Bakewell is the largest town within the Peak District National Park and its natural centre of gravity — a stone-built market town on the River Wye that has served the surrounding villages and farms since the Norman conquest. The Monday market, one of the oldest in England, still draws people from across the Peak.
The town is famous for the Bakewell pudding: not the tart sold elsewhere under that name, but an almond paste and egg filling baked in a pastry shell, created here by accident in the 1860s when a cook at the White Horse Inn misread a recipe. Several shops in town claim the original recipe; the Old Original Bakewell Pudding Shop on the square is the most prominent.
Chatsworth House, one of England's grandest country houses and the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, is 4 miles north-east. The house contains exceptional art collections, the grounds were landscaped by Capability Brown, and the gardens include a cascade and the extraordinary Emperor Fountain. It draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year and is worth at least half a day.
The town also offers access to Haddon Hall — a well-preserved medieval manor house 2 miles south — and to the walking routes along the Wye valley. The Monsal Trail, a cycling and walking route on the old Midland Railway line, passes close to town.