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Hognaston
Hognaston, a delightfully picturesque Peak District village, lies about four miles north east of Ashbourne along the B5035 Ashbourne to Wirksworth road, and is sheltered from the north wind by the towering protection of Hognaston Wynn, which rises above the village to almost 1000 feet. The area is known as a quiet and sleepy backwater, with wide grass verges and old limestone cottages sits snugly in the hills overlooking Carsington Water from the west, and has a history which can be traced back at least a thousand years. Almost a thousand years prior to the Norman Conquest, the Romans were here - as evidenced by the numerous coins and artefacts found in the area, and some experts believe that `The Street’, the Roman road from Derby to Buxton passed through, or very close to the present-day village.
Orignally Hognaston was a small community of scattered farms with a central parish church and a manor house. The Norman-founded monastic sheep granges to the north and west provided wool and mutton for the packhorse trains which regularly passed through the village. These were later laden with lead and stone from the Wirksworth and Brassington lead-field and the Hopton quarries, but with the advent of wheeled transport into what Daniel Defoe considered a `howling wilderness’, and the London to Manchester main road being driven through in the early years of the 17th century, Hognaston prospered.
Hognaston manor house, which is known today as the Old Hall, was built around 1600 and probably replaced a fortified manor house which once stood on the site, and the Red Lion which stands almost opposite is the only survivor of three pubs which served the village in it’s early Georgian hey-day, the others being the Packhorse and The Bull.
The burgeoning of the tourist industry from the middle years of the 20th century increased the traffic in this once quiet village but life here changed dramatically with the building of Carsington Water Reservoir in the nearby Henmore Valley, which was opened by HM the Queen in 1992. A new by-pass was constructed which took traffic away from the villages surrounding the new reservoir, and once more, like it’s neighbouring villages of Hopton and Carsington, Hognaston was once more returned to it’s peaceful tranquility.
Today Carsington Water has become one of the East Midland’s major tourist attractions boasting over a million visitors a year; the nearby Peak District Walking paradise of Dovedale, and the ancient market town of Ashbourne are all within walking distance of Hognaston which makes this pretty village an exceedingly popular and ideal centre for exploring the delights of the Derbyshire Peak District.
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