Flash, a Peak District village, is situated 4 miles south west of Buxton, just off the A53 Leek to Buxton road. It claims to be the highest village in England, sitting at 1518ft in a rather windswept location on the western gritstone moors. Winter comes early to Flash and lingers long after spring has arrived in more sheltered places.
Flash was a tough place to live with farmers only scraping a living from the land itself and having to find extra employment in local mills or from mining coal beneath the bleak moors. Most of the old farmsteads are now private houses. The main part of the village consists of weather beaten cottages and a church clustered together on the side of Oliver Hill. There is also a pub called the New Inn and a village school.
Prize fighting was once a popular past time here, and continued long after it had been made illegal. Fights often took place at Three Shire's Head, a local beauty spot, containing a graceful packhorse bridge and small waterfalls, situated about a mile north west of the village. It is the meeting place of the 3 counties of Derbyshire, Cheshire and Staffordshire, hence its name. Flash was also noted as the centre for counterfeiting money, which became known as 'flash' from its place of origin.
The river Dane rises nearby, flowing south west to Gradbach and Danebridge in a more sheltered and delightful setting of trees and meadowland. Gradbach mill use to be a silk mill with a large water wheel fed by water from the river Dane, but it is now a Youth Hostel. Near Gladback, a huge landslide created a deep and narrow gorge high up on the hillside. It is known as Lud Church, and was used as a meeting place for religious dissidents many centuries ago.
