Peak District National Park
The Peak District was designated England's first national park in 1951 and remains one of the most visited in the world, a landscape of extraordinary variety covering approximately 1,438 square kilometres of the southern Pennines that combines the gritstone moorlands and edges of the Dark Peak to the north with the limestone dales and white rock of the White Peak to the south in a contrast of landscape characters that provides an almost unlimited range of walking, cycling and outdoor recreation within easy reach of several large English cities.
The Dark Peak, named for the dark gritstone that underlies the high moorland, is a landscape of severe and dramatic character. The great moorland plateaux of Kinder Scout, Bleaklow and Black Hill, reaching over 600 metres and covered in blanket peat and cotton grass, provide the most challenging and most atmospheric walking in the park, their vast, trackless expanses a contrast to the more developed landscapes of the surrounding towns. The gritstone edges, including Stanage, Froggatt and Curbar, are among the finest rock climbing venues in Britain and provide excellent ridge walking with views over the moorland to the east and the Derwent valley to the west.
The White Peak to the south and centre of the park is a landscape of a quite different character, its limestone dales, ancient meadows and stone-walled farmland creating a pastoral and intimate scenery that is accessible and gentle by comparison with the moorland above. Dovedale, Lathkill Dale and the Manifold Valley are among the finest limestone dales in Britain, their clear streams, wooded slopes and exposed white limestone creating a landscape of delicate beauty that draws walkers and cyclists in great numbers.
The market towns of Bakewell, Buxton and Matlock Bath provide visitor services and historical interest, and the great country houses of Chatsworth, Haddon Hall and Hardwick Hall are all within or on the edge of the park.