Based in the heart of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, Derbyshire Heritage Walks offers guided day walks and short break walking holidays for small groups around Derbyshire and the Peak District. With over 35 years experience of leading guided walks around the World Heritage Site, and over 40 years experience of walking the Peak District, Derbyshire Heritage Walks are experts in the history and heritage of the area.

We run scheduled full-day walks from early February to the end of November. We also run scheduled half-day walks throughout the year, with just a short break for Christmas and New Year, plus another short break for staff holidays. Details of all our available walks can be found here.

Accessibility

Many of our walks use established roads, tracks, footpaths, old railway trackbeds and canal towpaths, making them suitable for walkers of all ages and ability levels. The individual walk pages all contain information on accessibility, but if you have any questions about the suitability of a particular walk, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Some of our walks are pushchair-friendly, lacking stiles or narrow gates that can be an issue for pushchairs, and following firm ground suitable for wheels. You can find details of our pushchair-friendly walks here.

As part of our efforts to make the Peak District and Derbyshire as accessible as possible, we also have a range of walks which are suitable for persons of reduced mobility. Some of our standard walks are already wheelchair and mobility scooter accessible, such as the Miller's Dale to Bakewell walk on the Monsal Trail, while some of the others can be adapted via minor tweaks to the route. We are also working to develop a range of new routes which combine good surfaces, no steps or stiles, and distances suitable for the majority of electric scooters. Details of all our walks suitable for persons of reduced mobility can be found here.

Some of our walks are pushchair-friendly, lacking stiles or narrow gates that can be an issue for pushchairs, and following firm ground suitable for wheels. You can find details of our pushchair-friendly walks here.

New for 2025, we have a range of ten circular walks specially designed for those who want to finish their walk with a refreshing pint and perhaps a filling meal in a walker-friendly pub. You can find details of all of these walks, plus information on availability and how to book, here.

Dogs

Some of our walks are suitable for dogs, although we do ask that you inform us before the walk and keep your dog on a short lead at all times. The individual walk pages all contain information on suitability for dogs.

• Walk when you want to, not when our schedule says you have to.
• Upgrade a scheduled walk to a private booking and get the exclusive services of your guide.
• Book a Personal Walking Guide and get access to a range of exclusive walks.
• For some walks, you can even change the start and finish point to better suit your own circumstances.

Booking a Personal Walking Guide not only allows you to pick the date of your walk to suit you, but also gives you access to a number of walks not available on our normal schedule. You can find details of these exclusive walks here.

While our scheduled walks have a normal maximum group size of between 6 and 8 people, this can usually be increased for most private bookings, and it is possible to accommodate larger groups of up to 20 or 30 people on some of the walks. For many walks, a private booking also allows you to pick your own start time. Please see here for more information on upgrading a scheduled walk to a private booking, and here for information on booking a Personal Walking Guide.

Don't see a walk here that you like? Want to visit a specific place or area not covered by our normal scheduled walks? Then why not consider a customised walk?

Thanks to our flexible working attitude, we are also able to offer customised walks around Derbyshire and the Peak District. Previous customised walks have included:

• Edale to Kinder Downfall via Wool Packs.
• Tissington to Dove Dale Circular.
• Ashford-in-the-Water to Haddon Hall via Magpie Mine.
• Rowsley to Matlock via Stanton Moor and the Nine Ladies.
• Hope, Edale and Castleton Circular.

For those who prefer to let others do the planning for them, we also offer a number of 4 or 5 day fixed itinerary walking holidays. With these holidays, just pick the area where you would like to walk and the start date when you would like to do it, book your own accommodation and travel to suit, and let us show you the best walks around the area. Details of our fixed itinerary walks can be found here.

If you think someone that you know may enjoy one or more of our walks, but are not sure which ones they'd like, why not give them one of our gift vouchers? These are available in a range of values from £10 to £100, and can be used to pay for any of our walks, or for any of the pictures we sell via the photographic section of our business, Derbyshire Scenes.

Information on how to purchase gift vouchers can be found here, and information on how to redeem a voucher against any of our activities or products can be found here.

As Derbyshire has so many great walking routes, there's no way we can lead guided walks along all of them. So, to help you enjoy the area as much as possible, we create and publish a range of self-guided walks that you can download and follow in your own time. Some of these guides are completely free, while others are available for purchase at a very modest price.

All of the walks come as easy to use PDF files for you to print or upload to your tablet or smartphone, and all include full directions for the walk, plus plenty of historical background and other interesting information. Each walk also includes a GPX file, which can be used in many smartphone apps, or by most GPS receivers. You can find all the free walk guides we currently have available here, while those for purchase can be found here.

Derbyshire Scenes is the photographic arm of Derbyshire Heritage Walks. In addition to being an experienced historian and guide, Adrian Brown, founder and owner of Derbyshire Heritage Walks, is also a photographer of many years experience.

The Derbyshire Heritage Walks website contains many examples of Adrian's work, and he has now decided to offer a selection of his best photographs for sale via the website in a range of sizes from small postcard-sized prints up to poster-sized canvases. Visit the Derbyshire Scenes pages to view the selection of pictures, size options and prices.

Adrian Brown of Derbyshire Heritage Walks is also available as a media spokesperson or specialist adviser on a range of history and heritage-related subjects. Topics on which he can speak include the railways of the Peak District, cotton spinning in the Derwent Valley, and the industries of Belper.

One very important consideration for us as a business is minimising the environmental impact of our activities. The high visitor numbers using the Peak District National Park places a high stress on the landscape, and has already caused quite significant damage to some areas. In recognition of our work to minimise the environmental impact of our activities, we have been awarded the prestigious Peak District Environmental Quality Mark. Details of how we work to try and minimise the environmental impact of our activities can be found here.

Like most people, we don't like big companies knowing too much about us, and really hate it when they sell our information on for advertising purposes. If you would like to know more about how we store your information and what we do with it, you can find that information here (link opens in new window).