Dovedale
valley on the boundary of Derbyshire and Staffordshire, in England
Dovedale is a valley in the Peak District of England. The land is owned by the National Trust and attracts a million visitors annually. The valley was cut by the River Dove and runs for just over 3 miles (5 km) between Milldale in the north and a wooded ravine, near Thorpe Cloud and Bunster Hill, in the south. In the wooded ravine, a set of stepping stones cross the river and there are two caves known as the Dove Holes.
Dovedale's other attractions include rock pillars such as Ilam Rock, Viator's Bridge and the limestone features Lovers' Leap and Reynard's Cave.
Geology
The limestone rock that forms the geology of Dovedale consists of the fossilised remains of sea creatures that lived in a shallow sea over the area during the Carboniferous period, about 350 million years ago. During the two ice ages, the limestone rock (known as reef limestone) was cut into craggy shapes by glacial meltwater, and dry caves such as Dove Holes and Reynard's Kitchen Cave were eventually formed.
History
The caves were used as shelters by hunters around 13,000 BCE, and Dovedale has seen continuous human activity since. Around 4,500 years ago Neolithic farmers used the caves as tombs. There is evidence from Reynard's Cave of Bronze Age activity, and artifacts found there are displayed at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.
“Dovedale” enters the record as valley on the boundary of Derbyshire and Staffordshire, in England. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Dovedale, valley and boundary can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5302426. The Library of Congress control number is sh2012001987. Authority coordinates are 53.067, -1.783. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dovedale” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.