Did Bonnie Prince Charlie lose his waistcoat here?

In the late eighteenth century Monyash was home to important Quaker families, and there are some lovely photographs and artefacts from the Bowman family on display in the Old House Museum in Bakewell, celebrating their lives. There is a Bowman family patchwork quilt in the collection. The centre piece is an old fragment of silk, said to have come from one of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s waistcoats. He travelled through this area of Derbyshire, and is reputed to have slept at Hartington Hall. Who can say whether he accepted brief hospitality in Monyash? Some say the name Monyash means ‘many ashes’. The trees are less obvious now, and with the bad news about ash disease, may become a thing of the past. There are hay meadows, cultivated in the traditional way and managed by Natural England. The traditional hay mix would include plants and herbs with properties that would improve the health of the grazing animals and the flavour of their meat and milk. Flowering hay meadows are also a wonderful sight. On one side of the dale is One Ash Grange, originally a grain store for the monks of Roche Abbey. In medieval times the dale was managed for sheep and wool, timber and forestry, stone and lead, creating wealth for the monasteries and a building boom in churches and cathedrals. After the dissolution of the monasteries wealthy estates took over the riches of this part of Derbyshire, and later still in the nineteenth century speculative fortunes were made and lost in the lead mining industry.