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    The Peak District
    The Peak District
    The Peak District
    Ebook402 pages4 hours

    The Peak District

    By K. C. Edwards

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    A survey of great interest to naturalists and to the thousands of ramblers who visit the Peak District.

    Lying as it does at the heart of industrial England, this area of intimate wooded dales, steep-sided gorges and windswept boggy moorland, is perhaps the most welcome of all Britain's National Parks; certainly, it is the most accessible, for within 75 miles of its border lives nearly half the population of England, and the rich variety of its scenery attracts tens of thousands of visitors yearly.

    This book is the general introduction to the region for naturalists. It presents a concise account of the Peak District's geological structure and history from ancient upheavals to the effects of erosion today – of its woods and wild flowers, its mosses and fungi, birds and fishes, roads and villages and farms, its weather and its rural economy.

    All this is obviously too much for one man to cover expertly, and the author, though he probably knows the geography of the Peak as thoroughly as anyone alive, has drawn freely on the help of his friends and colleagues at Nottingham University. These include notably Professor H. H. Swinnerton, the author of the successful volume on Fossils in this series, and Mr. R. H. Hall, who have provided the geological and botanical chapters respectively.

    To the many thousands of ramblers who visit the Peak District at weekends, summer and winter alike, here is a book by one who has trodden all the paths before them and is able to discover for them interests hitherto unsuspected to enhance their enjoyment. At the same time it is a survey of great interest to naturalists everywhere.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateDec 20, 2018
    ISBN9780007403622
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      Book preview

      The Peak District - K. C. Edwards

      EDITORS’ PREFACE

      THE SITUATION of the Peak District in the heart of England as an island of varied hill land, often of spectacular scenic charm, almost surrrounded by industrial lowland in whose cities and towns, often gloomy and grimy, live a quarter of Britain’s population, made it a natural choice for the first of our National Parks. The old geography books not infrequently referred to the Pennines as the backbone of England and here, at their southern end, the earth’s bony framework of older rocks appears not only at the surface, but towering to heights whose grandeur belie their modest elevation.

      Nottingham is but one of the cities which adjoin the Peak District, but one from which there are natural lines of entry by some of the most charming valleys. Certainly the members of the University of Nottingham have long shown a particular interest in the area—since well before the University College became the University—and it is thus especially appropriate that Professor K. C. Edwards should head a team of his colleagues and friends to act as principal author as well as editor of this composite volume. As Professor of Geography he has spent most of his academic life at Nottingham and, as the pages of that successful journal The East Midland Geographer show clearly, he has done much to encourage the scientific study of the surrounding area, including the Peak District. In this he carries on the tradition established by the octogenarian Professor Emeritus of Geology, the author of the volume on Fossils in the New Naturalist Library, Professor H. H. Swinnerton, who now contributes two of the basic chapters in the present volume.

      Four main rock types dominate the Peak District—coarse sandstones or grits, shales, massive limestones and, less conspicuous, the old volcanic rocks locally known as toad stones. It so happens that these rock types offer very different resistance to the forces of nature and so The Peak has become a region of sharp contrasts—from the intimate wooded dales to the windswept, boggy moorland heights. The habitats afforded are correspondingly rich and varied and so naturally are both plant and animal life and the response of man as farmer. Mineral wealth has added to the variety of man’s responses, so that in addition to its other attractions the Peak District exhibits fascinating fragments of the story of man’s occupation of the area from prehistoric times to the present.

      A region of such difficult relief has long offered a challenge to man—in selecting sites for his settlements, in finding routes for his roads and railways, in utilising the varied scattered resources. Each of these aspects is taken up in turn and we are led to see clearly the competing claims on Peak District land—for farming, grazing, forestry, water supply, recreations, sport, nature conservation and others—and how the solution may lie in the careful application of the principles of multiple use within the framework of a National Park administration.

      Although with the names of K. C. Edwards and H. H. Swinnerton only that of the botanist R. H. Hall appears on the title page, Professor Edwards has been able to incorporate observations by many workers in many fields, and the resulting volume is one which we are confident will have a very wide appeal. As his long association with the Ramblers’ Federation, the Youth Hostels Association and many field bodies will show, Professor Edwards believes the way to see and know The Peak is on foot. His book has thus a special appeal to the legions of ramblers who use the National Park every week-end, winter and summer alike.

