Our film page features original 'Peak in the Past' historical documentary productions, alongside a selection of other documentaries and contemporary footage, which are freely available to watch, and which explore the past of the Peak District and offer an enticing peek in the past...

Historical Documentary Films

Eyam: The Plagued Village

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One of the most devastating episodes of English history striking a secluded Peak District village and leading to the demise of a third of its population back in the 17th-century. But these deaths were caused by no human hand… And the unconnected discoveries of two corpses, one shrouded in stones and the other entombed in rock: two murders which have left mysterious imprints on both local landscape and legend. Armed with recently uncovered new evidence, we reopen an 18th-century coroner’s inquest file in a bid to solve a 250-year-old murder mystery. In this episode, we’ll investigate three separate stories, spanning three centuries, connected to one remote village. The three stories all share one thing in common: shocking and untimely death. The village is Eyam... 

This 'Peak in the Past' historical episode interweaves investigation into the unexpected outbreak of bubonic plague which struck the remote Derbyshire village of Eyam in 1665-1665 (which led to heroic and remarkable acts of sacrifice and self-imposed quarantine from the villagers to protect the contagion from spreading to neighbouring areas) with the historical events surrounding two murders well-known in Peak District folklore: the murder of William Wood of Eyam in 1823 and the murder of a "Scotch pedlar" at the Moon Inn, Stoney Middleton, following a dispute at Eyam Wakes back in the mid 17th-century.

Wardlow Mires: Shadows of the Gallows ​
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An improbable tale of two sisters murdered in 1815 at two separate toll-houses (on the very same night!); two brothers sentenced to death for desperate crimes; two murders involving the strangest of details (including a pair of red shoes and a poisoned cake!); a 16-year-old girl killing her friend at the very spot where a rotting corpse hung overhead; a highway robbery leading to exile to the other side of the world, a daring escape, armed shoot-out in the Australian outback and the “living hell” of a convict on Norfolk Island…welcome to the tiny remote hamlet of Wardlow Mires where historical fact is stranger than fiction!

This 'Peak in the Past' historical documentary episode includes investigations into both the murder of toll-house keeper Hannah Oliver at Wardlow Mires in 1815, which led to Antony Lingard of Litton being executed and subsequently gibbeted by the spot where the crime was committed, and also a later murder in 1818 committed by 16-year-old Hannah Bocking (also of Litton) who killed her friend Jane Grant with "poisoned cake" at the very spot where Lingard's caged corpse hung overhead. For more detailed information on these events see True Tales of the Macabre: Within Sight of the Gibbet by Ian Morgan.

Tideswell: A Sweep of the Peak​ 

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​Beneath the gaze of the great gothic tower of Tideswell Church (the "Cathedral of the Peak"), there lies buried a story. A story of a life. A life cut tragically short – that of a 9-year-old pauper chimney sweep apprentice. ‘A Sweep of the White Peak’ is the original 'Peak in the Past' historical documentary pilot episode which follows the journey taken by three young chimney sweeps back in October 1840 across the southerly parts of the Peak District in search of work; a journey that was to have devastating consequences; leading to the shocking death of a 9-year-old boy, a dramatic escape and flight from justice, and banishment to the other side of the world for a terrible crime...​

Eyam: The Plagued Village (Trailer)

'Peak in the Past' Original Trailer

Contemporary Film Footage

A Journey through Millers Dale on the Midland Railway (1898)

Hosted by the British Film Institute (BFI), this is a silent 'phantom ride'  steam train journey through Millers Dale along a stretch of the Midland Railway, one of the most scenic lines in Britain, said to be filmed in 1898. It was filmed in 68mm by the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Click on the image above to view the film.

Great Hucklow King George V Silver Jubilee Celebrations (6 May 1935)

Hosted by the British Film Institute (BFI), this film was shot by the village of Great Hucklow's most famous resident: playwright, screenwriter and author Lawrence Du Garde Peach and shows how the village prepared for the celebrations of the Silver Jubilee of King George V on 6th May 1935. Click on the image above to view the film. 

Peak District Tour (1954)

Extract from a film hosted by the British Film Institute (BFI) which was made by British Transport Films, offering a tour around the Peak District in 1954. 

 Lost Villages of Derwent and Ashopton (1966)

Hosted by the Media Archive for Central England (MACE) Archive, this 16mm film, produced in 1966 by ATV, features presenter Gwyn Richards interviewing former residents of Derwent and Ashopton villages in Derbyshire which were submerged under the newly constructed Ladybower Reservoir in the 1940s. Click on the image above to view the film. 

Folktales

The Peak District has a rich tradition of folktales which have been passed down orally from one generation to the next through the centuries. Such tales are meant for telling aloud. As author and folktale collector Mark Henderson says in the introduction to his book Folktales of the Peak District: "A written anthology is like a butterfly collection: each specimen retains much of its beauty but lacks the vitality of flight. Unless they're recited to an audience, folktales don't fly..."  In 2018, we were awarded a grant from the South West Peak Community Grants Scheme for a project "Illuminating the History and Folktale Traditions of the South West Peak". The project centres on the creation of a filmed series of folktales featuring the aforementioned Mark Henderson reciting folktales relating to the South West Peak out on location in the landscape that shaped each story. Students at Buxton and Leek College were afforded the opportunity to contribute artistic representations of key dramatic scenes for each folktale to incorporate in the films to help bring the narratives to life.  The films aim to highlight the richness and variety of the region's folktales in an accessible and strikingly visual way which will help to preserve and promote the folklore traditions of the locality as well as enhancing our appreciation for the dramatic landscape in which such stories were forged.    

The Blake Mere Mermaid

The Doxey Pool Mermaid

The Gradbach Cannibals

Lud's Church

The Headless Horseman of Onecote

Folktale Trail through the South West Peak

Below is a film made by a local student Bobby Turton (studying a BA in Film Production at the University of Salford), created as part of our folktale project, in which Mark journeys through the South West Peak and introduces us to some of the remarkable folktales encountered along the way.

Folktale Audios