Got high expectations of a holiday in the Peak District? Turn your g(l)aze to Bakewell, the only market town within the Peak District National Park and where Bakewell pudding was accidentally invented. Not the Bakewell tart of course; bore the kids at length on the journey Peakwards by relentlessly relating the difference between the two.
Bakewell is a popular Peak District place, so bag a berth at a Bakewell campsite to go, pudding in hand, to its old sites: the weekly market, award-winning Old House Museum and ancient five-arched bridge over the River Wye all date back to medieval times. (Don’t give the ducks and geese any of your Bakewell pudding if you pause at the bridge for a pitstop; it’s yours.) See also medieval Haddon Hall on the riverbank, and sixteenth century and very famous Chatsworth House; the gardens here are agreed to be among the best in Britain.
If you’re camping in Bakewell in August, join tens of thousands of visitors at the Bakewell Show, one of the biggest events in the Peak District. Bakewell Carnival Week is in late June/early July, or you could help make the town wells look well at the annual well-dressing festival. Sweet.