      THE EDITORS

      AUTHOR’S PREFACE

      SO MANY books have been written about Derbyshire and the Peak District that there would seem little excuse for adding to them. The reason for doing so lies in the promotion of a National Park in this area some years ago. This timely and widely-acclaimed decision has given official recognition to The Peak as one of the regions of outstanding scenery in Britain. It has also heightened the interest of those who find enjoyment in the open country and of the many people whose inclination is the study of wild nature. To thoughtful and observant people who require something more than the conventional guidebook, it is felt that an account of the present landscape of The Peak, of how it came into being and of the activities it supports, would be of some value. Moreover, the ground covered by this volume extends beyond the limits of Derbyshire, for the territory embraced by the National Park includes portions of several adjoining counties.

      The plan of the book is intended to be simple and logical. The earlier chapters deal with the strictly natural aspects of the area from the story of the rocks to the formation of the present land surface and its vegetation cover. Then Man enters on the scene and the later chapters describe how in different ways Man has imposed, and continues to impose, his cultural imprint upon the setting prepared by Nature. The concluding chapter examines those aspects of The Peak which make it so acceptable to the community as a National Park.

      In preparing the book much help has been given by various authorities on the area which is gratefully acknowledged. Chapters 2 and 3 have been written by H. H. Swinnerton, C.B.E., D.Sc, Emeritus Professor of Geology in the University of Nottingham; Chapter 6, together with parts of Chapters 5 and 7, have been contributed by Mr. R. H. Hall, F.L.S., a specialist on the botany of The Peak, while the section on Fungi has been prepared by Dr. C. G. C. Chesters, Professor of Botany in the University of Nottingham. Mr. F. A. Sowter assisted with the section on Lichens. For the remaining chapters, two sources of information have proved invaluable. These are the unpublished thesis, The Peak District National Park: a regional study of an amenity area, by Mr. G. J. Mosley, M.A., of the University of Nottingham, and The Report and Analysis of Survey of the Peak Park Development Plan by John Foster, A.R.I.B.A., M.P.T.I., Planning Officer to the National Park Planning Board. Two local publications were also extensively used, the Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (annually) and The Derbyshire Countryside (bi-monthly) of the Derbyshire Rural Community Council.

      In preparing the Appendices on Bird Life and Fish Life in the Peak District I have been helped by Mr. E. L. Jones of the University of Nottingham, Mr. C. M. Swaine of the British Ornithologists’ Union and by Major J. I. Spicer, M.B.E., Chief Pollution and Fisheries Officer to the Trent River Board. I am most grateful to them, and also to Miss D. A. Clarke, Sub-Librarian at the University of Nottingham, for her kind assistance in assembling material and compiling the index.

      Moreover, to the many friends and acquaintances who have generously made available their special knowledge of The Peak and to the numerous countryfolk encountered on the moors and in the dales who unwittingly contributed by their ready and forthright response to questions, grateful thanks are expressed.

      K. C. EDWARDS

      CHAPTER 1

      INTRODUCTORY: THE FIRST NATIONAL PARK

      By the side of religion, by the side of science, by the side of poetry and art stands natural beauty … the common inspirer and nourisher of them all.

      G. M. TREVELYAN, O.M.

      NATIONAL PARKS are tracts of country of outstandingly attractive scenery which are specially protected against adverse change and reserved for public enjoyment. In a country like our own, in which a high proportion of the population is concentrated in large cities and industrial districts, there is a real need for the setting aside of particular areas where townsfolk may find relief from the pressing throng and enjoy open-air recreation amid surroundings which bring them close to Nature. In national parks, moreover, the preservation of natural scenery is safeguarded as well as the surviving haunts of wild life. Indeed, for the study of living forms in their natural environment, whether plant, insect or animal, such areas are of special scientific value.

