Although there is evidence of earlier settlement in the area, Bakewell itself was probably founded in Anglo-Saxon times in the Anglian kingdom of Mercia. The name Bakewell means a spring or stream of a man named Badeca or Beadeca, so deriving from a personal name with the Old English suffix wella. In 949 it was called Badecanwelle and in the 1086 Domesday Book Badequelle.
  Bakewell Parish Church, a Grade I listed building, dates from 920 and has a 9th-century cross in the churchyard. The present building was constructed in the 12th–13th centuries, but it was virtually rebuilt in the 1840s by William Flockton. By Normantimes Bakewell had gained some importance: Domesday Book mentions the town and its church having two priests. motte and bailey castle was built in the 12th century. In the early 14th-century, the vicar was terrorised by the Coterel gang, which evicted him and confiscated his church's money at the instigation of the canons of Lichfield Cathedral.
 A market was established in 1254 and Bakewell developed as a trading centre. The Grade I-listed five-arched bridge over the River Wye was constructed in the 13th century and is one of the few remnants of that period. Another Grade I-listed bridge, Holme Bridge, dates from 1664 and crosses the Wye on the north-eastern outskirts of the town.[8] A chalybeate spring was discovered and a bath house built in 1697. This led to an 18th-century bid to develop Bakewell as a spa town in the manner of Buxton. Construction of Lumford Mill by Richard Arkwright in 1777 was followed by the rebuilding of much of the town in the 19th century.