EVERY seaside must-do is being checked off my list. I have eaten ice cream, devoured fish and chips as well as played — and lost — on the arcade penny slots. I have sat with a cup of tea in a wind shelter, walked past a bandstand and even visited an aquarium.
But I cannot see a beach anywhere. It is hardly surprising, since Matlock Bath is 70 miles from the nearest coastline . You will find this lively town at the bottom of a limestone gorge in deepest Derbyshire — not a county ordinarily known as a must-visit for a bucket and spade holiday.
READ MORE ON STAYCATIONS But Matlock Bath has been ignoring its inconvenient geography for centuries. Once famed as a spa resort, the town saw a decline in the fashion for mineral bath treatments. Instead there was the rise of railway travel in Victorian times , which encouraged locals to turn this village into an eccentric destination, caring not a jot that the nearest beaches are in Skegness or north Wales .
A retro experience Staying in Hodgkinson’s Hotel on the high street is a retro experience, which combines the attractions of the Edwardian seaside experience with the Derbyshire inland charm. The corridors are a curiosity shop, displaying ancient tobacco tins, Oxo cubes and beef suet packets. Most read in Best of British My attic room, called Mayfield, is a cosy, characterful nook.
Decorated in shades of cream and sage green, it has ancient wooden eaves, Victorian pitcher jugs and a view across the high street and burbling r.