      NATIONAL PARKS IN BRITAIN

      Although the provision of national parks in Britain is a recent development, the idea of reserving selected areas of our finest landscape for the enjoyment of the public is by no means new. It stems in fact from the ideas connected with social betterment arising from conditions in the nineteenth century. The movement for national parks began well over half a century ago but not until the closing stages of the second world war did it gain official recognition.

      In other countries national parks of various kinds have long been in existence, one of the earliest being the famous Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, established in 1872. Like others which followed it in America, this great reserve was dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people, words which expressed the aspirations of many who later advocated similar projects in our own country. In a long-settled, densely populated land like Britain, however, with much of its surface under private ownership, the problem of public access to areas of scenic attraction has provided a formidable obstacle to the realisation of such hopes. The contrast between the old and new countries in this respect was clearly demonstrated in 1885 by two events. In that year, within the space of a few months, James Bryce’s Bill to give access to mountains in Scotland was rejected by Parliament at home, yet a proposal to create the Banff National Park in the Rockies was accepted by the Government of Canada without opposition. But Bryce’s attempt marked the beginning of a long campaign for the acceptance of the national park idea. Apart, however, from an inquiry made by the Addison Committee in 1931 and the passing of the Access to Mountains Act in 1939, the provisions of which were made inoperative by the second world war, little progress was made until recent years.

      Meanwhile voluntary bodies had given active support to the movement and the effect on public opinion contributed much towards ultimate success. In 1935 two of the leading organisations, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and the similar body for Wales, set up a Standing Committee for National Parks, which included representatives of many supporting interests. The Standing Committee worked unremittingly and proved a valuable instrument for educating the public and arousing interest among widely different sections of the community.

      During the war, when much thought was devoted to post-war planning and reconstruction, the case for national parks was repeatedly stressed. Official publications such as the Report of the Scott Committee on Land Utilisation in Rural Areas (1942) and the White Paper on Control of Land Use (1944) gave firm support to their formation, while the Report on National Parks (1945) prepared by John Dower for the Minister of Town and Country Planning, by its cogent argument and its deep personal conviction, at last set the course for realisation. The Dower Report was followed by a detailed investigation resulting in the Hobhouse Report on National Parks (1947), of which the chief recommendations formed the basis of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act passed two years later. Indeed, so favourable had become the climate of opinion that the Act was passed without a single vote against it in either House.

      Briefly, the Act of 1949 provided for the setting up of a National Parks Commission which is responsible for the designation of each individual park in England and Wales and for advising the particular authority chosen to administer it. The park authority, consisting largely of representatives from the existing local authorities within whose areas the park falls, undertakes the management and planning of the park. Other provisions of the Act dealt with important issues affecting public rights of way, access to open country and wild life protection. A further measure (under section 87) permitted the designation of smaller areas of outstanding natural beauty, not as national parks but as areas requiring the assistance of the Act in the interests of nature preservation and the protection of wild life. Several of these have already been designated, such as the Gower Peninsula and the Quantock Hills, and it is likely that many more will be added.

      As a result of the Act, ten national parks have so far been established, of which the Peak District was the first. The others are the Lake District, Snowdonia, Dartmoor, Exmoor, the Pembrokeshire Coast, Brecon Beacons, the North York Moors, the Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland. Varying greatly in character and extent, these form a system having an aggregate area of nearly 4,750 square miles, or one-twelfth of the total area of England and Wales. This is surely an achievement which meets the long-felt needs of our highly urbanised people and which at the same time will secure large tracts of unspoilt country from inappropriate and unwarrantable forms of exploitation.

      In Scotland the situation is different. The National Parks Act of 1949 referred only to England and Wales and no equivalent legislation has been passed for Scotland, except that the section of the Act dealing with nature conservation was made applicable to the whole of Britain. The Forestry Commission has nevertheless established a few national forest parks in Scotland, and although these have not the full status of national parks, they offer to the public increased facilities for access and open-air enjoyment.

      The national parks of Britain differ from those of most other countries. To begin with, there are no large areas of wild scenery available for preservation like the huge National Parks of the U.S.A. or the great game reserves of Africa. Instead, the areas designated as parks are all of comparatively small extent and all are inhabited, even though the density of population in most cases is quite low. Again, the greater part of each national park is devoted to some form of economic activity such as farming, forestry and quarrying, thus creating problems of public access which seldom arise abroad. In every case in Britain the functions of a national park are added to an established pattern of economic and social life and must operate in such a way so as not to cause serious interference with existing activities. This circumstance naturally calls for much delicate negotiation in co-ordinating the various interests represented within a national park.

