Tideswell

Tideswell
Derbyshire
George Hotel and parish church
Location
Grid reference:	SK151751
Location:	53°16’23"N, 1°46’26"W
Data
Population:	1,827  (2011)
Post town:	Buxton
Postcode:	SK17
Dialling code:	01298
Local Government
Council:	Derbyshire Dales
Parliamentary constituency:	Derbyshire Dales

Tideswell is a village in the Peak District of Derbyshire, six miles east of Buxton.

The village is to be found on the B6049, in a wide valley on a limestone plateau, at an altitude of 1,000 feet above sea level. It is one of the larger villages of the Peak, with a recorded parish population (including Wheston) of 1,827 at the 2011 Census.

Name

The traditional derivation of the village's name is from a well in the village known as the Ebbing and Flowing Well: this well is known as one of the Seven Wonders of the Peak from the remarkable behaviour of its waters, which were said to ebb and flow with the tide. Writers up to the time of Daniel Defoe named the well "Tideswell". Since those days, disruption in the underground strata has stopped the well from ebbing and flowing as once it did.

The English Place Name Society however derive 'Tideswell' from the name of an otherwise unknown Anglo-Saxon chieftain named Tidi, if such a name was known.

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.

History and heritage

Tideswell well dressing

The Domesday Book of 1086 lists the village as Tidesuuelle and records that it was the King's land in the charge of William Peverel with fewer than five households.

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 army.

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.

Parish church

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".

The church 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.

Events

The town has a week-long festival near Midsummer Day known as the Wakes, culminating in "Big Saturday", which includes a torchlight procession through the streets, led by a brass band playing a unique tune called the Tideswell Processional, and townsfolk dancing a traditional weaving dance.

Taste Tideswell

In May 2009, Tideswell won a £400,000 grant from lottery funds. In a bid to help keep its village shops open and thriving—the village had lost over 20 shops in the preceding decade—Taste Tideswell was created. The venture aims to reconnect local people with their food and make Tideswell famous as a food destination. On 6 December 2010 the Tideswell School of Food opened, running full-priced cookery and brewing courses as well as subsidised community courses. The School of Food was intended to be the financial engine for the project that would help to develop work in the community. It closed during 2014 because of cashflow issues.

Tideswell Made is a quality mark that local food producers, retailers, public houses and holiday accommodation can buy into. Ensuring products are sourced as locally as possible and made locally, Tideswell Made is marketed by Taste Tideswell and helps local business get wider recognition for their locally made produce. Taste Tideswell has an education service, visiting schools with a variety of food- and growing-related activities. School groups also visit the School of Food for practical hands-on activities.

Behind the Parish Church, a small community garden has been developed to provide a training ground for those wanting to learn more about growing. There is also a small commercial kitchen available for hire by local food producers, particularly those who are looking to make the step up from home-based production. In May 2011, the first Tideswell Food Festival was held, attracting over 2,000 people, despite poor weather.

On 7 September 2011, as part of the Village SOS series on BBC One, the Taste Tideswell story was broadcast. Filmed over two years by Jane Beckwith and Mandy Wragg, and presented by Sarah Beeny, it showed the rapid development of the project, along with the individual story of Tim Nicol, the 'Village Champion' who moved to live in Tideswell for a year and helped the volunteer directors get Taste Tideswell off the ground. As of August 2011, Taste Tideswell employed eight members of staff, most of whom lived in the village, and had ten visiting chef/tutors on its books. Sadly, Tideswell School of Food was forced to close in October 2014 due to financial difficulties, but its legacy lives on and Tideswell annual Food Festival has continued to be a success each year.

Sport and leisure

Tideswell Sports Complex was built in 2001 with £1.2 million of lottery funding and local fund-raising. There are two football pitches, a floodlit multi-use area with two tennis courts and five-a-side pitches marked out, a cricket ground, crown-green bowling area, a skate-park and two pavilions.

Sport

• Football: Tideswell United
• Bowling.

Social and cultural

• Amateur dramatics:
  • Tideswell Theatre, formed over 200 years ago and revived in 2002
  • Tideswell Community Players, formed in 1929
• Cinema: Tideswell Cinema, revived in 2005 ('The Picturehouse' was a cinema in the village until the 1960s)
• Music:
  • Tideswell Male Voice Choir
  • The Tideswell Singers

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Tideswell)

• Tideswell and District Community Association
• The Village Voice
• Derbyshire UK - Tideswell
• Peak District Online - Tideswell
• The Feudal History of the County of Derby Vol.5 Section 9, by John Pym Yeatman. G4TIFF page images, plus poorly OCRed HTML. This has a lot of information on Tideswell during the 11th to 13th centuries.