In the 19th Century the Swainsley Estate was owned by Sir Thomas Wardle. He was a well known industrialist with an interest in silks and dying. As a friend and colleague of William Morris he was heavily involved with the Arts and Crafts movement. Morris visited Swainsley many times along with other distinguished artists and writers including Rossetti and Millais. Other famous visitors were Mark Twain and Baden Powell.

Swainsley Farm lies at the heart of an area known as the White Peak, a limestone plateau of green fields and drystone walls, defined roughly as the countryside enclosed by Castleton, Buxton, Bakewell, Matlock and Ashbourne. The rivers Dove and Manifold rise in the gritstones and shales of the Axe Edge moors. They carry rainwater which has cut deeply into the gritstone and then into limestone reef knolls to form deep dales with overhanging pinnacles of rock and fast running streams full of fish. A succession of high hills and dales surround Swasinsley Farm where the rivers occupy gorge-like valleys sliced into the landscape.

Dovedale and the Manifold Valley are deservedly beauty spots and there are other dales nearby with rippling streams that are a delight to explore. The rivers Dove and Manifold are synonymous with Charles Cotton and Izaak Walton who fished and wrote about these waters three centuries ago. The rich diversity of scenery has long been an attraction for visitors and has inspired many writers over the years.
Swainsley Farm was the ‘home farm’ of the Swainsley Estate and consists of a farmhouse and a substantial range of 18th Century agricultural buildings. They are built from local limestone with gritstone detailing to windows, doors, chimneys, gables and copings. Chris and Liz have converted a barn and former stable block into three cottages – all have stunning views!

Paths and bridleways link the Manifold Trail, which runs in the valley below Swainsley, to the surrounding limestone plateau. From our cottages you can explore this rugged landscape and its picturesque villages with their ancient churches and welcoming old inns. Other paths climb through woods to the hills which tower high above gorges and wind past fascinating mining remains at Ecton.

From Bronze Age times, copper and lead deposits were worked for over 3,500 years, ceasing in 1891. During this time fortunes were made and lost. In the 18th Century the Duke of Devonshire made a profit of over £300,000 from the Ecton mines, said to have financed the building of the magnificent Crescent in Buxton and additions to Chatsworth House. These mines are now a Scheduled Monument with the old engine house in the care of the National Trust. The whole area is a site of special scientific Interest (SSSI).

The area is steeped in history and our fields contain evidence of ancient agricultural terracing. There are numerous caves in the Manifold Valley, the biggest and best is known as Thor’s cave at Wetton Mill (about 1.5 miles south of Swainsley Farm). This cave is 250 feet above the river and can be approached from a steep but spectacular footpath. These caves were the homes of stone age dwellers dating back at least 50,000 years and the surrounding hills have many burial mounds, stone circles and other religious sites of prehistoric people.