Derbyshire rain comes in two kinds: the all-day sort you can see from the forecast page, and the showery sort that clears between the house and lunch. This plan works for either.
Morning: the house
Book the first slot and go straight in. The house route is ninety minutes entirely under cover and the year’s exhibition is in the rooms you walk through anyway. On a wet Saturday it is busier than usual, which is one more reason for the early slot. Lockers take your wet coat if you would rather not carry it (£1 coin).
Late morning: the garden, if it lulls
Nobody goes into the garden in the rain, which is exactly why you should if there is a gap. The Cascade running in rain is the point of the Cascade, the ravine and the rock garden are sheltered, and the greenhouses are dry. Twenty minutes is enough. If the rain is set in, skip it: the ticket is date-specific, not refundable for weather, so decide on the day.
Lunch: under a roof
The stables courtyard cafes are the nearest; the farm shop cafe at Pilsley is a two-mile drive and the better meal. Both fill early on a wet day. Pubs within two miles are on the pubs page.
Afternoon: pick one
- Caudwell’s Mill at Rowsley, four miles south: a working Victorian roller flour mill with a craft centre and cafe, an hour well spent and almost entirely indoors.
- Bakewell, four miles west: the Old House Museum, the pudding shops, the church with its Saxon cross and, if it clears, the river.
- Castleton, twelve miles north-west: the show caverns (Peak Cavern, Speedwell, Treak Cliff, Blue John) are the Peak District’s rainy-day banker, all at a constant cool temperature underground.
- The Heights of Abraham at Matlock Bath: cable car, two caverns and a cafe on the hilltop, if the cloud is not on the ground.
- Peak Rail from Rowsley South, on running days: a steam train is a steam train in any weather.
All are on the things to do nearby page with distances.
If it clears at four
The walk through Stand Wood to the Hunting Tower is at its best after rain, when the aqueduct and the waterfall are actually running and the tracks have emptied. Ninety minutes, muddy, worth it.