The Seven Wonders of the Peak were described in the 17th century by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes in his book De Mirabilibus Pecci: Being The Wonders of the Peak in Darby-shire, Commonly called The Devil's Arse of Peak. The wonders refer to places to visit in the Peak District of Derbyshire in England. [1]
Thomas Hobbes worked for the Dukes of Devonshire at Chatsworth House, as tutor and secretary. [2] After touring the High Peak in 1626, Hobbes published his 84-page Latin poem De Mirabilibus Pecci in 1636. It was published with an English translation in 1676. He recounted:
"Of the High Peak are seven wonders writ. Two fonts, two caves. One pallace, mount and pit."
These wonders are: [3]
Wonder | Name | Location | Hobbes' verse | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | St Ann's Well | Buxton |
| The natural warm waters of Buxton have been revered since Roman times. By the 1520s the spring was dedicated to St Anne and the curative powers of the waters from the well were reported. A 16th-century act of parliament ruled that a free supply of the spring water must be provided for the town's residents. The current stone water fountain with its brass lion's head spout was built in 1940, replacing its predecessors from 1895, 1783 and earlier. St Ann's well is next to the Pump Room, built in 1894 to dispense the well water for drinking (the building is now the Tourist Information centre). The geothermal spring rises from about 1km below ground and about a million litres of water flow out per day. The mineral water emerges at a steady 27°C. Analysis of the water has indicated that it has a high magnesium content and that it originated around 5,000 years ago. The same spring water is bottled and sold as Buxton Mineral Water. [4] [5] [6] [7] |
![]() | The Ebbing and Flowing Well | Tideswell |
| Thomas Hobbes and Charles Cotton wrote about how this spring would ‘swell and boil up’ and become ‘a little torrent’. However the tidal phenomenon of the ebbing and flowing of this natural siphon stopped after 1790. The well is now largely forgotten and inconspicuous in the front garden of a private house. [8] |
![]() | Poole's Cavern | Buxton |
| This natural limestone cavern is two million years old, formed by underground water dissolving the rock. It has several large chambers (Roman Chamber, Great Dome, Poached Egg Chamber and Sculpture Chamber) with numerous stalactites and stalagmites. Stone Age, Bronze Age and Roman artefacts have been discovered inside. As Hobbes points out, the cavern is named after a medieval outlaw named Poole who used it as a hiding place. A branch of the River Wye flows through the cave system. The cavern is open to the public with tours along its 300m main passage. The temperature is a constant 7°C. Poole's Cavern is part of a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). [9] |
![]() | The Devil's Arse (Peak Cavern) | Castleton |
| This natural limestone cavern is one of four show caves (open to public visitors) in Castleton. It is situated in a deep gorge below Peveril Castle. The entrance chamber contains the remains of a past settlement where the inhabitants made ropes for the local lead mines for over 400 years.The Great Cave and Roger Rain's House are the two main chambers. The underground stream inside is known as "The Styx" after the mythical River Styx leading to the Underworld of Hades. [10] The cavern has been used as a concert venue by Jarvis Cocker, Richard Hawley and The Vaccines. [11] |
![]() | Chatsworth House | Chatsworth near Bakewell |
| The stately home is the residence of the Duke of Devonshire and has been the Cavendish family's home since 1549. The house was built by Bess of Hardwick (wife of William Cavendish) between 1553 and the 1560s and is a Grade I listed building. The estate on the banks of the River Derwent covers nearly 2,000 acres of gardens, landscaped parkland and woodland. In the 1700s Lancelot "Capability" Brown designed the estate's landscape. In the 1800s Joseph Paxton was the head gardener. The house and park are open to public and attract about 300,000 visitors a year. The house contains major collections of paintings, furniture and sculptures. [12] [13] |
![]() | Mam Tor | Castleton |
