Bakewell

Bakewell's accommodation runs from Georgian coaching inns on the market square to boutique conversions and country pubs on the Chatsworth Estate, with almost everything within a short walk or drive of the river and the Monday market. The town centre itself holds the highest concentration of choice, where former inns built for the coaching trade now do double duty as restaurants and bars as well as places to sleep, meaning guests rarely need to travel far for an evening meal.

Anyone wanting a quieter, more rural stay is well served by the villages just outside town: Over Haddon looks down into Lathkill Dale and suits walkers who want to start the day straight from the front door, while Pilsley and the Chatsworth Estate villages put guests within easy reach of the house and gardens without the crowds that build up in Bakewell itself on market days. Both directions add only a few minutes' drive back into the centre.

Standards vary from simple, well-run bed and breakfasts with a handful of rooms to boutique hotels with spa-style bathrooms and four-poster suites, so there is a genuine spread of price and style rather than a single dominant type of stay. Booking ahead matters more here than in many market towns: the Bakewell Show in early August and the Monday market itself both put pressure on rooms, and several of the smaller properties run to only four or five bedrooms, so popular dates can sell out weeks in advance during the summer season.

Bakewell rewards both a lazy afternoon and a full week of exploring. These are the essentials.

• Bakewell Market is held every Monday in the purpose-built Agricultural Business Centre beside the river, a genuine farmers' and general market that has run continuously since the town's founding charter and remains one of the largest in the Peak District.
• Haddon Hall, a mile south of town, is a fortified medieval and Tudor manor house that has barely been altered since the seventeenth century, with terraced gardens, a working chapel and a banqueting hall regularly used as a film location.
• Chatsworth House, seat of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, sits four miles north-east across parkland grazed by red deer, with a working farmyard, adventure playground and one of England's most celebrated formal gardens.
• The Monsal Trail follows a former railway line through limestone dales and disused tunnels, with the trailhead a short cycle or drive from Bakewell and bike hire available at Hassop Station.
• All Saints' Church stands above the town on a knoll, notable for its Saxon cross in the churchyard and a collection of medieval grave slabs uncovered during Victorian restoration.
• The Old House Museum, run by volunteers in one of the town's oldest surviving buildings, covers domestic life in Bakewell from Tudor times through the Victorian era.
• Lathkill Dale, a National Nature Reserve reached via the village of Over Haddon, is one of the least-disturbed limestone dales in England, with a river that disappears underground in dry spells.
• Bakewell pudding tasting at one of the town's two long-standing bakeries is close to obligatory, and both will happily explain, in careful terms, why their version is the authentic one.

The Bakewell pudding is unavoidable and rightly so: the Old Original Bakewell Pudding Shop and the Bakewell Tart Shop and Coffee House both sell their own versions from recipes each claims as the genuine article, warm and wrapped for the journey home if you ask. Beyond the pudding, the Monday market brings local produce into town, from Derbyshire cheeses to game and river fish, and the adjoining Bakewell Farmers' Market runs on the last Saturday of most months with stalls from across the Peak District.

The town's pubs lean heavily on Peak District brewing, with Thornbridge Brewery, based just outside Bakewell at Riverside, supplying much of the cask ale on the bars of the Rutland Arms, the Red Lion and the Peacock. Restaurants in the centre range from traditional Derbyshire fare to more ambitious modern British menus, with several making a point of sourcing lamb, beef and game from farms within a few miles of the town. For a picnic on the Monsal Trail or a riverside lunch, the delicatessens around the square stock local cheese, cured meats and bread from Derbyshire bakeries, making it easy to eat well without sitting down to a full meal.

Camping around Bakewell means limestone dales, riverside walking and, in most cases, a working farm as your immediate neighbour. The closest sites sit within a mile or two of the town centre, close enough to walk in for the Monday market or an evening meal, while others trade a little distance for a more secluded position inside Lathkill Dale or the wider Peak District National Park.

Facilities are generally geared towards tents, campervans and touring caravans rather than large static parks, and several sites are genuine working farms that have diversified into camping over the past decade or two, which shows in small touches like farm shops selling their own eggs and meat, or fire pits available to hire for the evening. Electric hook-up is now standard on most touring pitches, though a handful of the more remote sites deliberately keep things simple, with no permanent shower block, in keeping with a back-to-basics approach that some campers specifically seek out.

Given the terrain, expect some sloping pitches and narrow approach lanes, particularly at sites reached via the steep roads down into the dales; a lower-slung caravan or a call ahead to check access is worth the effort. Dogs are welcome at all three sites below, and each offers a realistic base for walking the Monsal Trail, Lathkill Dale or the wider network of dales paths without needing to move the car each day.