It isn't really far from Derby to Whitby - 3 hours or so - but even so we decided to stop en route at Brodsworth Hall near Doncaster. It's a really convenient place to break the journey, just off the A1, and I'm a little surprised we've never visited before.
A Victorian country house, now owned by English Heritage, it has marvelous gardens which range from formal beds and lawns near the house to a temple-style summer house, to a rockery wilderness with tunnels and paths leading up and down the slopes, to woodland and rose gardens (a little past their past when we visited) to a pergola draped in grapevines.
And, of course, there was cake :)
All in all a good way to break the journey - far pleasanter then the motorway services we stopped at on the way home.
