The Old Lock-Up
Guest House
North End, Wirksworth, Nr. Matlock, Derbyshire, DE4 4FG, England
Tel: +44 (0)1629 826272/826929 Fax: +44 (0)1629 826272

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The Manor is the Derbyshire Peak District National Park.
The Place, a treasury of history and atmosphere.

Built in 1842, it served first as a magistrates house and then as a police station for 100 years.
D. H Lawrence and his German wife Frieda, listed as an alien in the 1914-18 war, reported here weekly. Convicted murderer George Townley was locked up in one of the four cells before going to Derby Assizes in 1861.

A copperplate day book, discovered during recent renovations, written with meticulous care, charts the life of the lead-mining community of Wirksworth a century ago, from the trivia to the tragic.

Stoneford, Peak Practice

The town drunks, many of whom washed away wages, hard-earned in the local quarries, sobered in a downstairs cell which has now been converted to a bar.

One cell with it's original steel-lined door and stone flagged floor remains as it was to give visitors a glimpse of conditions in the 1800's.

The Old Lock Up, where once prisoners slopped out with buckets, now has the last word in luxury. An invigorating double airbath soothes aching muscles after a day walking the Dales, a glass of wine adds to an unforgettable experience.

Elegance and taste matches the warmth of the hospitality by owners Vivien and Tony Wheeler. Excellent food and wine and the extensive bed and breakfast and evening meal menu is now part of the ambience of what was once a dour house of detention.

Today it is not just a guest house - the Peak District has hundreds - but a stylish home of dignity and history which the Wheelers feel privileged to share with visitors who so often become firm friends.

 

Open the year round, The Old Lock Up is more than a stopover for tourists to the Peak District. Thirteen miles from Derby and close to the M1 Motorway, it is ideally placed for business people looking to relax where the difference meets you at the heavy barred oak door.

     
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