Wincle

Wincle has no hotels of its own, its handful of buildings running to a pub, a church and a scatter of working farms rather than any visitor accommodation, so anyone wanting a proper hotel base needs to look just outside the parish. Macclesfield, a short drive to the north, has the widest range of options, from budget chain hotels to smaller independent inns, along with the rail connection south to Stoke and London or north into Manchester. Buxton, over the county line in Derbyshire, is another practical base, with its Georgian architecture, opera house and a longer-established tourism trade giving it more choice of hotels and guesthouses geared towards Peak District visitors. Leek, in Staffordshire, is closer still and has its own smaller stock of inns and B&Bs, useful for anyone approaching the Dane Valley and Wincle from the south. Wherever you stay, Wincle works best as a day trip destination: a morning or afternoon spent on the lanes around Macclesfield Forest and Shutlingsloe, with a stop at the Ship Inn, before heading back to a bed in one of the surrounding towns. Booking ahead is sensible in the busier summer months and around bank holiday weekends, when Peak District accommodation fills up quickly, but out of season most of these towns have decent availability at short notice.

Wincle itself is a walking and driving destination rather than a place with visitor attractions, but it sits within easy reach of some of the best scenery in the southern Peak District.

• Shutlingsloe — Known locally as "Cheshire's Matterhorn" for its distinctive pointed profile, this 506-metre summit is the second-highest point in the county and a short, sharp climb from the lanes around Wincle and Macclesfield Forest, with panoramic views over the Cheshire Plain on a clear day.
• Macclesfield Forest and Trentabank Reservoir — A working conifer plantation with waymarked trails through the trees, centred on Trentabank Reservoir, which is also a heronry and a popular starting point for the walk up Shutlingsloe.
• Tegg's Nose Country Park — A former gritstone quarry a few miles north, with waymarked trails looking out over four reservoirs, Macclesfield Forest and the Cheshire Plain, and a spot on the long-distance Gritstone Trail.
• The Gritstone Trail — A 35-mile waymarked footpath running from Disley to Kidsgrove along the Peak District's western edge, passing within walking distance of Wincle and taking in Tegg's Nose and the Cloud along the way.
• Wincle Beer Company — A small, award-winning craft brewery based at Tolls Farm Barn in the parish, brewing traditional cask ales with local spring water; its beers turn up in pubs across Cheshire and the Peak District.
• Danebridge and the River Dane — The wooded river valley below Wincle, where the Dane marks the county boundary with Staffordshire, offering quiet riverside and woodland walking away from the moortop.

The heart of local food and drink in Wincle is the Ship Inn, a traditional country pub on Barlow Hill that has built a strong reputation for its food, including a shortlisting for a regional pub of the year award, and pours from the parish's own Wincle Beer Company alongside a broader range of cask ales. Beyond the pub, options thin out quickly, and most visitors combine a walk with a stop here before heading into Macclesfield or Leek for a wider choice of cafes, restaurants and shops.

There are no formal campsites within Wincle parish itself, and it is worth being clear from the outset that wild camping without the landowner's permission is illegal in England, including on the moorland and farmland around the Dane Valley, whatever the local custom may be in parts of Scotland. That said, the wider area around Macclesfield, Buxton and the Staffordshire Moorlands has a reasonable spread of campsites and glamping sites within easy reach of the lanes around Wincle, many of them small, family-run sites on working farms that suit the same quiet, unhurried character as the parish itself. The terrain is proper Peak District fringe: steep-sided valleys, exposed gritstone moorland and fast-draining but sometimes boggy upland pasture, so a pitch sheltered from the wind matters more here than it might on the Cheshire Plain a few miles away. Spring through early autumn is the realistic camping season, with late spring and early autumn often bringing the calmest weather and the clearest long views from spots like Shutlingsloe and Tegg's Nose; summer is busier and can also bring sudden moorland downpours, so a good waterproof pitch and kit matter more than they might elsewhere. For those who would rather have a fixed roof without giving up the outdoor feel, glamping options in the wider Peak District and Staffordshire Moorlands area range from simple canvas bell tents and shepherd's huts to fully-equipped pods, and tend to book up well ahead for the summer holidays and half-terms. Given how few pitches exist right on Wincle's doorstep, it pays to book early and to check exactly how far a site is from the walking routes around Macclesfield Forest and the Dane Valley before committing, since "near Wincle" in a listing can sometimes mean a twenty-minute drive rather than a short stroll.