It is widely accepted that Charlotte Bronte based the setting of her novel Jayne Eyre in and around Hathersage - where the prominent Eyre family had been Lords of the Manor for 800 years - and the village has become a place of literary pilgrimage for Bronte lovers the world over. These "˜romantic hills' also echo with the legend of Robin Hood who was reputedly born eight miles away at Loxley - and his faithful leiutenant Little John, for Hathersage is said to be Little John's home village. His giant-sized grave measuring ten feet in length lies between two yew trees opposite the church porch in the graveyard on the hill overlooking the village, and in the very shadow of St. Michael's octagonal spire.

 

Little wonder then that Hathersage is one of Derbyshire's most popular tourist villages, but it has far more to commend it than just ancient legend and literary fiction, for it is an attractive, prosperous and busy gritstone hill village of charm and character, perched rather picturesquely on a hillside between the soaring Stanage Edge which fills the horizon to the east, and the Derwent Valley far below to the south and west. It lies equidistant between Buxton and Sheffield on the main A625 within the Peak National Park and is part of the so-called Sheffield Commuter Belt which includes Grindleford, Calver, Froggat, and others along the Derwent Valley. At Domesday the Manor of 'Hereseige', meaning 'ridge settlement', was held by Lavenot and Levric with two carucates of land and was built around an ancient stronghold and sacred pagan site on the hill now occupied by St. Michael's Church.

 

Modern Hathersage is a socially active thriving community with facilities normally found in small provincial towns; banks, a post office, craft shops and galleries, cafes and restaurants, and boasts a superb outdoor swimming pool, open to the public during the summer months.