Peak District
The Peak District is an upland area in central and northern England, lying mainly in northern Derbyshire, but also covering parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, and South and West Yorkshire.
Most of the area falls within the Peak District National Park, whose designation in 1951 made it the earliest national park in the British Isles. An area of great diversity, it is conventionally split into the northern Dark Peak, where most of the moorland is found and whose geology is gritstone, and the southern White Peak, where most of the population lives and where the geology is mainly limestone-based. Proximity to the major conurbations of the North East Midlands, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Greater Manchester, coupled with easy access by road and rail, have all contributed to its popularity. With an estimated 22 million visitors per year, the Peak District is thought to be the second most-visited national park in the world (after the Mount Fuji National Park in Japan).
History
Early History
The Peak District has been settled from the earliest periods of human activity, as is evidenced by occasional finds of Mesolithic flint artefacts and by palaeoenvironmental evidence from caves in Dovedale and elsewhere. There is also evidence of Neolithic activity, including some monumental earthworks or barrows (burial mounds) such as that at Margery Hill. In the Bronze Age the area was well populated and farmed, and evidence of these people survives in henges such as Arbor Low near Youlgreave or the Nine Ladies Stone Circle at Stanton Moor. In the same period, and on into the Iron Age, a number of significant hillforts such as that at Mam Tor were created. Roman occupation was sparse but the Romans certainly exploited the rich mineral veins of the area, exporting lead from the Buxton area along well-used routes. There were Roman settlements, including one at Buxton which was known to them as "Aquae Arnemetiae" in recognition of its spring, dedicated to the local goddess.
Theories as to the derivation of the Peak District name include the idea that it came from the Pecsaetan or peaklanders, an Anglo Saxon tribe who inhabited the central and northern parts of the area from the 6th century AD when it fell within the large Anglian kingdom of Mercia.
Medieval to Modern History
In medieval and early modern times the land was mainly agricultural, as it still is today, with sheep farming, rather than arable, the main activity in these upland holdings. However, from the sixteenth century onwards the mineral and geological wealth of the Peak became increasingly significant. Not only lead, but also coal, copper (at Ecton), zinc, iron, manganese and silver have all been mined here. Celia Fiennes, describing her journey through the Peak in 1697, wrote of 'those craggy hills whose bowells are full of mines of all kinds off black and white and veined marbles, and some have mines of copper, others tinn and leaden mines, in which is a great deale of silver.' Lead mining peaked in the 17th and 18th centuries and began to decline from the mid-19th century, with the last major mine closing in 1939, though lead remains a byproduct of fluorspar, baryte and calcite mining. Limestone and gritstone quarries flourished as lead mining declined, and remain an important industry in the Peak.
Large reservoirs such as Woodhead and Howden were built from the late 19th century onward to supply the growing urban areas surrounding the Peak District, often flooding large areas of farmland and depopulating the surrounding land in an attempt to improve the water purity.
The northern moors of Saddleworth and Wessenden gained notoriety in the 1960s as the burial site of several children murdered by the so-called Moors Murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.
Development of Tourism
The area has been a tourist destination for centuries, with an early tourist description of the area, De Mirabilibus Pecci or The Seven Wonders of the Peak by Thomas Hobbes, being published in 1636. Much scorn was poured on these seven wonders by subsequent visitors, including the journalist Daniel Defoe who described the moors by Chatsworth as 'a waste and houling wilderness' and was particularly contemptuous of the cavern near Castleton known, in typically frank Derbyshire style, as the Devil's Arse (or Peak Cavern). Visitor numbers did not increase significantly until the Victorian era, with railway construction providing ease of access and a growing cultural appreciation of the Picturesque and Romantic. Guides such as John Mawe's Mineralogy of Derbyshire (1802) and William Adam's Gem of the Peak (1840) generated interest in the area's unique geology.
There is a great tradition of public access and outdoor recreation in this area. The Peak District formed a natural hinterland and rural escape for the populations of industrial Manchester and Sheffield, and remains a valuable leisure resource in a largely post-industrial economy. The Mass Trespass of Kinder Scout, the highest point in the Peak District, in 1932 was a landmark in the campaign for national parks and open access to moorland in Britain, at a time when such open moors were strongly identified with the game keeping interests of landed gentry. The Peak District National Park became the United Kingdom's first national park on (17 April 1951). The first National Trail in the United Kingdom was the Pennine Way, which starts from the village of Edale in the heart of the Peak District.
Geography
The Peak District forms the southern end of the Pennines and much of the area is uplands above 1,000 feet (300 m), with a high point on Kinder Scout of 2,087 feet (636 m). Despite its name, the landscape lacks sharp peaks, being characterised by rounded hills and gritstone escarpments (the "edges"). The area is surrounded by major conurbations, including Huddersfield, Manchester, Sheffield, Derby and Stoke-on-Trent.
