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Peak District Towns and Villages: Wincle, Danebridge, Swythamley

An index to Peak District towns and villages including Wincle, Danebridge, Swythamley, Ashbourne, Bakewell, Buxton, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Leek, Matlock, Macclesfield and Wirksworth in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire, England, UK.
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Wincle, Danebridge, Swythamley

Local Services:

B & B

Self Catering

Food and Drink

Local Geography:
Area Map

Nearby Villages

Local Attractions

Wincle is an isolated farming community situated close to the River Dane. There is a fine church and down the hill at Danebridge there is a pub called the Ship Inn, close to the River Dane.

Cleulow Cross
Cleulow Cross
In a patch of woodland to the north of the village and just over the A54, lies Cleulow cross, a 9th century cross which is thought to be of Scandinavian craftsmanship. Nothing is known of its origin or purpose, but it may have been a boundary marker.

Swythamley lies on the Staffordshire side of the River Dane. Swythamley Hall stands in a fine park and was originally a mediaeval hunting lodge belonging to the Abbey of Dieulacres. The hall was granted to the Traffords by Henry VIII in 1540 and became their home and that of their successors, the Brocklehursts. Unfortunately the original house burned down in 1813, so the modern building is a rebuilding dating from then.

Hanging Stone
Hanging Stone
The Brocklehursts had an adventurous history, and one of them accompanied Shackleton to the Antarctic. On the edge above Swythamley there is a famous landmark - the Hanging Rock - with a fine view over the surrounding countryside and bearing a plaque to Colonel Brocklehurst, who was killed in Burma in 1942. A game warden in the Sudan, he started a private zoo at Swythamley when he returned to Britain, and during the Second World War the animals were released into the countryside because there was no food for them. The wallabies from the zoo survived and bred around the Roaches until the late 1990s, and sightings of them have surprised many walkers and climbers over the years.

Swythamley has been convincingly identified as the castle of the Green Knight of the classic mediaeval poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and nearby Lud's Church as the knight's 'Green Chapel'. This probably means that the unknown author was connected with Dieulacres in some way.

Nearby Places of Interest

Lud's ChurchLud's Church is natural rock cleft near Gradbach, Staffordshire. It was once a worshipping place for Lollards and inspired the poem 'Gawain and the Green Knight'
The RoachesThe Roaches, Hen Cloud and Ramshaw Rocks, are Staffordshire gritstone crags not far from the town of Leek.
Tittesworth ReservoirTittesworth Reservoir, (Severn Trent Water) Meerbrook, near Leek, Staffordshire, produces water for Leek, Stoke on Trent and the surrounding area. There is a visitor centre and nearby lies The Roaches, with many opportunities for walking and rock-climbing
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