| The hill at the end of Rushup Edge is over 500m high with clear views up the Hope Valley and across to Kinder Scout. Its name means Mother Hill. The hill is owned and managed by the National Trust. [14] The south east face is subject to continual landslides and the unstable A625 road across it was permanently closed after 1979 (so that all traffic now goes through Winnats Pass). [15] The updraft winds created by the steep face make the hill a popular location for paragliders. The Bronze Age hillfort and burial mounds are a protected Scheduled Monument. [16] |
| Eldon Hole | Eldon Hill near Castleton |
| This chasm is 245 feet (75 m) deep, making it the deepest pothole in Derbyshire. The entrance at the surface is 115 feet (35 m) long by 20 feet (6.1 m) wide. At the bottom is a cavern with a dome-shaped roof and stalactites. According to folklore the devil lived inside it. [17] [18] |
Mary Queen of Scots is known to have visited three of the wonders. By command of Queen Elizabeth I, she was held prisoner at Chatsworth House several times between 1569 and 1584 (her rooms are still called the Queen of Scots Apartments). [19] Mary was granted permission by the Queen to ‘take the cure’ for her rheumatism at St Ann's Well in Buxton. She visited the well, under guard and for up to a month at a time, most years from 1573 to 1584. [20] In 1582 Mary is also supposed to have visited Poole's Cavern in Buxton. [21] Before leaving in 1584, she etched in Latin on the window of her room at the Buxton Old Hall: [4]
"Buxton, whose fame thy milk-waters tell, Whom I, perhaps, no more shall see, farewell."
Long before Hobbes wrote his poem, the Elizabethan antiquarian William Camden had written of three wonders and three beauties of the High Peak, in his definitive reference book Britannia, first published in 1586. It was written in Latin and later translated into English. He describes: [22]
"There are in High Peake wonders three,
A deepe hole, Cave, and Den,
Commodities as many bee,
Led, Grasse, and Sheepe in pen.
And Beauties three there are withall,
A Castle, Bath, Chatsworth.
With places more yet meet you shall
That are of meaner worth."
Hobbes' list of attractions became a popular tourist itinerary for the aristocracy (and with the middle classes too by the 1700s), among them Celia Fiennes. [23] The same wonders were further popularised by poet Charles Cotton (squire of Beresford Hall in Dovedale). In 1681 he wrote his 86 page long poetic essay The Wonders of the Peake. In the 1720s satirist author Daniel Defoe published his Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, in which he denounced Hobbes’ and Cotton’s ‘Wonders of the Peak', declaring that only Eldon Hole and Chatsworth were justified. [23]
The Buxton Museum has a 'Wonders of the Peak' exhibit and online collection, including an original edition of Thomas Hobbes' book De Mirabilibus Pecci. [24]
The Peak District is an upland area in England at the southern end of the Pennines. Mostly in Derbyshire, it extends into Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. It includes the Dark Peak, where moorland is found and the geology is dominated by gritstone, and the White Peak, a limestone area with valleys and gorges. The Dark Peak forms an arc on the north, east and west sides; the White Peak covers central and southern tracts. The historic Peak District extends beyond the National Park, which excludes major towns, quarries and industrial areas. It became the first of the national parks of England and Wales in 1951. Nearby Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, Derby and Sheffield send millions of visitors – some 20 million live within an hour's ride. Inhabited from the Mesolithic era, it shows evidence of the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages. Settled by the Romans and Anglo-Saxons, it remained largely agricultural; mining arose in the Middle Ages. Richard Arkwright built cotton mills in the Industrial Revolution. As mining declined, quarrying grew. Tourism came with the railways, spurred by the landscape, spa towns and Castleton's show caves.
Buxton is a spa town in the Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, England. It is England's highest market town, sited at some 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level. It lies close to Cheshire to the west and Staffordshire to the south, on the edge of the Peak District National Park. In 1974, the municipal borough merged with other nearby boroughs, including Glossop, to form the local government district and borough of High Peak.
