To live in or around the Peak District National Park is an absolute treat. On our doorstep we can experience the delights of the countryside around every corner. Each twist and turn gives glimpses of flowing valleys, majestic stony outcrops, fast running rivers, and colourful moorland. What more could we wish for. Since 1951 this park has been there for us all to enjoy and continues to attract millions of visitors every year. On these pages we are grateful to the Peak District National Park Authority for all the information they have kindly allowed us to use.
75 years ago, the Peak District National Park became the UK’s first national park, designated on 17 April 1951. With the foundations set by a group of pioneering ramblers some 20 years earlier and the work of campaigners, the Peak District eventually paved the way for what would become a UK network of 15 national parks enjoyed today.
Set in the heart of the UK, the Peak District National Park is now home to around 38,000 residents, and attracting 13 million visitors a year – its proximity to countless towns and cities often finding it regarded as the most ‘accessible’ of the national parks in Britain.
This amazing National Park is also a living landscape of ecological, historic and cultural significance. The moorlands play a vital role in capturing carbon, preventing flooding and providing clean drinking water. The 3,000 farms feed the nation. The woodlands, wetlands and wildflower meadows provide vital habitats for nature. The historic buildings and landscapes tell the story of our nation from neolithic burial mounds, Roman invasion, Norman conquest and medieval farmsteads, to the mills, factories and cottages that gave rise to the birth of the industrial revolution!
Phil Mulligan, Chief Executive said: “The Peak District National Park has been here for the last 75 years and we intend to be here, going from strength to strength, for the next 75. This National Park is not just a great place to visit, its critical for national infrastructure, for national security and national health and wellbeing. Over the last 75 years hundreds of millions of people have experienced the awe and wonder of this special place whilst we have helped create nature rich habitats, restored moorlands, reduced flooding, provided clean drinking water and preserved important aspects of the cultural heritage of the nation. I’d like to thank all the staff, volunteers, farmers, land managers, business owners and local communities who have helped make all this happen. It’s a happy birthday for all of us.”
The Peak District will share its birthday accolade alongside the Lake District (May 9), Eryri (October 18), and Dartmoor (October 30).
Look out for a landmark 75th Anniversary Report this July – a major report commissioned by all four UK national parks celebrating their 75th year, calling for policy change and sustainable funding to ensure national parks continue delivering for the nation. Also, don’t miss ‘Unearthed: A Photographic Exhibition’ at the Buxton International Festival, showcasing stunning and rarely seen images from our photographic archive. Find out more about our 75th birthday: https://www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/75
Milestones along the way
2026 – April 17 was the 75th birthday of the Peak District National Park.
2019 – Millers Dale Station is refurbished and opened as a café and information point for the Monsal Trail.
2019 – 70 years since the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act.
2019 – The Peak District National Park Foundation is registered.
2017 – South West Peak Landscape Partnership is launched and Castleton visitor centre re-opens as the flagship centre for the National Park with new museum and café facilities.
2016 – €16M MoorLIFE 2020 project gets underway to conserve and protect the Peak District and Pennine moors.
2015 – Peak District voted one of England’s top ten places in RTPI awards based on the role planners played in helping create, protect or shape them.
2012 – The tunnels on the Monsal Trail are re-opened.
2004 – 50th anniversary of the Peak District National Park’s Ranger Service. The Peak District is the first area to introduce Open Access under the CRoW Act. Access land in the National Park doubles to 550 square km.
2003 – Moors for the Future Partnership is set up to restore and protect the high moorlands. National park rangers assist the fire services to fight serious moorland fires, mainly around Kinder and Bleaklow.
2001 – On 17 April, The Peak District National Park celebrates its 50th anniversary. National outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease has a big impact on Peak District communities. The Peak District Environmental Quality mark is set up to demonstrate sustainable businesses reducing impact on the environment and supporting communities.
2000 – Countryside and Rights of Way (CRoW) Act gives walkers rights to roam on more areas of the national park in open countryside.
1995 – Thornhill Trail is opened.
1993 – Langsett Barn opens as a briefing centre, information centre and community centre providing improved facilities for the north-east corner of the park.
1991 – The 40th anniversary of the national park is significant for the increase in access land on the eastern side of the park. Agreements are reached with Chatsworth Estates covering the moors above the parkland and with Sheffield City Council for 2,073 acres of Houndkirk, Burbage and Hathersage moors. The total access area is now 81 square miles (half the total area of open country in the park).
1987 – The Festival of National Parks takes place at Chatsworth in September. This was attended by Princess Diana and 15,000 people, and was without doubt the largest public event ever held by the National Park.
1984-1987 – The Countryside Commission-sponsored National Parks Awareness Campaign runs between 1984 and 1987 including the Cave Dale Rally (1986) and Artists in National Parks project (1987).
1984 – The largest holding of land to date is brought into the ownership of the national park when the 2,509-hectare Eastern Moors Estate was purchased from Severn Trent Water in order to provide access, and also safeguard ecological and archaeological sites.
1982 – The 50th anniversary of the Kinder Mass Trespass.
