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Flagg

Location: Flagg
County: Derbyshire
Telephone - please mention Let's Stay Peak District: 01298 25106 (Buxton Tourist Information)
Send email: tourism@highpeak.gov.uk
Activities:
Horse Racing

Attractions:
n/a

Area Guides:
Flagg


Details: Flagg's main claim to fame is that it’s the venue of the High Peak Hunt's annual point-to-point races which take place on
Flagg Moor each Easter Tuesday.

Tom Bates

One of the most remote of Derbyshire villages, Flagg sits high on the central limestone plateau of the White Peak south east of Buxton, and is encircled by its five sister villages of Monyash, Sheldon, Chelmorton, Taddington and Earl Sterndale.

The village is best approached along the A515 Ashbourne-Buxton road; the narrow lane to Flagg, which winds over the bleak Flagg Moor, is signposted beside the 15th-century Bull i' the Thorn, famous for its banquets, and extremely popular with tourists and the regular local clientele. This ancient inn is also reputed to have its own resident ghost.
Unlike the majority of villages in the White Peak, Flagg has a flat and almost featureless landscape, but perhaps its most distinguishing features are its remoteness and isolation, which give it an air of complete detachment.

At 1,100 feet above sea-level, Flagg is the highest point-to-point racing venue in England, and spectators have flocked here since it was inaugurated in 1892. Although snow has caused the meeting to be cancelled on a number of occasions, in a good year the local population has been known to swell from a constant 130 to upwards of 10,000.

The village’s name suggests Scandinavian influence, and early historians believed Flagg to have been first settled by the Danes. However, it’s known that a rich vein of lead ore ran in this direction, and the miners followed the vein and originally established the settlement as an outlier of the main lead-mining centre at Monyash, where the Bar Moot Court of the High Peak met.

The village is centred around the junction of the Monyash-Chelmorton road, which also constitutes the village's main street, and the lane across Flagg Moor from the Ashboume-Buxton road. Here there is a small group of buildings clustered around the village school (1833) and the Methodist Chapel (1883), including the Village Hall, and most surprisingly for such a small community, a nursery school, complete with its own fully equipped garden play area. This school also caters for children from the neighbouring villages which share this facility.

The long and slightly sloping village street runs between Town Head Farm and Townsend Farm, with all the houses and farms in between on the northern and eastern side. There are no buildings on the opposite side, thus allowing residents a clear view of the Flagg races which take place there, without leaving the comfort of their homes.

Though tourism has never reached this isolated outpost, the area is favoured by both walkers and cyclists, and a number of old trackways pass through the parish. The stretch of the Limestone Way between Monyash and Taddington follows the route of the main street from the junction of Moor Lane and Mycock Lane past Town Head Farm, and leaves the village along Green Lane before crossing Taddington Moor.

The village had a combined shop and post office which sold just about everything, but sadly this has closed recently and residents now have to travel to Buxton or Bakewell to shop. However, refreshments and good, wholesome Derbyshire fare can be had at the village pub, the Plough Inn, re-opened three years ago by mine hosts Peter Lowndes and Julie Sutclifffe; they serve evening meals in season, Saturday and Sunday lunches, and provide an excellent bed and breakfast service.

At one time there were fifteen farms recorded at Flagg, and though the number has been significantly reduced in recent years this is still predominantly an agricultural community with a number of large farms in and around the village. One of the largest, and certainly the oldest in the village, is the farm at Flagg Hall.

Flagg Hall, with its long and elegantly curving tree-lined drive, is a fine twin-gabled Elizabethan Manor House built in typical Derbyshire limestone style, and similar to the Halls at Hartington and Eyam. Over the centuries new outbuildings were added to the original stables and a working farmyard was created, and the Hall evolved into the large working farm we see today. On a staircase in the hall is a human skull; tradition has it that evil will befall anyone who removes or attempts to remove it from its place. Locals tell of a number of attempts made by various occupiers of the hall to rid themselves of the skull but (and perhaps mindful of the legend) all attempts incurred some strange or evil occurrence, and so the skull still remains in its place on the hall staircase.
Ash Tree Farm is another fine example of limestone architecture in the Derbyshire style, and a little further along the main street towards Town Head stands the now inappropriately named New Buildings Farm with its magnificent early 18th-century stone barn and outbuildings. At the opposite end of the village, Townend Farm and Hobson Farm are impressive modern examples of the Flagg farmscape, and give character to this small hamlet of ancient stone barns and sloping roofs, interspersed with small rows of limestone rubble-built terraced cottages, and the occasional modern farm bungalow built next to the original farmhouse.

In amongst this somewhat motley collection of dwellings and about half way down the long street of this linear village stands one of the smallest village churches in the land. Flagg Church was erected in 1838 as a Unitarian chapel, but it’s now administered for the Church of England by the Diocese of Derby, and is served by the Vicar of Taddington, who also has the care of neighbouring churches at Monyash and Chelmorton.
Though it may not be attractive or pretty in its rather austere environment, this tiny upland hamlet seems to fit perfectly into its rugged landscape, where all year long it waits quietly
in isolated hibernation for its annual resurrection each
Easter Tuesday.




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