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 portion of the line, which would run through Bakewell and over the magnificent Monsal Dale viaduct. Peak Rail, a local preserved railway venture, has shown the way by reopening the line from Matlock to Rowsley, a village that is a few miles to the east of Bakewell near Haddon Hall. Reaching Bakewell is just one of Peak Rail's long-term ambitions, and in order to keep alive the intention for a future return of the railway (under one auspice or another), Derbyshire County Council is currently protecting the trackbed from development, (in order of seeing the old railway station fully restored