In pictures: a brief guide to the charming Peak District village of Winster

Located in the south-east of the Peak District National Park, in a valley within easy reach of Bakewell and Matlock and good walking routes, the village was once at the centre of the region’s lead mining industry and that heritage is still apparent in its many listed buildings.

The threads of its metallic story are thought to stretch back as far as Roman times, though the name 'Winster' is first recorded in Domesday Book of 1086 as Winsterne.

The boom in mining from the late 17th century saw the population rise to 2,000 by 1750 and turned the village into a prosperous town, and one of the largest in the county.

But just like many of today’s settlements in the Dales, flooding put a natural limit on mining expansion, eventually bringing operations to an end in 1938.

Today the village has a population of about 550. While few now work day-jobs in the village, the transition to the 21st century economy has been tempered by a determined community, who have banded together to run a royal award-winning shop and maintain beloved traditions like the Shrove Tuesday pancake race along the main road and the Winster Wakes festivities in mid-summer.

In fact residents proudly claim to have one of the most lively villages in the area, with a school, a shop, a garage, two pubs, a church, a chapel, playing fields, a medical centre, a village hall, and many flourishing activity groups, which give Winster a unique character well worth discovering.