It is set in large parklands that are open to visitors and is a Grade II* listed property, as "Ilam Hall and Gardeners Cottage".

This concept was started in the 1800s by Jesse Watts-Russell, who inherited a fortune on the death of his father, a wealthy soap manufacturer.

[8] Ilam became the first community in the United Kingdom to phase out incandescent light bulbs, cutting annual carbon emissions by 4 tonnes.

The initiative was part of the Ilam Climate Change Project, supported by the Marches Energy Agency.

In 1934 Sir Robert McDougal bought the hall and gave it to the National Trust to become a youth hostel and it is still run as such today.

Its most ancient jewel is the wonderful font, so old that it is Saxon or Norman, the round bowl carved with humans and dragons.

St Bertram was an 8th-century son of a Mercian king who renounced his royal heritage for prayer and meditation after his wife and child were killed by wolves.

He is said to have converted many to Christianity, and his shrine became a point of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, it being reputed to be able to work miraculous cures.

In the David Pike Watts Memorial Chapel, built in 1831, is a large sculpture by Sir Francis Chantrey.

The Memorial Window to Josephine Dora Granville is by Ward and Hughes (1884), depicting the presentation of Jesus in the Temple.

Standing as a roundabout at the road junction where a lane branches off towards Blore, this is an ornate gothic-style obelisk of local limestone in the style of an Eleanor Cross.

[16] The venue is farmland owned by and above Casterne Hall just under a mile north of the village, on the plateau about halfway towards Stanshope.