Alsop-en-le-Dale

The old station on the Ashbourne-Buxton line, which once served this tiny hamlet, is today a car park on the Tissington Trail. The tranquil hamlet itself is on a narrow lane, east of the main road towards Parwich, just a mile from Dovedale. Alsop-en-le-Dale’s Parish Church of St Michael and all Angels is Norman, though it was refurbished substantially during Victorian times, when the tower was completely rebuilt. The nave retains Norman features, with impressive double zigzag mouldings in the arches, but the west tower is only imitation Norman, and dates from 1883. One unusual feature, which dominates this small church, is its extraordinary 19th-century square mock-Gothic pulpit.

Opposite the church is the graceful and slender building known as Alsop Hall, constructed in the early 1600s for the Alsop family, who were lords of the manor. Though privately owned, it is worth seeing even for its exterior, as it is built in a handsome pre-classical style with stone-mullioned windows.

Alsop makes a good base for exploring the White Peak and is also convenient for Dovedale. The renowned Viator’s Bridge at Milldale is a mile to the west, and was immortalised in a scene in Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler in which the character Viator complains to another about the size of the tiny, two-arched packhorse bridge, deeming it ‘not two fingers broad’.

Surrounding the village are many Bronze Age burial sites, including Cross Low (north of the village), Nat Low (northwest of the village), Moat Low (southwest of the village) and Green Low on Alsop Moor.