DFMH weekly walking group and allotment group DFMH is governed by a board of trustees and currently they have vacancies for two new members. They are looking for people who have the skills and experience to advise officers and other trustees at a strategic level; in particular they are looking for people with a financial background or experience in marketing or fundraising. DFMH is a charity that has been working in the Derbyshire Dales and High Peak areas for forty years; t

Over 70 women gathered at the Cowshed Café in Millers Dale for the annual Peak Women in Ag Christmas meeting, filling the space with laughter, music, and festive cheer. The evening was a wonderful celebration of friendship, farming, and community, with attendees travelling from all across the Peak District The atmosphere was electric as guests enjoyed a fabulous night of entertainment from a 10 piece brass band, whose lively set combined classic Bavarian tunes with well-love

John Everitt and Jemima Letts of the Chatsworth Forestry Team If you, members of your family or any of your friends have autism, this inspirational event is for you and them. John Everitt and Jemima Letts of the Chatsworth Forestry Team will be talking through their joint experience of autism – how it has affected life, work (and logs!) and how learning about it has revolutionised their experience of working together. Come and hear their personal, inspiring and very funny s

Santa supported by Rotarians, John Craike and Margie Stuckey The club collected £1,260 at the Aldi store in Bakewell over three days before Christmas for our own highly commended community grants scheme and for Ashgate Hospice Save a precious Bed fighting fund where reduced central funding has currently limited the number of available care beds from 15 to 6. The club is again very appreciative of the support and encouragement from the store manager and his staff. Santa was

‘Faithful in Difficulties’ – The Lives of the “Leadswingers”, creators of the First World War trench magazine of the 3rd West Riding Field Ambulance Service, 1915-1919 19th February ‘Faithful in Difficulties’ (In Arduis Fidelis) was their regimental motto. In between saving lives on the First World War battlefields of Flanders, including at the bloody battles of the Somme and Passchendaele, a small band of young Royal Army Medical Corps servicemen from Sheffield, with shared

Redstart Dr Mark Eddowes is a local man from Bonsall. His day-job is as an airport safety consultant but he is also an independent ornithological researcher. Mark explores in detail what we can all sense from our own observations – with a changing climate, our springs are advancing, and our songbirds must migrate back here and breed earlier to keep up. They are shifting northwards and vacating previous breeding grounds to the south. He draws in particular on county records an

The fundraising ukulele concert at the end of November at the Whitworth in aid of Alzheimer’s Research was a sell out, with more than a hundred people in the ballroom. The Matlock Ukulele Group Strummers (MUGS) had a fantastic time playing to a wonderful audience who needed very little encouragement to join in with their songs, demanding three encores at the end of the evening. The event raised £654.50 for Alzheimer's Research taking the total raised so far to an enormous £

One of the High Peak’s favourite visitor attractions, Buxton’s Pavilion Gardens, is open for business whilst essential roof repair work takes place. High Peak Borough Council is investing £1.2 million in repairs and improvement works at the Grade II listed complex. The programme is being delivered in two phases and focuses on protecting the historic buildings whilst improving facilities for visitors. The first phase includes roof repairs to the Pavilion Arts Centre and offi

Peak Forest Reading Room is a registered Charity (No. 520493). The building is Grade II listed with historic connections to the Devonshire Estate and was built in 1880. The front of the building incorporates the ‘Venetian’ window, which was removed from the original Peak Forest Church when the ‘new’ church was built. This window dates from 1657 and is of historic significance. Several works to the roof and exterior of the building have already been undertaken, but the int

Wildlife of the Peak District - An Illustrated talk by Peter Bull on Monday 19th January at 7.30pm Peter Bull has a passion for photography and has a gift for taking superb photographs of wildlife. He lives on the western edge of Hathersage over-looking the Hope Valley, Stanage Edge and Hathersage Moor. His talk will relate the wide variety of habitat in the Peak District, the wild flower meadows, ancient woodlands, bogs, moorlands, rivers and gritstone edges to the equally

