Tilting his cap back, Sam Kidd says that his family has lived in Longnor “for generations”. How long would that be, Sam? “Oh,” he says, narrowing his eyes at the next-hill-but-one, “since 1445... and at the same farm.” The Plantagenets have come and gone; the Kidds remain.

Longnor is a sturdy hill-village in the Staffordshire part of the Peak District. It's a little-known corner of a little-known county but has recently had a taste of celebrity culture, thanks to Keira Knightley. She stayed at nearby Hurdlow Grange while filming The Duchess, based partly in the Peak District, and to be released on September 5.

The Peak, Britain's oldest and most popular national park, may be almost synonymous with Derbyshire, but parts are in Cheshire and Yorkshire, and great tracts to the south and west of Buxton are in North Staffordshire, the area known as the Staffordshire Moorlands. Not that you'd know from reading the usually dependable Rough Guide. “The miscellaneous and low-key landscapes of Staffordshire don't enthral too many people,” it sniffs, before moving on to Alton Towers, Lichfield and Stoke-on-Trent.

Low-key landscapes? Take the road down from Buxton to Leek, where winter winds can whip up 3ft snowdrifts in minutes. On the right, near Flash, Britain's highest village (463m), are The Roaches, great jagged outcrops of rock with inspiringly wild moorland sweeping away from them. Farther east, Chrome Hill rears like a gigantic shark's fin over surrounding valleys.

Peak food and lodging in Derbyshire

A stay in a self-catering log cabin encouraged Pip McCormac to get out and forage (very successfully) for food

Peaks, pints and a devil of a walk

A hiker’s guide to Derbyshire mixes robust walks with classic pubs and satanic history. Ian Belcher happily goes with the flow

Reaching the Peak

Vincent Crump taps into ancient arts on a tour through the Peak District

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For the moment, though, my wife and I are exploring off-the-beaten-track Longnor, on a ridge on the Staffordshire-Derbyshire border. Despite a population of only 300, it has a coffee shop, two stores selling everything from parsnips to pear drops, a fish and chip shop-cum-café- and three pubs.

The most imposing of them, the Black Grouse, is a Georgian coaching inn recently refurbished as a small hotel with a widely praised restaurant. Our room looks out over rolling hills and flower meadows criss-crossed by drystone walls and narrow lanes. We have lunch beside the cobbled village square.

Farmers drive past with sheepdogs on their laps. A potato delivery van pulls away. A man unloads half-a-dozen hanging baskets from his car boot. A red tractor trundles one way. A green tractor trundles the other. It's a busy old lunchtime in Longnor.

We explore the village with Sam Kidd and professional guide Cathryn Walton. Up this alley, down that one, across another... all so rugged and tightly packed and dark-stoned that the village would be perfect for a Brontë television adaptation. Paths lead nowhere in particular, except to glorious views dotted with sheep and ramblers.

This was once a thriving little market town with enough work for six tailors. It still has grander buildings than you'd expect in a village and feels like a real working place, even if two-thirds of its residents commute to jobs outside.

Old people sit outside their front doors in the sunshine and wave to Sam as we climb the hill to the churchyard. Here is the gravestone of William Billinge, “born in a cornfield” near Longnor in 1679, died in a cottage 100 yards away, aged 112, after an army career that took him all over the world.

Next morning we drive to Leek, an unpretentious, old-fashioned town with an unspoiled high street, market hall and square. It has plenty of antique shops, some superb Arts and Crafts architecture, and a rich silk history influenced by William Morris.

We have a wonderful sit-down supper at the fish and chip shop, where a woman is ordering scampi, chips and mushy peas to celebrate losing 2lb at her slimming class.

“We had some Australians in recently who said their English friends had told them: ‘If you're coming to England, you must go to Longnor for fish and chips,' so they did,” says the owner Jeanette Naden, battering cod. “Well, we knew people came from Macclesfield and Stalybridge to eat here, but Australia...”

And Keira Knightley? “She didn't come in. Not as far as I know.”

Need to know

The Black Grouse (01298 83205) in Longnor has double rooms from £80, including breakfast.

Further information Staffordshire Moorlands tourist information centre in Leek (01538 483741, www.visitpeakdistrict.com)

Three other “unknown” counties

Northamptonshire

In Northampton, the museum celebrates the town's shoemaking past and 78 Derngate is a draw for admirers of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (01604 838800, www.explorenorthamptonshire.co.uk)

Lincolnshire

Lincoln, with its hilltop cathedral and mix of medieval and modern, is a good base (01522 873213, www.visitlincolnshire.com)

Herefordshire

A county for walking through landscapes of small villages and pleasant hedgerows (01432 268430, www.visitherefordshire.com).

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