds of the College which today are still very elaborate and attractive.
For the avid gardener a visit to the Fir Croft Alpine Plant Centre has to be on the agenda of anybody visiting this delightful part of the Peak District National Park.
Dr Steve Furness, the owner, has been in love with plants since he was four years old. In fact he was originally inspired by his grandmother and an uncle and started collecting plants before he reached the age of 10. It has taken him 11 years to build the garden visitors see today featuring some 3,000 varieties of plants...and of course he is still working on it. This is his second garden on the half acre plot. The first rockery here was started some years ago and took nearly four years to plant up.
Calver Mill was used as the background on the television series on Colditz.
