A day in the life of Castleton...

Featured accommodation in Castleton

Hillside House bed and breakfast	Honeysuckle Cottage

Brief history of Castleton

Bronze age settlements of 3500 years ago were the forerunners of this famous Peak District village...

HISTORY of CASTLETON
Earliest settlers
The first settlement in the Hope Valley village of Castleton area is thought to be the hillfort of Mam Tor. The fort is Iron Age, though it is believed settlement began in the Bronze Age, around 1400 BC and much earlier traces of Stone Age man have been discovered in caves on nearby Treak Cliff.

Mam Tor - the 'shivering mountain'
The road from Treak Cliff Cavern to the Blue John Cavern was once the A625 which once ran at the base of Mam Tor, locally referred to as the 'Shivering Mountain' due to its unstable composition of lateral layers of shales and gritstone.

Over the centuries, as water and ice found their way into these layers, the process of erosion was accelerated, the rock began to crumble and the hill side 'shivered' and began, very slowly, to break apart and lose its cohesion.

This erosion caused many headaches for road engineers in the mid part of the 20th century, as the process led to regular land slips, finally making the road unstable and therefore unsafe for the ever increasing number of rumbling motor vehicles drawn to the area for recreation.
Eventually in the mid-seventies (1977), the Shivering Mountain won the day and the road was closed. It is still possible, however, to witness the remains of the devastation and reflect, in awe, the power of nature manifested in the huge land slips evident in front of you as you walk along the route.
Odin Mine, at the foot of Mam Tor, was worked as long ago as the 10th century in Saxon times, according to local legend.

Peveril Castle
Peveril Castle which stands sentinel overlooking its village , was mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 and was built by the son of William the Conqueror, William Peveril. It is now in the 'safe keep' of English Heritage.

'Castle town'
The village which takes its name from the Castle (Castle town) was laid out in a grid pattern at the base of the slopes that surround it.

From the 12th century, Castleton was the centre of the Royal Forest of the Peak and it became a market town a century later.
It was also along the packhorse route that brought salt from Cheshire to Sheffield. The men who travelled this path were called 'Jaggers', now made immortal by the lanes and natural 'cloughs' in the area and on the surrounding hillsides - named after them.

The creation of the turnpike (toll) road from Sheffield to Sparrowpit (passing through Castleton) in 1759 made getting to the village easier and was a crucial early link between Sheffield and Manchester.
By the mid 19th century the Wellington express coach stopped twice a day at Castleton on its journey between the two growing industrial cities.

The railway line between Sheffield and Manchester calling at Grindleford, Hathersage and Hope (amongst others) was opened by the Midland Railway in 1894 and the way for even more tourists to visit the village was opened still further. The delightful country station of nearby Hope is still used daily today.

USEFUL LINKS
Castleton holiday, accommodation and tourist guide - by Let's Stay Peak District.
Derbyshire, Peak District - More information on Castleton