      There is another important difference between our national parks and those abroad. Whereas the latter usually embrace truly natural scenery unmodified by human action, in Britain hardly any such areas remain. The land has been exploited by Man for so long that the results of his activities have profoundly altered the appearance of the surface. Even the natural vegetation has been greatly modified by various agricultural practices as well as by the chance or deliberate introduction of non-indigenous species. Forests have been entirely removed from some areas and have been created in others, while mining and quarrying have left their scars and debris on land once unspoiled.

      In the sense that even our finest scenery, whether mountain, moorland or sea-coast, is in part the product of our cultural history, the national parks of Britain are of a rather special kind. In many respects the effects of long-continued human occupation signify a gain rather than a loss, for these effects tend to heighten the distinctive character of each designated area. Each national park bears the impress of its cultural history and this, taken in relation to the physical conditions gives it a high degree of regional individuality which it would not otherwise possess. It is for this reason that the national parks of Britain offer such impressive contrasts in landscape.

      THE PEAK NATIONAL PARK

      The upland region traditionally known as the Peak District, which forms part of the southern Pennines, has special claims to rank among the earliest of the national parks established in Britain. It was in fact the first to be designated, in December, 1950, although the Lake District and Snowdonia were included shortly afterwards. On grounds of the quality of its scenery alone its claim was irrefutable. The vast open moorlands which spread out from the massive summit of Kinderscout, the green dales of Dovedale and the Manifold Valley, the rocks and caves like those around Castleton and the glistening trout streams such as the Dove and the Wye, have long been enjoyed by large numbers of visitors from all parts of the country. Above all, The Peak has been cherished by the thousands of ordinary people, young and old, from the industrial towns of the Midlands and the North, who find recreation and adventure in the attractions it offers.

      Like the National Parks movement as a whole, the promotion of such a park in the Peak District owes much in the first instance to voluntary bodies. Among these the Sheffield and Peak District Branch of the C.P.R.E. has been particularly active. More than any other body it was responsible for the idea in the first place, and from 1939 it has undertaken a great deal of pioneer work, including the preparation of a preliminary map of the boundaries. No less than ten thousand copies of the booklet entitled The Peak District a National Park, published in 1944, have been sold. Today, even though the Peak Park is now an accomplished fact, continued vigilance on the part of such bodies is perhaps more than ever necessary. An illustration of this is seen in the recent proposal to build a motor road along the Manifold Valley, a scheme which was happily defeated, again largely through the protests of the Sheffield C.P.R.E. supported by many other like-minded persons and societies.

      From the standpoint of its geographical position the claim of The Peak to become a national park was particularly strong, for nearly half the population of England live within 50 miles of its boundary. Not only do the large cities of Manchester and Sheffield virtually adjoin it, but many other industrial centres of South Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Potteries are only a short distance away. Less than 60 miles away are Liverpool and the rest of Merseyside, while Birmingham and the Black Country, Leicester, Hull and Tees-side are all within 75 miles. Moreover, of all the national parks so far created, The Peak is the nearest to London and the most accessible from it by rail or road. The proximity to the park of such a large population has an important bearing upon its use by the public and hence upon problems of management. It can be approached from all directions and is frequented, at all seasons of the year, especially by people from the nearby industrial centres.

      Popular claims to The Peak as an amenity area are further supported by the variety of interest which it offers to the more serious observer such as the naturalist, geologist, geographer, and archaeologist. The Peak is a part of highland Britain, yet is readily accessible from the lowland zone. As such, in its natural (including biological) features and its cultural forms, it exhibits elements of both environments. Its distinctive physical composition and its rich cultural legacy combine to form a regional complex with a character entirely its own. To both the week-end rambler and the holiday-maker with an inquiring mind the area affords a rewarding field for observation and study in the open air. To the naturalist in particular it is significant for its examples of true mountain and northern moorland habitats.

