Peak Experience

Picture of Tideswell church tower

 

Tideswell is home to the Cathedral of the Peak.  This architectural treasure of a church was built in the 1300s on the back of the village’s market wealth.  It is still a landmark for miles around.  The drama of a murder and a pair of red shoes was played out in the village nearly 200 years ago.

 

The town centre is easy to get around on foot, with shops, bank, post office and a good variety of cafés, restaurants and pubs.

 

Tideswell was a thriving medieval market town that held five major fairs every year.  The village became an important centre for the buying and selling of wool and lead.  The textile industry, too, was important in the 1800s, when mills in nearby Cressbrook and Litton produced cotton.  Small silk handweaving factories grew up in Tideswell, producing silk scarves and handkerchiefs for the Macclesfield silk industry.

 

Tideswell’s medieval prosperity is reflected in its magnificent church, dedicated to St John the Baptist and built in the 1300s.  With its high aisle, great arch and beautifully proportioned tall windows of clear glass, Tideswell has been described as ‘one gallery of light and beauty’.  You can see many medieval brasses and woodcarvings inside.

 

Henry Plantagenet visited Tideswell in the 1300s.  He was later to take the crown from Richard II and rule England and Wales as Henry IV.  This eventually led to the War of the Roses, a bitter struggle for the English throne between two branches of the same family.  The war rumbled on for over 30 years.  Henry’s visit to Tideswell was relatively innocuous.  He bought a greyhound for ten pence.

 

Near to Tideswell is Wardlow gibbet, the last gibbet to be used to publicly display the bodies of executed criminals in England.  In 1815 Antony Lingard murdered Hannah Oliver, the widowed toll keeper on the road from Tideswell to Bakewell.  He stole a pair of red shoes and gave them to a woman friend in Tideswell.  She was suspicious about where Antony had got the shoes and refused to wear them.  Antony was discovered, and was tried and executed at Derby.  His body was brought back to hang from Wardlow gibbet as a warning to other would-be thieves.  Antony’s skeleton continued to hang long after his skull had been removed and exhibited in Manchester.

 

Tideswell is served by buses from across the Peak District and beyond, including Manchester and Sheffield.  To plan your journey, visit Traveline or call Traveline on 0871 200 2233.