Hartington is a very pretty village built around a market square, the product of a charter first granted in 1204. The market square is lined by fine stone buildings that give Hartington a very different atmosphere to most Peak District villages (one that attracts the tourists).
My favourite approach to Hartington is from the east, where the B5054 runs down a steep sided dale for a mile and a half, before emerging into the market square. The final approach to the village is particularly fine, running between lines of crags. The village itself sits on the edge of the Dove Valley, at one of the few points where that river doesn't run through a narrow valley. A mile south of Hartington the Dove enters Beresford Dale, and doesn't emerge from a series of dramatic dales for seven miles.
Hartington Hall can be found on the road east out of the village. Now a Youth Hostel (one I have used myself) it was built in 1611 by Robert Bateman, a Hartington man who made his fortune as a London merchant. It was still in his family when it was expanded in the nineteenth century.
Hartington is the home of the only remaining Cheese factory in Derbyshire. Its fine Stilton can be purchased in a cheese shop located on the market square.