Queen of the moorlands

A friend spots me waiting at the bus stop. I say: "I'm going to Leek." What he thinks I'm saying, however, is: "I'm going to leak." He looks alarmed, then sympathetic. "I hope it clears up," he says.

I explain that Leek is an unspoiled – and easily punned-about – market town in Staffordshire. It will feature in a couple of walks and a couple of talks in the forthcoming Peak District Walking Festival. Which will puzzle some.

Mention "Peak District" and most people think instantly of Derbyshire. But the Peak's 555 square miles also stretch across into unjustly-neglected Staffordshire, whose moorlands offer some of Britain's most startlingly wild landscape.

You get a good idea of that landscape from the road down to Leek from Buxton. It passes Flash, England's highest village (1,500ft), with the moors stretching out on the left – broad, sweeping, heathery in season, with long, long views from the top. On the right are The Roaches, jagged dragon's-back outcrops of rock that look as though they might at any moment heave themselves massively into life and roar at you.

It's an exhilarating ride, real top-of-the-world, roof-of-England stuff. "Exposed" is hardly in it. I once took this bus on a blizzard-blasted winter's day. The wind shrieked, the snow lashed horizontally across the road and the driver said, "We'll be lucky if we get back tonight" to no one in particular except an anxious bus-load of passengers.

No such anxieties today, on this sunny early spring morning, with the dry-stone walls still lined by thin strips of the snow that has long melted everywhere else. We pull into Leek – whose horticultural show naturally includes a "Leeks for Leek" section – and take in a bit of history.

The town's most obvious claim on the world's attention is its connection with William Morris, the Victorian critic and designer who, back in the 1870s, was attracted by its then-thriving silk-weaving industry. He inspired many fine Arts and Crafts buildings, some with with even railings and drainpipes that are works of art. And – this the main thing – the buildings have survived.

Lack of money after Leek went into industrial decline headed off planners' blight and corporate cloning and left the town more or less intact. In his late-Seventies Shell Guide to Staffordshire, Henry Thorold praised its "homely, domestic scale" and reckoned that "in character it is a decidedly north-country town". It reminded him of "one of the small textile towns of the West Riding or rural Lancashire". But that doesn't quite capture all its no-nonsense charm and character.

Just look at its main shopping street, climbing the hill from a roundabout dominated by a vast war memorial and a weathered road sign that points to "Potteries": a reminder of another dwindling Staffordshire industry. There are half-timbered buildings, Georgian ones, Victorian and Edwardian ones. It looks like the sort of shopping street which bright-faced children skip along in old Ladybird books.

"If my father came back – and he died 50 years ago – he would recognise this street," says a woman who keeps her name to herself but is probably, I reckon, a retired teacher. "This is a time-stood-still place." That's it. The banks are still banks, not caf-bars, and a grand gold Home and Colonial Stores sign fronts a shop that stretches back for ever, with warrens of rooms packed with Brasso, dog biscuits, garden seeds and padded envelopes.

Leek may call itself "The Queen of the Moorlands", but it's not a pretentious town. You can tell that from the sign outside one of its tearooms: "Free slice of toast with every hot drink between 8am and 11am: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday." Time your visit accordingly.

The town looks as though it has been getting happily on with life for decades, shopping at its local family shops, turning out to talks on "The Private Life of the Hedgehog", without the rest of the world taking much notice. Which is part of its interest – a sort of everyday ordinariness that seems quite extraordinary in the 21st century. "Like Tamworth, 1974," says my wife, who knows about these things. "No, more like Ashby-de-la-Zouch, 1976."

Beside the convivially bustling market hall is the cobbled market place – where we once bought a 1950s' bakelite telephone with a dial that has bewildered friends' children ("You mean you put your fingers in the holes to dial? Cool."). We affect Home Service voices when we answer it.

An astonishing number of antique shops and warehouses now occupy former mills and offices. And there are two fine churches – St Edward's and All Saints – which have ornate screens and altar cloths, gleaming with gold thread and stitched by the Leek Embroidery Society, which Morris encouraged.

St Edward's, at the top of the hill, has a rich Burne-Jones window with Isaiah and Ezekiel waving to each other across the panels and trying to outdo each other with their weird beards. All Saints' Church, at the bottom of the hill, was a favourite of Betjeman's and is apparently even more Burne-Jonesy, but I've always mistimed my visits and found it closed (check with the helpful tourist information office, which stocks stylish walking tour booklets).

Bear in mind that this is a town that starts early. The Leek Oatcake Shop, which pulls in customers from across the Midlands, opens from 5am to 1pm, though they have a lie-in on Sundays and don't open until six. Oatcakes – Staffordshire oatcakes, as big and floppy as Gilbert O'Sullivan's cap – are essential eating here.

I order one at the friendly White Hart Tea Room and it's delicious, filled with mushrooms and melted cheese (bacon, cheese and tinned tomatoes is very popular). It's so huge that it's like trying to eat an eiderdown, never mind a cap. Wonderful comfort food, but it accounts for a mid-afternoon slump that has me dozing long before Buxton on the bus home. I didn't leak, though.

FACTFILE

Leek tourist information: 01538 483741 (www.discoverstaffordshire peakdistrict.com).

Peak District Walking Festival (April 24 to May 9) features 170 events and walks. Information on 01629 583388 (www. visitpeakdistrict.com/walkingfestivals).

YP MAG 10/4/10