Bakewell Book and a motte and bailey castle was constructed in the 12th century. A market was established in 1254, and Bakewell developed as a trading centre. The Grade I listed five-arched bridge over the River Wye was constructed in the 13th century, and is one of the few surviving remnants of this earlier period. A chalybeate spring was discovered, and a bath house built in 1697. This led to an 18th-century bid to develop Bakewell as a spa town, in the manner of Buxton. The construction of the Lumford Mill by Richard Arkwright in 1777 was followed by the rebuilding
Bakewell was the focus of attention during the Stephen Downing case, which involved the conviction and imprisonment in 1974 of a 17-year-old council worker, Stephen Downing, for the murder of a 32-year-old legal secretary in Bakewell Cemetery. Following a campaign by a local newspaper, his conviction was overturned in 2002, after Downing had served 27 years in prison. The case is thought to be the longest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, and attracted worldwide media attention. Bakewell is mentioned by Elizabeth Bennet as the town from which she travelled to visit Pemberley, in ch. 43 of Jane Austen's "Pride