The Peak District National Park became the first of it’s type in the United Kingdom when it was designated with national park status in April of 1951.
Access to the great outdoors was once outlawed in Great Britain, with it’s acres and acres of unspoilt beauty seen only by the gentry who used it just for shooting trips.
In 1932 an organised mass trespass of Kinder Scout by the Young Communist League of Manchester highlighted the need for the general masses to be able to access local beauty spots.
This was followed closely by a mass media campaign organised by the British Rambler’s Society which in turn led to the National Parks legislation of 1949 and then the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, an act which has culminated in each and everyone of us being able to visit places of natural beauty all over the country.
Today the park, which is located within the English counties of Cheshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire along with small portions of south and west Yorkshire, covers an overall area of 555 square miles / 1,437 square km.
The interior of the park, which is renowned for it’s thousand foot high limestone peaks, it’s rounded gritstone escarpments, it’s picturesque dales and valleys and acres of moorland, heathland, pastureland and blanket bogs, is also a haven for wildlife, grouse shooting and as pastureland for sheep.
The park’s periphery is surrounded by the area’s former historic mill towns and industrial cities of Buxton, Manchester, Derby, Holmfirth, Kirklees, Leek and Sheffield. Within the environs of the park are several well known villages and market towns such as Ashbourne famous for it’s mineral water, Bakewell renowned for it’s pudding sometimes called a tart, Castleton famous for it’s many caves, Chatsworth renowned for it’s stately home, Glossop famous for it’s picturesque High Street and the popular Victorian, inland resort of Matlock Bath.
The park’s natural beauty consists of 559 miles / 900 kilometers of rivers, mainly in the form of tributaries of the rivers Ouse, Mersey, Trent, Weaver and Wye. These rivers have carved the many beautiful dales and valleys of the area, the most famous of which are the Derwent Valley, Dovedale, Edale, the Manifold Valley and Monsal Dale, which is famous not only for it’s natural beauty but for it’s imposing, fifty arched, three hundred foot long Headstone Railway Viaduct.
Lakes found in the park include the Howden, Derwent and Ladybower reservoirs, all of which are located in the Upper Derwent Valley and all of which are surrounded by large swathes of man made forestry.
The area’s peaks and escarpments, of which the park was named, includes a large portion of the Pennines, the 1,696 foot / 517 meter high, Mam Tor / Mother Hill, the much photographed Derwent Edge and the area’s highest point and inspiration for the whole national parks movement, Kinder Scout, at 2,087 feet / 636 meters high.
Due to the area’s large swathes of limestone the park is also renowned for it’s many underground caverns and caves and man made mines, the most famous of which are Titan, the deepest cave in Britain at 464 foot / 141.5 meters deep which is located near Castleton, Thor’s Cave located in the Manifold Valley, the Heights of Abraham, which are accessed by way of an exhilarating cable car ride from Matlock Bath, the world famous Blue John Cave and mines and their near neighbours the Speedwell, Poole, Treak Cliff and Peak Caverns, all of which are located in the Hope Valley.
The area’s moorlands include Axe Edge Moor famous for being the site of England’s highest village, Flash in Staffordshire which is located at 1,519 ft / 463 meters above sea level, the aptly named Bleaklow Moor, the Eastern Moors which are noted for their excellent RSPB reserve, the vast moorland plateau of Saddleworth Moor which has gained notoriety due to it's 1960s child murders and the bleak expanse of Stanton Moor, famous for it’s ancient standing stones and megaliths.
As a whole the area is easily accessed by way of several walking paths and bridleways, in fact the country’s very first national walking trail the 268 mile / 431 km long Pennine Way, which was designated in 1965, starts on the park’s northern periphery at Edale.
The park is also renowned for it’s very high but breathtakingly scenic, high peak B roads, which include the 1,680 feet / 510 meter high Snake Pass located between Glossop and Bleaklow, the bleak and rugged terrain which accompanies the Woodhead Pass located between Glossop and Holmfirth, the 1,690 foot / 520 meter high Cat and Fiddle Pass located between Macclesfield and Buxton and the very picturesque environs that surround Winnats Pass, located just outside Castleton in Derbyshire.
ADDRESS – Aldern House, Baslow Road, Bakewell, Derbyshire, DE45 1AE.
TELEPHONE – 01629 816 200.
WEBSITE - www.peakdistrict.gov.uk
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