Beresford Dale
OS grid reference :- SK1259
Picturesque Beresford Dale, which forms part of the Dove Valley, is a delightful miniature version of the nearby popular Peak District beauty spot of Dovedale.
Beresford Dale is located to the south of the village of Hartington and is now owned by the National Trust.
The dale has associations with Izzak Walton and his companion, Charles Cotton, and the seventeenth century classic 'The Compleat Angler ', first published in 1653, although Walton continued to add to it for a quarter of a century after.
Charles Cotton was born at Beresford Hall which once stood above the dale. The ruins of the hall can still be seen. In 1905 a tower on the hilltop east of the site of the hall was rebuilt by F W Green, retaining the existing basement and probably re-using stone from the remains of the hall. He also laid out a yew walk along the slope west of the tower and made a terrace garden overlooking the River Dove. Cotton himself built a Fishing Temple in a corner of the grounds by the river in 1674, (pictured right) a single room stone built building and now the only relic of Cotton's era to survive intact, it is a secular shrine to all anglers.
The dale is well wooded and wildflowers grow in profusion down to the waters edge. Half way along Beresford Dale is Pike Pool (pictured above left) , so called, as Cotton himself related, because of its jagged grey monolith or pike that rears out from the water. The nearby village of Fenny Bentley has a fourteenth century church, containing the unusual alabaster Tomb of Thomas Beresford, who fought at Agincourt and a medieval tower, once the home of the Beresford family, it now forms part of a farmhouse.
Beresford Dale runs into Wolfscote Dale and together the two form a highly scenic walk.