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About the Peak District

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Sandwiched between the northern industrial conurbations of Manchester and nearby Sheffield in South Yorkshire, the Peak District was one of the first of England's national parks - established to protect an area of exceptional natural beauty from environmental threats posed by these nearby cities.

The Peak District National Park begins just to the south of the village of Holmfirth and the Kirklees area of West Yorkshire's Bronte Country

Here the scenery is predominantly of Millstone Grit, an almost black Pennine sandstone seen across the moors of Holme Moss, Longdendale, and Kinder Scout. This area is known as "The Dark Peak"...

To the south of Kinder Scout the geology is of limestone, with lush pastoral valleys, gorges and caves cutting across these hills - which form the southern-most reach of the Pennine Hills (the geographer's familiar "Backbone of England"). [Indeed, Britain's longest long distance footpath - Pennine Way - begins here at Edale on its 250 mile journey northwards through West Yorkshire's Bronte Country and The Yorkshire Dales en route to Kirk Yetholm - just across the Scottish border.]

Places to visit in the heart of the Derbyshire Peak District include Castleton (famous for its show caves - the Blue John Mine and Caverns, Treak Cliff Cavern, the flooded Speedwell Mine and Cavern, and Peak Cavern, with its spectacular yawning enterance at the head of a limestone gorge beneath Peveril Castle - from where the village gets its name), the spa town of Buxton (famous for its mineral water and Poole's Cavern), Matlock Bath and the Heights of Abraham, and at the southern end towards Chesterfield the beautiful deep valley and hills of Dovedale and the Tissington Spires - an area known as the "White Peak"...

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