Bob Thorpe celebrating the win A local sportsman who has been playing football for over 70 years is celebrating a win on the world stage. Bob Thorpe, aged 74, of Dronfield Woodhouse, was a member of the England Over 70s team which lifted the World Nations Cup in walking football. Bob and his teammates beat Holland 8-1 to take the title in the Over 70s category in the FIWFA six-a-side competition at Torrevieja Sports City, in Spain, in October. In fact, the squad were unbeat

Danny Wells At the last meeting of the year members and visitors welcomed back for the fourth time, Danny Wells. On this occasion he spoke about the “Art of Gardens” which was so interesting in many ways, he explained that on closer examination of many paintings there is a whole host of hidden details with flowers and foliages having secret meaning! This was very much the case in Elizabethan, Victorian and Edwardian times. To close the meeting, Mary and Mary served teas alon

Residents across North Derbyshire can take some of the stress away from the post-Christmas clear-up by registering their real Christmas tree for Blythe House Hospice’s Treecycle campaign. Between 8th to 10th January 2026, hospice staff and volunteers will be collecting trees from postcodes across the High Peak, Hope Valley and Derbyshire Dales* for a donation to fund vital hospice services. Thanks to the devoted support of S ‘n’ S Trees of New Mills, all the money raised wi

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SING IN The SPRING CONCERT? Bakewell Choral Society's Spring Concert will be on Saturday, 25th April at Bakewell Parish Church. They will be performing Vivaldi Gloria, Pergolesi Magnificat and Rutter Magnificat. Rehearsals start on Monday, 5th January 2026. Guests are invited to come and join at the start of the spring term and to sing in the concert. All voice parts are welcome. If you have not sung with Bakewell Choral Society before, the fee for rehearsa

It’s almost January and there’s not much going on in the garden. It’s the time of year to hole up indoors and look back on last year and plan for next season. If you kept notes on your plot in 2025 (or did the cheats version and took photos of things as they were happening like I do) now is the time to decide what went well and what didn’t. It’s also the moment to design your bouquets for 2026. Once you’ve got the cutting-patch bug and grown annuals you can tweak and refine

L-R:John Hopkins and Club Chairman, Paul Davies On a recent typically cold, grey and wet December day, the members of Bakewell and District Probus Club were reminded of sunny skies and summer warmth by their colleague, John Hopkins, who presented a talk about his experiences as a schools inspector in Dubai. Having spent a career in teaching, culminating in a headmastership in Wales, and approaching the age of retirement, John was presented with the opportunity to serve as an

Just two of the twelve Matlock shop window scenes created by Frances A trip into Matlock town and the Christmas festive displays are starting to add cheer to the mundane job of basic shopping. Non more so than the lovely painted windows around the town. One particular show is eye catching and is a real compliment to Matlock. It is compiled of 12 snowy, recognizable scenes of Victorian Matlock. The artist responsible is Frances Thomas who lives in the town and although makin

Cllr Susan Hobson (who has walked the Peak Wesley Way earlier this year) with resident, David Dalrymple Smith, and Sheila Travis, member of the PWW Development Team, celebrating the new addition to the Pilgrims’ provisions The Peak Wesley Way Pilgrimage has just completed its second year providing pilgrims with a beautiful, if sometimes challenging, hike through the Peak Park, with overnight accommodation provided in Methodist Chapels en route. Over 80 bookings to date confir

MHA Moorland House in Hathersage got into the festive spirit thanks to their Christmas fair which helped them to raise more than £380 with more than 75 people attending. There were plenty of stalls to visit, some selling handmade items including crafts, baby knitwear and accessories. There were also lots of refreshments including mince pies, with mulled wine, tea and coffee to keep everyone hydrated. The funds raised will go towards the homes amenities fund, from which a s

L-R: Tony Fry and Club Chairman, Paul Davies When, on the grounds of ‘Health and Safety’, we are prevented from carrying out a course of action, we sometimes complain that such considerations are an infringement of our liberties. However, the need for such legislation was clearly demonstrated at a recent meeting of the Bakewell and District Probus Club when member Tony Fry described three catastrophic industrial accidents which, most probably, would have been avoided had the