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Now the centre of Derbyshire’s own Lake District, Ladybower has changed the landscape and character of the eastern side of the High Peak. Here the valleys meet below the grandeur of rugged heights, long gritstone edges, and rolling moors, Win Hill and Crook Hill, Derwent Edge, and Bamford Edge.
Down their valleys come the Derwent and the Ashop, one from the moorlands of the Yorkshire border, the other from the vast solitudes of Kinder Scout, the rivers now minglng in the reservoir.
The reservoir was constructed between 1935 and 1945 to supply the needs of Sheffield, Nottingham, Derby and Leicester. Its water have drowned the old villages of Ashopton and Derwent, whose church and charming old hall are now only a memory.
The 17th century packhorse bridge at Derwent was taken down stone by stone and has been re-erected higher up at Slippery Stones above the Derwent and Howden Reservoirs, two earlier man-made lakes, built in 1912-16 and now enclosed by beautiful pine plantations.
The Ladybower is at the end of one of the finest stretches of road in Derbyshire, the modern highway from Glossop which climbs to 1680 feet on the Snake Pass and then winds down into the charming Woodlands Valley. On the north of the valley opens Alport Dale, penetrating deep into the peaty recesses of Bleaklow, and overlooked by the impressive crags of Alport Castles.
At the solitary Castles Farm, in the dale, an unusual Methodist ‘Love Feast’ takes place as it has done for centuries, on the first Sunday in July.
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