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Industry has come creeping into this little stone town on the slope of a fertile valley, but it keeps its old-world marketplace and its stocks for ne'er-do-wells, and it rings a 'pudding'bell on Shrove Tuesday at 11am in the morning.
All round are Peakland heights: Combs Moss, dark and threatening;Brown Knoll rising to over 1860 feet above sea-level; South Head and Mount Famine; Chinley Churn's bold mass; and the conical hill of Eccles Pike.
Of the chapel founded over 700 years ago by the foresters and keepers of the old Forest of the Peak, little is left in the church, which was largely made new in the 18th century. The chancel arch and the nave arcades are of the 14th century, some of the capitals have nail-head ornaments and one has a quaint face.
In the chancel is buried William Bagshawe, a much loved Nonconformist minister known as the Apostle of the Peak, and his coloured arms are on the wall. He was ejected from the living of Glossop in 1662 and spent the rest of his life working in the wildest parts of the Peak. Several chapels were built for him, and though warrants for his arrest were often issued, they were never enforced.
It was at Ford Hall, a 17th century house much changed since his day, that the Apostle of the Peak lived after his ejection from the church. It is one of about a dozen houses that have stood for centuries near the town. Some survive to this day as farms, some have only a wing or gable left; and many of them have grown out of the old homes of the foresters who lived here and built the mediaeval chapel. Of the Ridge, the home of the Bagshawes, part of an original gable remains in the modern house; Slack Hall's twin gables can still be seen; Marsh hall has still a wing known to 18 generations of the Brownes, guardians of the Forest six centuries ago.
On the steep slopes of Eccles Pike is Bradshaw Hall, now two farmhouses with an ancient gable of the home of the Bradshaw's and the fine 17th century gateway with their crest and the name of Francis, the last of the line to live at the house, which has old beams and panelling. John Bradshaw, President of the Court which sent Charles I to the scaffold, belonged to a branch of this family.
The church stands on a site which has become known as Derbyshire's Black Hole. In 1648 the Scots under the Duke of Hamilton marched in to England to help Charles I. They were defeated at Preston and 1500 of them were brought as prisoners to this little town. With a brutality that amazes us today, they were crowded into the small church here, though there was hardly room for half the number. Unable to lie down, pressing one against another in the chancel and nave, with not enough air to breathe, the poor wretches were imprisoned for 16 days. Over 40 of them died before the door was opened and the miserable prisoners, more dead than alive, were allowed to stagger out to begin the fearful march northwards. Ten of them fell down before they reached Cheshire, and with the others they were buried in the churchyard, a pitiful company far from the land they loved.
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