INTRODUCTION

Tissington is one of the prettiest and most unspoilt villages in the country. The visitor turning off the busy Ashbourne to Buxton Road for the first time through the large rusticated lodge gates is surprised. A sense of something rather special fills the mind as the drive to the village passes along an avenue of fine-looking 200-year-old lime trees. Unexpectedly, the village is the first reached before the hall comes into view.

Only moments after leaving fast-moving traffic behind, it seems like another world where peace and tranquillity prevail. No planner designed it; the beauty of the village is the result of evolution. With its pretty limestone cottages and well-tended gardens behind wide grass verges and backed by mature trees, Tissington does not disappoint. A small stream further enhances the scene, flowing along the side of the main street. It emerges from a culvert near Hall Well and runs bubbling along past St. Mary’s Church on its way to its final destination at the village pond.

Further up the main village street is Tissington Hall, a fine Jacobean Manor House, standing slightly above the road behind a walled garden. The wall is broken only by a handsome 17th-century gateway with wrought iron gates by the famous Derbyshire ironsmith Robert Bakewell. The house was built in 1609 by Francis FitzHerbert, but extended by his descendants. It replaced an earlier hall on the opposite side of the road.

In 1997, Sir Richard converted the Old Coach House into a most attractive and popular tea room, which currently offers morning coffee, lunches and teas in delightful surroundings. It is now known as Herbert’s Fine English Tearooms, where you can sit inside or outside and enjoy the surroundings.

By the side of the old school, tucked away in a corner by the pond, are the Old Kitchen Gardens, where rare shrubs and other perennial garden plants are grown.

Tissington is known as the mother place of well-dressing, and people worldwide come to witness the annual ceremony. It occurs on Ascension Day when five attractive wells and a children’s well are dressed. The Dressing consists of erecting boards covered in clay, into which thousands of flower petals are pressed to create an elaborate tableau of some biblical or topographical scene.

Well Dressing probably took place in 1350, in thanksgiving for the village’s escape from the Black Death, attributed to the purity of its water. Wells have been dressed ever since, but not in unbroken succession. The precise origins of Well Dressing are unknown, but it may date from before the Romans.

St Mary’s Church rises steeply above the main road through the village with a sparkling stream flowing close to the entrance to the churchyard. Built early in the 12th century but heavily restored 700 years later, it has a massive Norman tower with four-foot-thick walls and a well-preserved Norman doorway. Inside is a baroque-style 17th-century memorial to the FitzHerbert family, a finely carved communion rail and an early Norman font bearing crude symbolic carving.

The pillars of the church doorway are worth close inspection, the grooves formed by archers sharpening their arrows in readiness for archery practice. This skill was much encouraged after the Black Death, which had left the country short of experienced archers.
In the 19th century, Tissington had quite a strong Methodist following. In 1866, a wooden chapel with a corrugated roof was built just outside the village on land not owned by the Tissington Estate. Services still take place at the new chapel erected in 1955.
A surprise awaits at Yew Tree Cottage, where part of the buildings have been turned into a candle workshop and impressive showroom (‘On a Wick and a Prayer’ website). Originally a blacksmith’s forge, it became the family home of the Wright family, who had been blacksmiths in the village for 90 years. In front of the cottage is Yew Tree Well.

When the railway came to the village, Sir Richard insisted that a cutting should hide the line. The LNWR built the line as required, and it opened in 1899. The LNWR built the cottages adjacent to the station in red brick to contrast with the stone-built properties in the village in retaliation for the inconvenience. In its heyday, it carried express trains from Manchester to London, and until after the Second World War, a daily train delivered milk from Peak District farms to Finsbury Park, London.

Following the line’s closure in the 1960s, the trackbed was removed and turned into a trail for the benefit of walkers, cyclists, and horse riders. This experimental scheme was one of the first of its type in the country. Since opening to the public in June 1971, it has proved a great success, with significant numbers of people attracted to it at weekends throughout the year and every day during peak holiday periods.