      The attractions of The Peak have long been recognised by travellers from other parts. They gave rise to a literary cult rather similar to that inspired by the Lake District, though it may well have begun at an earlier date. In 1636 Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher and author of Leviathan, published his poem De Mirabilibus Pecci (Concerning the Wonders of The Peak), describing in ponderous hexameters the outstanding features of Derbyshire. Provided with an English translation in similar verse form, the poem became widely known and was reprinted several times in the next fifty years. Izaak Walton, whose delightful treatise The Compleat Angler (1653) offered pleasant instruction in the art of fly-fishing, shared with Charles Cotton of Beresford, with whom he pursued this quiet sport, a lasting affection for the Dove, the Wye and other Derbyshire streams. Though not accessible to visitors, the Fishing House overlooking the Dove, which Cotton built in 1674 to serve as an idyllic retreat, still stands. With their monograms inscribed over the door it bears witness to the long friendship between these two men. Cotton, besides being devoted to country pursuits, was influential both locally and in London and drew the attention of numerous friends to the scenic attractions of the Derbyshire-Staffordshire border, and in 1681 issued The Wonders of The Peak, a eulogistic poem much in the vein of Hobbes. Really in the nature of a guide, its true object is perhaps revealed by the fact that it was published in Nottingham and sold by the booksellers of York, Sheffield, Chesterfield, Mansfield, Derby and Newark, all of them places from which visitors might be expected to start their journeys into the region. Later on Celia Fiennes, a shrewd and observant traveller, describes in her Northern Journey, made in 1697, the route through Derbyshire, visiting each of the seven wonders in turn as if to do so were already the conventional tour. To the eighteenth-century writers, who almost invariably depicted the notable features of the area in exaggerated terms, six of the seven acknowledged wonders were natural features while the other was the Duke of Devonshire’s great mansion at Chatsworth. Its accepted place in the list is probably due to its inclusion by Hobbes as a compliment to his patron. Not everyone at this time held such favourable views, for Daniel Defoe in his Tour through Great Britain (1778) denounced Derbyshire as a howling wilderness. It was left to Edward Rhodes in the early nineteenth century, however, to establish for The Peak a lasting reputation as an area of beautiful scenery with many attractions for the tourist. His book on Peak Scenery (four volumes: 1818–23), splendidly illustrated by the artist and sculptor Sir F. L. Chantrey, R.A., who was a native of Derbyshire, was widely read and thus helped to make the area known to people from more distant parts of the country. The discovery of The Peak by visitors from outside was soon to be facilitated by the early railways. The new mode of travel brought the lovely scenery within reach of people belonging to all sections of the community, just as a century or more previously the fashionable spa at Buxton had attracted the well-to-do.

      Recently, work by Mr. R. W. V. Elliott has revealed the existence of a literary association of a very different kind. By relating descriptions given in the text to actual topographical features, Mr. Elliott has shown that in all probability the Staffordshire portion of The Peak between Leek and Macclesfield, which now falls within the National Park, provided the setting for much of the famous medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The site of the castle of the Green Knight, to which Sir Gawain came, can be identified as that occupied by Swythamley Hall. Though the castle was evidently fictitious, Swythamley itself was certainly a hunting lodge in medieval times and came to be part of the endowment of the abbey of St. Mary and St. Benedict of Dieulacres near Leek, with which the origin of the poem may be connected. The Green Knight’s hunting grounds can be traced across the Roaches towards Flash and northwards beyond the headstreams of the Dane. The Green Chapel sought by Sir Gawain is doubtless the curious rock-chamber known to Dr. R. Plot, the seventeenth-century Staffordshire historian, as Lud’s Church and still named as such on present-day maps. (There is a tradition that the chapel served as a refuge for Lollards.) From the evidence it is clear that the author of Sir Gawain was not only minutely acquainted with this district but possessed a remarkable eye for detail and an exceptional capacity for precise description. It is to be hoped that further research will lead to a closer knowledge of the unknown poet of the fourteenth century whose work surely ranks with that of Chaucer.

      In size The Peak National Park, covering 542 square miles, is not so large as those of the Lake District and

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