12 miles from Risley Parish

The vast and immensely impressive ruins of a palatial medieval manor house, with a huge undercrofted Great Hall and a defensible High Tower 22 metres (72 feet) tall.

14 miles from Risley Parish

Ashby Castle forms the backdrop to the famous jousting scenes in Sir Walter Scott's classic novel of 1819, Ivanhoe. Now a ruin, the castle began as a manor house in the 12th century.

17 miles from Risley Parish

The remodelled family home of Bess of Hardwick, one of the richest and most remarkable women of Elizabethan England, stands beside the New Hall she raised later in the 1590s.

20 miles from Risley Parish

The picturesque moated remains - including the fine gatehouse and a complete corner tower - of this brick-built fortified mansion have recently been extensively conserved by English Heritage.

20 miles from Risley Parish

The imposing shell of a grandiose Georgian mansion built in 1724-29, with an immensely columned exterior. Roofless since 1919, when its interiors were dismantled and some exported to America.

21 miles from Risley Parish

A small early Bronze Age stone circle of (actually) ten stones. Believed to be nine ladies turned to stone as a penalty for dancing on Sunday.