The High Peak

Rose Cottage Tea Room in Castleton is part of a cruck barn built around 1450.

When we went for some dinner there, we found some information about its' history in the menu. The waitress very kindly gave me a copy, when she saw me copying it out. It reads;

'Rose Cottage is built on an ancient track that was used by people from the village of Edale. They used it when they walked to Castleton Church for services, or to bring their dead for burial. It was the custom to keep one of the doors at Rose Cottage unlocked as it was the legal right of way, existing from at least the C12th until the 1970's when it was legally closed.

The North Door of the church, or the Devil's Door, was the entrance by which the people from Edale, living and dead, entered the church. Until Edale became a parish separate from Castleton, church goers had to walk the 3 mile track over Hollins Cross, down the hollow way, along Hollowford Lane, round the back of Millbridge Farm, over the river, and then through what is now Rose Cottage.

The coffin party entered the church through the narrow gap, the Devil's Entrance. The coffin party would have paid a toll to enter the churchyard. Only some people from Edale were allowed to enter the North Door, lepers from the leper hospital which was situated somewhere on Hollowford Lane or just over the ridge in Edale, were restricted to the churchyard.'