The National Park covers 555 square miles (1,438 km²) of Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, Greater Manchester and South and West Yorkshire, including the majority of the area commonly referred to as the Peak. The Park boundaries were drawn to exclude large built-up areas and industrial sites from the park; in particular, the town of Buxton and the adjacent quarries are located at the end of the Peak Dale corridor, surrounded on three sides by the Park. The town of Bakewell and numerous villages are, however, included within the boundaries, as is much of the (non-industrial) west of Sheffield. As of 2006, it is the fourth largest National Park in England and Wales. As always in Britain, the designation "National Park" means that there are planning restrictions to protect the area from inappropriate development, and a Park Authority to look after it - but does not imply that the land is owned by the government, or is uninhabited.
12% of the Peak District National Park is owned by the National Trust, a charity which aims to conserve historic and natural landscapes. It does not receive government funding. The three Trust estates (High Peak, South Peak and Longshaw) include the ecologically or geologically significant areas of Bleaklow, Derwent Edge, Hope Woodlands, Kinder Scout, Leek and Manifold, Mam Tor, Dovedale, Milldale and Winnats. The Peak District National Park Authority directly owns around 5%, and other major landowners include several water companies.
Visitor Attractions
The spa town of Buxton was developed by the Dukes of Devonshire as a genteel health resort in the eighteenth century; now the largest town in the Peak District, it has an opera house with a theatre, and a museum and art gallery. Another spa town is Matlock Bath, popularised in the Victorian era. Bakewell is the largest settlement within the National Park; its five-arched bridge over the River Wye dates from the 13th century. Buxton, Matlock and Matlock Bath, Bakewell, Leek and the small towns of Ashbourne and Wirksworth, on the fringes of the Park, all offer a range of tourist amenities.
Historic buildings include Chatsworth House, seat of the Dukes of Devonshire and among Britain's finest stately homes; the medieval Haddon Hall, seat of the Dukes of Rutland; Hardwick Hall, built by powerful Elizabethan Bess of Hardwick; and Lyme Park, an Elizabethan manor house transformed by an Italianate front. Many of the Peak's villages and towns have fine parish churches, with a particularly magnificent example being the fourteenth century church at Tideswell, sometimes dubbed the 'Cathedral of the Peak'. "Little John's Grave" can be seen in Hathersage churchyard.
The picturesque village of Castleton, overshadowed by the Norman Peveril Castle, has four show caves (the Peak, Blue John, Treak Cliff and Speedwell Caverns) and is the centre of production of the unique semi-precious mineral, Blue-John. Other show caves and mines include the Heights of Abraham caves (reached by cable car) at Matlock Bath, and Poole's Cavern at Buxton. The little village of Eyam is known for its self-imposed quarantine during the Plague of 1666.
The Mining Museum at Matlock Bath, which includes tours of the Temple lead mine, and the Derwent Valley Mills (World Heritage Site) and Brindley Water Mill at Leek give insight into the Peak's industrial heritage. The preserved steam railway between Matlock and Rowsley, the National Tramway Museum at Crich and the Cromford Canal chart the area's transport history. The Life in a Lens Museum of Photography & Old Times in Matlock Bath presents the history of photography from 1839.
Well dressing ceremonies are held in most of the villages during the spring and summer months, in a tradition said to date from pagan times. Other local customs include Castleton's annual Garland Festival and Ashbourne's Royal Shrovetide Football, played annually since the 12th century. Buxton hosts two opera festivals, the Buxton Festival and the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, as well as the Buxton Festival Fringe, and the Peak Literary Festival is held at various locations twice a year.
Peak District food specialities include the dessert, Bakewell pudding (very different from the nationally available Bakewell tart), and the famous cheese Stilton, one of whose areas of production is the village of Hartington.
Activities
The Peak District provides opportunities for many types of outdoor activity. An extensive network of public footpaths and numerous long-distance trails (over 1,900 mi/3,000 km in total), as well as large open-access areas, are available for hillwalking and hiking. Bridleways are commonly used by mountain bikers, as well as horse riders. Some of the long-distance trails, such as the Tissington and High Peak Trails, re-use former railway lines; they are much used by walkers, horse riders and cyclists. The Park authorities run cycle hire centres at Ashbourne, Parsley Hay and Ladybower Reservoir. Wheelchair access is possible at several places on the former railway trails, and cycle hire centres offer vehicles adapted to wheelchair users. There is a programme to make footpaths more accessible to less-agile walkers by replacing climbing stiles with walkers' gates.
The many gritstone outcrops, such as Stanage and the The Roaches, are recognised as some of the finest rock climbing sites in the world (see: rock climbing in the Peak District). The Peak limestone also provides many testing climbs. Some of the area's large reservoirs (for example, Carsington Water) have become centres for water sports, including sailing, fishing and canoeing, in this most landlocked part of the UK. Other activities include air sports (hang gliding and paragliding), birdwatching, caving, fell running, greenlaning and orienteering.