Peveril Castle

In the middle of Hope Valley in the Peak District, Peveril Castle overlooks the small village of Castleton. The drive down to Castleton itself is very steep, and the area is a major cycling, motorbiking, and walking hotspot. It was a lovely sunny day, so it seemed as though everyone from a 50 mile radius was descending on the Peak District for a Sunday in the sun, it was very busy.

We were lucky enough to get the last space in the local car park before taking a little walk around Castleton village, we could see the castle looking down on us in the distance. Everything about this little village was picturesque, even the little stream right next to the car park!

We took a scenic route around the village, scouting the area for possible lunch locations before getting to the castle itself. While walking through the village you catch glimpses of the castle through every alleyway, it’s very imposing up on the hilltop. Through the ticket office, a path zigzags fairly steeply up the hill to Peveril Castle, it’s a steeper hill than at Beeston, but a shorter distance to the top, so makes for a good workout.

Once at the top, we were rewarded with incredible views in all directions. Similar again to Beeston, Peveril castle overlooks everything around it, and on a clear day like today we were able to see for miles. Inside the castle walls, there’s still a little uphill climbing before reaching the keep, the Northern wall looks back down on to Castleton below, while the Southern wall overlooks the “Secret Valley” and Cave Dale.

The view of the Keep from outside was also very impressive, though at some point in maybe the 17th century, a lot of the facing stone from the keep itself was stolen for use elsewhere, so only a few patches of facing stone remain, with the rest of the keep looking rather naked.

The inside of the Keep however was unremarkable, a pretty small empty box, with all of the windows and arrow slits barred up to I assume stop people from jumping out, though it seemed a bit excessive to us, we’ve been to dozens of castles with higher unblocked windows, maybe they’ve had some people fall out in the past. Unfortunately this gave the feeling that we were in prison, and didn’t give the opportunity for good photos from the inside.

Luckily, the views outside more than made up for the inside of the Keep.

Before heading back down the hill, I also took a panoramic Google Maps Streetview picture.

Back at the bottom of the hill, we took a walk back to the village centre again via another nice little stream full of ducks, checking out a few little shops on the way.

After we checked out a few of the cafes and pubs, we settled on Ye Olde Nags Head for some lunch, I told Helen it was named after her, she wasn’t amused. Amazing food though, and very fast service, we’d definitely recommend it here for a bite to eat after climbing up and down the hill to Peveril Castle. Back to the car, we dropped by the visitor’s centre on the way, thinking it was just the average tourist information, but it was surprisingly big with a lot of information about Peveril Castle and Castleton; for example that the village of Castleton was actually founded over 100 years after the castle itself was built and in use.

Being a fan of models, I also had to snap a picture of the artists recreation of what medieval Peveril Castle would have looked like. One of these was outside at the castle itself (the more stone-looking one), the other was in the visitor’s centre by the car park in Castleton village (the more wooden-looking one with miniature figures walking around).

The Peak District has some stunning views all from the road, I couldn’t help but stop the car on the way home to take another few pictures of the area. We took a different route home to try and avoid some of the traffic we faced on the way to Peveril Castle, and it was definitely a much more pleasant drive through the countryside, every now and then listening to a sheep bleeting as we drove past.

We’ll definitely be back here, we still have all the caverns to explore!