Fairfield is located on the A6 road half a mile to the north east of Buxton's town centre, 340m above sea level.

[1] Fairfield is at the head of the narrow dry gorge of Cunningdale, which is part of the Wye Valley Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

[2] The name Fairfield derives from the Germanic faeger feld meaning 'fair open land', because of its good volcanic soil for pasture.

Cistercian monks and Benedictine nuns founded monastic granges at Fairfield in the early 1200s AD (Nunsfield Farm still exists).

In the 13th century Fairfield (being north of the River Wye) was within the Royal Forest of Peak, a hunting ground for the king.

[4] George Kitchen, the Everton, West Ham United and Southampton goalkeeper, was born in Fairfield in 1876.

[13] Buxton and High Peak Golf Club was founded in 1887, after a nine-hole course was laid out on Fairfield Common in 1886.