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Chapel-en-le-Frith

This charming town stands on a high hill, near the High Peak, adjacent to the Buxton and Whaley-Bridge railway. It sprang from an ancient chapel within the Peak ‘frith’ or forest when in 1225 the guardians of the High Peak’s Royal Forest purchased land from the Crown and built a chapel here, dedicating it to St Thomas à Becket of Canterbury. A century later the chapel was replaced with a more substantial building and further modernisation took place in the early 1700s. The building of the original chapel led to the foundation of the town and also its name, which is Norman French for ‘chapel in the forest’. Although the term ‘forest’ suggests a wooded area, the ‘frith’ or forest never really existed, but referred to the Royal Forest of the Peak: hunting grounds that extended over much of north Derbyshire during the Middle Ages.

One piece of its heritage is the Peak Forest Tramway. This connected the limestone quarries around Dove Holes with the canal basin at Buxworth, and provided a further means to getting the stone to market where it was needed.

A great scandal occurred here in 1648, when Cromwell’s men used the church as a gaol for 1,500 prisoners of the Scottish Army who had fought at the Battle of Ribbleton Moor. The conditions were appalling, few could even lie down because of the overcrowding and they were left there for 16 days before being released. No fewer than 44 died during this period and another 10 were too weak to survive the forced march back to Scotland. The dead were buried in the churchyard and after that the church became known as ‘Derbyshire’s Black Hole’.  

Chapel Brow is a steep and cobbled street lined with picturesque little cottages leading down from the church onto Market Street and the modern section of the town, and is the true centre of Chapel. Visitors to this part of the town will notice several curious relics from a bygone era, notably the old stocks on the market place, put there by the town elders to meet out justice to wrong doers, and the old market cross. A more recent curio can be seen over the doorway of a premises on the Market Place. A bull’s head stares out over the street, and is all that remains of the inn that once stood here in pre-war years.

Looming over the town is the prominent Eccles Pike (1,250 feet high) which, every year in August, is the site of the Eccles Pike Fell Race, one of the oldest fell races in the country – renowned for being tough and demanding. The road up to the Eccles Pike from Chapel-en-le-Frith has stunning views of the surrounding valleys and hills. From the top, and from Castle Naze, you can see as far as Manchester, 20 miles to the northwest.

On the Castleton Road just a few miles northeast of the village lies the Chestnut Centre, a fascinating wildlife and conservation park. It is set in 50 acres of landscaped grounds and home, not only to a unique collection of birds and animals, but to many wild birds and mammals.