Tideswell | |
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George Hotel and parish church |
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Tideswell shown within Derbyshire | |
Population | 1,827 (2011) |
OS grid reference | SK1574 |
Civil parish |
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District | |
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | BUXTON |
Postcode district | SK17 |
Dialling code | 01298 |
Police | Derbyshire |
Fire | Derbyshire |
Ambulance | East Midlands |
EU Parliament | East Midlands |
UK Parliament | |
Tideswell is a village and civil parish in the Peak District of Derbyshire, in 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 (including Wheston) 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.
There is some debate as to how the village got its name. The English Place Name Society accept it as being named after a Saxon chieftain named Tidi, others that the name comes from a "tiding well" situated in the north of the village.
Tideswell is known locally as Tidza or Tidsa. In addition, local residents are known as Sawyeds, owing to a traditional story about a farmer who freed his prize cow from a gate in which it had become entangled, by sawing its head off. Today the story is re-enacted raucously and colourfully every Wakes week by a local mummers group called the Tidza Guisers.
In the Middle Ages, Tideswell was a market town known for lead mining. The Tideswell lead miners were renowned for their strength and were much prized by the military authorities. The Domesday Book of 1086 lists TIDESUUELLE as the King's land in the charge of William Peverel with fewer than five households.
Tideswell is now best known for its 14th-century parish church, the Church of St John the Baptist, known as the "Cathedral of the Peak", which contains three 15th-century misericords. A sundial lies in the churchyard; it is positioned on steps which local historian Neville T. Sharpe thinks likely to be those of the village's market cross. A market and two-day fair were granted to the village in 1251. The Foljambe family, later the Foljambe baronets, were the principal landowners from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries.