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Photo: Darren Copley from Sheffield, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The only surviving Norman castle in Derbyshire (keep built 1176), spectacular location above the town and with views into Peak Cavern and Cave Dale. Maintained by English Heritage. Access via steep (but metalled) path,
Peveril Castle is a ruined 11th-century castle overlooking the village of Castleton in the English county of Derbyshire. It was the main settlement of the feudal barony of William Peverel, known as the Honour of Peverel, and was founded some time between the Norman Conquest of 1066 and its first recorded mention in the Domesday Survey of 1086, by Peverel, who held lands in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire as a tenant-in-chief of the king. The town became the economic centre of the barony. The castle has views across the Hope Valley and Cave Dale.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
Limestone dale close to village centre with spectacular crags and good views from below of Peveril Castle keep. Accessible only on foot; slightly steep and rocky at top. Circular walks are possible, returning via Winnats Pass or Mam Tor. Scenes from The Princess Bride and The Other Boleyn Girl were filmed here.
The nearest cavern to the village centre; the huge entrance (the largest in the British Isles) is set in a spectacular gorge below Peveril Castle and can be approached along a public footpath even if you don't pay to enter the cave. The old houses around the stream issuing from the cave are pretty.
Features an underground boat ride.
Impressive limestone gorge above Speedwell Cavern, with high crags and caves; a narrow road leads up it. The road leads up to Blue John Cavern and the car park for Mam Tor. The land surrounding the gorge is "Open Access Land"; adventurous walkers/scramblers can divert from the Castleton–Speedwell Cavern footpath southwards up a steep, unmarked and slightly overgrown gully to Cow Low and then continue along the top of the southern crags for impressive views over the valley before descending to Winnats Head Farm (consult Ordnance Survey Explorer map OL1 Dark Peak area).
More Blue John mining exhibits, craft shop.
Blue John seams, craft shop showing Blue John ornaments.