Peak District National Park
8 videos • 84 views • by Nathan.Manchester The Peak District National Park is an upland area in England at the southern end of the Pennines. It is mostly in northern Derbyshire, but also includes parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire. An area of great diversity, it is mostly split into the Dark Peak, where most of the moorland is found and the geology is gritstone, and the limestone area of the White Peak. The Peak District National Park became the first national park in the United Kingdom in 1951. With its proximity to the cities of Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, Derby and Sheffield, and access by road and rail, it attracts millions of visitors every year. It is estimated that 20 million people live within one hour's journey of the Peak District. Inhabited from the Mesolithic era, evidence exists from the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages. Settled by the Romans and Anglo-Saxons, the area remained largely agricultural and mining grew in importance in the medieval era. Richard Arkwright built his cotton mills at the start of the Industrial Revolution. Quarrying became important as mining declined. Tourism grew after the advent of the railways, visitors attracted by the landscape, spa towns at Buxton and Matlock Bath, Castleton's show caves, and Bakewell, the national park's only town. Tourism remains important for its towns and villages and their varied attractions, country houses and heritage sites. Outside the towns, walking on the extensive network of public footpaths, cycle trails, rock climbing and caving are popular pursuits. The Friends of the Peak District's 190-mile (310 km) Boundary Walk is a new long-distance trail addition. The Peak District is at the southern end of the Pennines and much of the area is upland above 1,000 feet (300 m). Its high point is Kinder Scout at 2,087 ft (636 m). Despite its name, the landscape generally lacks sharp peaks, and is characterised mostly by rounded hills, plateaus, valleys, limestone gorges and gritstone escarpments (the "edges"). The area, mostly rural, is surrounded by conurbations and large urban areas including Manchester, Huddersfield, Sheffield, Derby and Stoke-on-Trent. The national park has a formal boundary and covers most of the Dark Peak and White Peak, but the wider Peak District is less well defined. The Dark Peak is largely uninhabited moorland and gritstone escarpments in the northern Peak District and its eastern and western margins. It encloses the central and southern White Peak which is where most settlements, farmland and limestone gorges are located. Three of Natural England's National Character Areas (NCAs) include the landscape. The Dark Peak NCA includes the northern and eastern parts of the Dark Peak while the White Peak NCA covers most of the White Peak. The western margins of the Dark Peak are in the South West Peak NCA, where farmland and pastured valleys are found as well as gritstone edges and moorland. Outside the park, the wider Peak District is often considered to include the area approximately between Disley and Sterndale Moor, and some of the outer fringes and foothills, including the Churnet and lower Derwent Valleys. The region is mostly surrounded by lowlands with gritstone moorlands of the South Pennines to the north