High endeavours

Glorious houses high in the hills of Derbyshire and Staffordshire compete with a landmark Cornish property for the best view

- Penny Churchill

THE High Peak District of Derbyshire hides its secrets well. When, in 1698, the intrepid English horsewoman Celia Fiennes rode from Chatsworth to Bakewell in the picturesque valley of the Wye, a tributary of the Derwent, she described the pretty market town as ‘standing on a hill, yet you descend a vast hill to it which you would think impossible to go down… the common people here know not above 2 or 3 miles from their home, but they of the country will climb up and down with their horses those steep precipices’.

From the 17th century onwards, wealthy Derbyshire mine-owners built fine country houses on the steep hillsides of the Peak District to make the most of spectacular valley views, using the region’s natural contours to create impressive terraced gardens. Such a house is imposing, Grade I-listed Holme Hall near Bakewell. It stands in more than four acres of historic gardens on the eastern bank of the River Wye, which runs through the town. Meticulously restored by its current owners, who bought the house in 2009, Holme Hall comes to the market today at a guide price of £3.75 million through Derbyshire agents Caudwell & Co (01629 810018).

Research assembled by the hall’s owner, John Stansfield, reveals that the main part of the present house, which incorporates an earlier 15th-century building, was built between 1626 and 1628 by Bernard Wells, a successful lead merchant originally from Gloucestershire. The new house was reputedly based on plans for smaller Italianate villas by Elizabethan architect Robert Smythson, the designer of Hardwick Hall near Chesterfield, now owned by the National Trust.