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Ashbourne
Ashbourne is an attractive market town that is known as the Gateway to Dovedale, one of the Peak Districts most popular ad stunning dales. Ashbourne is also the beginning of the White Peak area of Derbyshire.
 It is surrounded by a wide rural area, beautiful scenery and picturesque villages. The nearest city is Derby, 15 miles to the south-east, but a number of small and not so small towns are well within 30 - 40 minutes drive, such as Matlock, Buxton, Leek and Bakewell. A little further afield are the cities of Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester and Birmingham. Ashbourne is also a popular stopping off and staging point for the many tourists who come to the region, and as such caters for this - indeed, tourism is extremely important not only to Ashbourne but to the county. It has many small tea rooms, restaurants and gift shops as well as specialist outdoor clothing and climbing equipment shops. Many of the visitors come to walk or cycle in the surrounding hills and mountains. The Tissington Trail, a popular recreational walk and cycle path, starts at Mapleton Lane on the northern outskirts of town and follows the course of the former Ashbourne to Buxton railway, running through the village of Tissington and joining the High Peak Trail (the old Cromford and High Peak Railway) at Parsley Hay. The line, which had been built in 1894, closed to regular passenger traffic in 1954, and all services on the Ashbourne-Parsley Hay section, including excursion traffic, ceased in 1964. The line continued down the Dove to Rocester near Uttoxeter where it joined the main North Staffordshire Railway. This southern link had opened in 1899. It also closed to passengers in 1954, finishing completely in the early '60s. A branch of the Limestone Way also starts in the town.
There has been little change from the Ashbourne or the Georgian period to that of the present day. Many people are attracted to the area for this fact, and in fact the town is noted for its impressive ancient cobbled market, its fine architecture and its literary connections, and has that rare combination of medieval street layout and some excellent Georgian buildings, especially around the town centre which is designated as a Conservation Area. St. John Street even boasts one of the last remaining cross-street gallows signs in Britain and has recently been described as `architecturally the best street in Derbyshire'.
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