Derbyshire
The Derbyshire Peak District is a working National Park, with farms, villages and market towns nestled into its rolling hills, wooded valleys and high moorland. Kinder Scout is the highest mountain in the Park, and renowned for the place where in 1932 a large group of walkers formed what became known as the "Mass Trespass". The trespass was a successful attempt to gain access to the high moorlands of the Dark Peak area of the district, which had been previously set aside for exclusive use of wealthy landowners and their guests. Eventually these events led to the Countryside Right of Way (CROW) Act and paved the way for the wonderful rights of way access we enjoy today.
Peak District National Park
The Peak District became one of the first three British National Park in 1951 when the government decided that the people of Britain should get out into the countryside after the horrors of two world wars. It covers 555 square miles, and includes parts of Derbyshire, Greater Manchester, Cheshire, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire.
The National Trust own 12% and within its boundaries there are two mountains, with Kinder Scout at 2,087ft the tallest, and closely followed by Bleaklow at 2,077ft. There are two distinct faces to the Peak District, one being Dark Peak area situated in the north, east and western parts of the Park, with wide open spaces punctuated by clumps of unkempt heather, gloopy bogs and outcrops of black granite –the latter whipped into exotic shapes by centuries of wind and rain. Charlotte Brontë is said to have based Mr Rochester’s house on North Lees Hall, near Sheffield. The other area is the southern White Peak which is surrounded on three sides by the Dark Peak and has limestone caves and lush green valleys filled with iconic mill towns like Matlock and Bakewell, where the renowned Bakewell Tart originated. Some of the most popular day-trip destinations are in the White Peak area, probably the most popular being Dovedale with its riverside trail following the River Dove all the way to the village of Hartington where local cheeses have been sold for decades.