PEAK DISTRICT, MATLOCK. Friday 7th – Friday 14th June 2024. £999.00pp
Spend a week in the Peak District staying in a Victorian House in Matlock with you own bedroom and bathroom. Small group. Buffet breakfast and evening meals provided and are all included. You have full access use of kitchens for making sandwiches and drinks during the day and lounge rooms to relax, read and watch television.
Included in the cost of this trip will also be a visit to Chatsworth House, Hardwick Hall. Abraham Heights, Crich Tramway Village and Mam Tor.
The house, minutes walk into Matlock town centre, so great location.
Matlock is surrounded by wooded hillsides and set on the River Derwent, Matlock is a lovely town to explore. It has plenty of independent, quirky shops, particularly on Dale Road, as well as a wide choice of cafés, pubs and restaurants.
At Matlock’s centre is the extensive Hall Leys Park, which has river walks, flower gardens, a small boating lake, tennis courts, and a great children’s play area.
Standing high on a hill overlooking Hall Leys Park and visible from most points in the town, is the Gothic-style Riber Castle (not open to the public). Riber Castle was built in 1862 from local gritstone by the local industrialist John Smedley as his private home.
ABRAHAM HEIGHTS
Stretching across the steep limestone gorge between Matlock and Matlock Bath runs a cable car service that takes visitors up to the Heights of Abraham. The spectacular trip offers fabulous views of the Derwent Valley, and rises 339 metres to the top of Masson Hill. Once at the summit, there is plenty within the Heights of Abraham estate to keep visitors occupied, including impressive show caves, a geology museum, a restaurant, an adventure playground, shops, and beautiful woodland walks.
CHATSWORTH HOUSE
You can spend a whole day here. The ancestral seat of the Dukes of Devonshire, it was built in the 1550-60s under the instruction of the formidable Bess of Hardwick, in the English Baroque style. Standing proudly in the landscape with sweeping lawns to the front and wooded hills to the rear, it’s an imposing sight from the approach road. The honey-hued mellow stonework is intricately carved, and the bright gold leaf applied to each window frame shines in the Derbyshire sun.
Chatsworth House has more than thirty rooms open to the public, each with awe-inspiring interiors. You’ll find lavish furnishings on a scale rarely seen, as well as a world-famous collection of art, including ancient Roman and Egyptian sculptures and masterpieces by renowned artists, from Rembrandt to Lucian Freud.
HARDWICK HALL
A leading example of an Elizabethan country house, situated in a wonderful hilltop position overlooking the Derbyshire countryside.
Hardwick Hall was built by the fascinating Bess of Hardwick in the 1590s and remained in the hands of her descendants until it was handed over to the National Trust in 1959. Hardwick Hall was intended to be a grand statement of Bess’s status and wealth, as is evidenced by the many large windows, added at a time when glass was a particular luxury. This led to the saying, ‘Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall’. Today there are a great many treasures within the Hall for visitors to admire. Spread over three floors, the rooms contain fine examples of furniture, beautiful tapestries and magnificent paintings, the majority of which are original to the house and listed on an inventory dating from 1601.
MAM TOR
Literally meaning Mother Hill, stands at 517 m high and towers over Castleton. Despite its imposing height, Mam Tor is a relatively easy hill to climb, however, especially from the National Trust car park at Mam Nick (S33 8WA), from where there is a well-paved path to the trig point at the summit. The views from the top of Mam Tor are simply stunning, taking in the whole of the Hope Valley on one side and the whole of the Edale Valley to Kinder Scout and the Derwent Moors on the other. Mam Tor is also referred to as the ‘Shivering Mountain’ because of its propensity for landslips caused by unstable lower levels of shale. In 1979 these regular slippages led the local council to abandon the upkeep of the A625 road that ran beneath Mam Tor, and the ‘Broken Road’ is now something of an attraction in its own right. In places the layers of tarmac and gravel are almost 2 metres thick, illustrating the amount of work invested in repairing the surface over the years.
Crich Tramway Village is a family visitor attraction and home to the National Tramway Museum. Take a trip back in time and ride vintage trams into the open countryside.
There’s an enchanting Woodland Walk and Sculpture Trail, Tearoom, gift shop, children’s play area, exhibitions and Workshop Viewing Gallery.
What’s included:
transport to and from Matlock.
Breakfast and set evening meal in house
Tickets to Chatsworth House & Hardwick Hall
Tickets to Crich Tramway Village.
Tickets to Abraham Heights.
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