Mam Tor is a 517 m (1,696 ft) hill near Castleton in the High Peak of Derbyshire, England. Its name means "mother hill", so called because frequent landslips on its eastern face have resulted in a multitude of "mini-hills" beneath it. These landslips, which are caused by unstable lower layers of shale, also give the hill its alternative name of Shivering Mountain.
Castleton is a village in the High Peak district of Derbyshire, England, at the western end of the Hope Valley on the Peakshole Water, a tributary of the River Noe, between the Dark Peak to the north and the White Peak to the south. The population was 642 at the 2011 Census.
The Peak Cavern, also known as the Devil's Arse, is one of the four show caves in Castleton, Derbyshire, England. Peakshole Water flows through and out of the cave, which has the largest cave entrance in Britain.
Tideswell is a village and civil parish in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England. It lies 6 miles (9.7 km) east of Buxton on the B6049, in a wide valley on a limestone plateau, at an altitude of 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level, and is within the District of Derbyshire Dales. The population was 1,820 in 2001, increasing slightly to 1,827 at the 2011 Census, making it the second-largest settlement within the National Park, after Bakewell. Tideswell Dale is a short limestone valley leading south from the village to the River Wye valley.
The history of Derbyshire can be traced back to human settlement since the last Ice Age, over 10,000 years ago. The county of Derbyshire in England dates back to the 11th century.
Aquae Arnemetiae was a small town in the Roman province of Britannia. The settlement was based around its natural warm springs. Today it is the town of Buxton, Derbyshire in England.
Poole's Cavern or Poole's Hole is a two-million-year-old natural limestone cave on the edge of Buxton in the Peak District, in the county of Derbyshire, England.
The A625 is a rural road which runs through north Derbyshire and the Peak District.
Eldon Hill is a hill in the Peak District National Park in the county of Derbyshire, England, 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) southwest of the village of Castleton. It is a 470-metre (1,540 ft) limestone hill whose pastureland is used for rough grazing, although a large proportion has been lost to limestone quarrying. It lies within the Castleton Site of Special Scientific Interest. Eldon Hill was formed when a bed of pure limestone was squeezed and upfolded by geological forces to form a dome; it is the highest limestone hill north of the River Wye.
Chatsworth is a civil parish in Derbyshire, England, within the area of the Derbyshire Dales and the Peak District National Park.
Lismore Fields is the site of a Stone Age settlement in the town of Buxton, Derbyshire, England. It was discovered close to the River Wye in 1984 by the Trent and Peak Archaeological Trust during a search for a Roman road. The site is a protected Scheduled Monument.
The Derbyshire Dome is a geological formation across mid-Derbyshire in England.
The Wye Valley is the limestone valley of the River Wye in the White Peak of Derbyshire, England. The source of the River Wye is west of Buxton on Axe Edge Moor. One main channel runs underground through Poole's Cavern. The river flows though Buxton Pavilion Gardens and then along a culvert under the town centre. After leaving the flat area of central Buxton, the Wye Valley becomes distinct as a gorge running east for 10 miles (16 km) before the valley broadens at Ashford-in-the Water.
Grin Low is a hill overlooking Buxton in Derbyshire, in the Peak District. The summit is 434 metres (1,424 ft) above sea level.
St Ann's Well is an ancient warm natural spring in Buxton, Derbyshire in England. The drinking well is located at the foot of The Slopes and opposite the Crescent hotel and the Old Hall Hotel.
This is a partial list of prominent buildings in Buxton, Derbyshire which have been demolished or ruined.
Staden is a small hamlet on the southern outskirts of Buxton, Derbyshire, lying between Harpur Hill and Cowdale. It was occupied in Neolithic, Roman and medieval times. Staden is close to the limestone hilltop of Staden Low whose summit is 367 m (1,204 ft) above sea level.
Micah Salt was a tailor and amateur archaeologist from Buxton in Derbyshire.