hi there ,I live 10 minutes drive from the blue john mines .I lived in the actual village where the mines are .the place is called castleton .the place is lovely .it gets very busy in the summer .the winters are bad here .only 2 weeks ago our village was cut off with snow ,yet they did not have any 4 miles away . .they have a lot of shops full of blue john . .the caves are fantastic ,i went down them all when i could see .donna