It’s nice 40 minute circular walk from the Barn and is great for letting Molly stretch her legs off the lead.

For directions, a map and some pictures of the walk see our Warslow Brook Loop page.

We’re planning to document a few of the walks you can do straight from the front door, so be sure to check our walks page.

We’ve changed the website recently to make it load faster and get you the information you need faster too, but if you find any glitches, please let us know.

If the site doesn’t work in Internet Explorer 6, it serves you right you know what to do!

A guest in the Barn had recommended it and as the kids were bored (as usual) we thought it might make for a nice afternoon jaunt.

What a treat it was!

The monkeys were fascinating, the staff were really great, it was easy to get to and because we went late in the day, it wasn’t busy either.

We’ll definitely be recommending Monkey Forest as a destination for future Barn guests, especially for those with children.

We’ll be adding more villages to the list as time goes on, but if you’re reading this and you live in a village in the Peak District, or you think you can do a better job than us, please send your village review to us.

If we like it, we’ll publish it here and give you credit for it, including a link to a (relevant) website of your choice.

Guests in the barn are often asking us to recommend  places to take their young children out for a meal.

This can be quite a challenge as many pubs don’t open until 6 or 7pm which is when the little ones are getting tired and fractious.

Others only serve sophisticated adult food, with half portions for the children – as much as we would like to expand the children’s tastes, I am not sure their palates are quite ready for gammon and mustard sauce with a coddled egg on the side!

We can, however, thoroughly recommend Pizza Express in Buxton for the ideal children’s meal when you are staying at our Peak District holiday cottage.

They are open all day, which means that you can go straight there after sightseeing in the market town of Buxton.

The children’s menu is varied, serves appropriately sized dishes and is extremely good value.

Moreover, the staff bring pencils and activity sheets for the little ones to keep them entertained between courses.

Depending on who is cooking, the chefs will often put on a bit of a show for the children if they see them watching! – nothing too amazing, but the children do enjoy watching the pizza dough being swirled in the air!

And if you haven’t got children with you, Pizza Express is also the perfect stop off before or even after taking in a show at the Buxton Opera House, which is conveniently about 3 minutes walk from the restaurant.

It was such a treat to be able to find great food for both us and the children and it was well worth the 20 minute drive to get there.

We thought the food was very resonably priced and the service we received was excellent – we’ll definitely be recommending it to all of our guests.

There’s a more complete review here.

Despite a slightly drab and dowdy appearance, the food was really terrific.

If you’re going to be staying at the Barn and fancy a top notch Indian meal, I can thoroughly recommend Max’s.

They don’t have a website but their number is 01629 814336.

I’ve created a page in our things to section which has a map and a longer review here: Max’s Indian Restaurant, Bakewell

You can read my review of the trip here: Chestnut Centre.

It really was a great way to spend a few hours in the fresh air with lots for the kids to do and see and I highly recommend it, if you’re staying at the Barn and need to fill an afternoon.

It’s the first of what I hope will be a comprehensive list of things to do and places to see, in and around the Peak District, that we have actually visited or experienced.

Hope you find it useful…