Tissington guide: visit an elegant Jacobean manor house and cycle the scenic Tissington Trail

For many people, Tissington is the perfect Peak District village. Neat stone cottages fronting broad greenswards, a village green complete with a duck pond (known here as a ‘mere’), and everything governed by an elegant Jacobean manor house – Tissington Hall – and watched over by the squat Norman tower of the parish church. 

At Ascensiontide, the five beautiful well-dressings – traditionally the first and earliest recorded in the Peak – are in place. The only thing that Tissington seems to lack is a village pub – for that you have to go to The Bluebell Inn, on the A515 near Tissington Gates. 

• Peak District walks
• Fairytale towns and villages to visit in Britain

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Tissington Hall

This is FitzHerbert country, and most of the cottages were built and owned by the family which still occupies Tissington Hall, as it has for four centuries. Home of Sir Richard FitzHerbert, the present house dates from the early 18^th century, it remains one of Derbyshire’s most pleasing and intimate manor houses.

Opposite the hall, which has the cosy Herbert Tea Rooms in the former school buildings next door, is the splendid Norman tower of the Parish Church of St Mary. Although heavily restored in 1854, there is still much Norman work to be seen inside, including the south doorway, the chancel arch and the 11^th-century tub-shaped font. 

• Bakewell village guide
• Tideswell village guide
• Castleton village guide

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Tissington Trail

East of the village is the Tissington Trail, a pleasant walking and riding route which follows the line of the former Ashbourne to Buxton railway line. You can now hire cycles to ride along it, or just enjoy walking along the traffic-free route which passes through some of the finest White Peak countryside.