1981 – The Wildlife and Countryside Act is passed, the first comprehensive protection of listed species and habitats, and includes conservation schemes like Countryside Stewardship. Severn Trent Water in partnership with the then Peak Park Joint Planning Board pioneered the opening of Ladybower Reservoir and the removal of roadside fences. The Monsal Trail is opened.
1979 – The Peak District National Park rangers celebrate their 25th anniversary.
1976 – The Peak District suffers drought and many devastating moorland fires around the National Park.
1974 – The Sandford Committee recommends that national parks should have larger budgets and more staff.
1973 – High Peak Trail is opened.
1971 – The Peak District National Park Authority purchased the Stanage-North Lees estate and opened the Tissington Trail as a traffic-free route for walkers, cyclists, and horse riders.
1968 – The Countryside Act is passed, imposing a duty on every minister, government department and public body to have “due regard for conserving the natural beauty and amenity of the countryside”.
1965 – On 24 April, 30 years on the Pennine Way is opened. The country’s first national trail, it stretches 256 miles from Edale to Scotland – crossing Kinder Scout and Bleaklow.
1960 – Fieldhead information centre opens in Edale.
1957 – Brecon Beacons, the last national park designated by the 1949 Act, is established.
1954 – The Peak District National Park’s Ranger Service is set up and the first ranger, Tom Tomlinson, is appointed to work as a warden in the Peak District in January. The Voluntary Warden Service is launched on Good Friday. Wardens are trained to help people appreciate the countryside.
1951 – The Peak District is the first national park to be set up in Britain. The desingation on 17 April brings the start of protracted negotiations leading to the first access agreements in the country for the public to walk on private moorland. The Lake District, Snowdonia and Dartmoor National Parks also designated this year.
1949 – On 16 December, the government passes the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act setting up the Countryside Commission, the Nature Conservancy Council (now both Natural England) and ten national parks.
1947 – The Hobhouse Report suggests 12 potential national parks. The new Town & Country Planning Act sets up a land-use planning system which includes national parks.
1945 – John Dower publishes his report on national parks. The Dower Report suggests how national parks could work in England and Wales. A new Labour government sets up the Committee on National Parks, chaired by Sir Arthur Hobhouse.
1932 – On Sunday 24 April, 400 ramblers gather at Bowden Bridge Quarry, Hayfield to trespass on Kinder Scout. Protesters are met by gamekeepers and scuffles break out. Arrests are made and five men are imprisoned. After the skirmish the demonstrators continued along the path through William Clough and are joined by Sheffield ramblers who had walked via Kinder and Edale Cross. The whole group then walked along the Hayfield to Snake footpath to its highest point where they hold the “victory” meeting. The Rights of Way Act is passed.
1931–1932 – A change of government and a severe financial crisis means Addison’s recommendations are put on hold.
1931 – The Addison Report recommends there should be a National Parks Authority to select the most appropriate areas.
1930s – Proposals to make Dovedale the first national park. The depression created mass unemployment and, for many people, the only release was to get out into the countryside for cheap and healthy exercise. The northern moors were strictly preserved for grouse shooting and this led to demands for access and protest meetings in the Winnats Pass at Castleton and elsewhere.
1929 – Ramsay MacDonald sets up enquiry to investigate whether national parks would be a good idea.
1880s–1900s – During Queen Victoria’s reign, people’s interest in rambling was growing. Several clubs that still exist today were formed such as the Manchester YMCA Rambling Club (1880) and the Yorkshire Rambler Club (1900).
1876 – Hayfield and Kinder Scout Ancient Footpaths Association is formed. The right to roam movement has begun.
1872 – The world’s first national park is established at Yellowstone, USA.
1865 – The Commons and Open Spaces Society is formed.
1810 – Wordsworth describes the Lake District as “a sort of national property, in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy”.
1725 – Daniel Defoe claims the High Peak is “the most desolate, wild and abandoned country in all England”.
1600s to 1860 – Parliamentary Enclosure Acts “fence off” half of England’s countryside.
What is the Peak District famous for?
Caves Blue John stone, which is found in Blue John and Treak Cliff caverns in Castleton and is made into jewellery and ornaments.
Caves – Castleton. Blue John Cavern is famous for stalagmites and stalactites. The tallest cave in the Peak District is Titan Shaft in Castleton which, at 464ft (141.5 metres), is taller than the London Eye.
The Peak District National Park hosts the starting point at the southern end of the Pennine Way, Britain’s oldest long-distance national walking trail, at Edale. Completed in 1965, it stretches 268 miles from the Nag’s Head pub in Edale to the Border Hotel, Kirk Yetholm, Scotland.
The Millstones Logo
The millstone is the emblem of the Peak District National Park. It features in our boundary markers (several feet high) on key gateway routes into the National Park and in our logo.
Their current basic form can be traced to before the Norman Conquest (1066). Corn mills are recorded in the Domesday Book of 1068.
Quarrying for grit stone was first recorded in the area in the 12th and 13th centuries, though archaeological evidence suggests that mill stone production began during the Roman period.
Extraction continued into the 19th century, with stone used for a variety of purposes including grinding corn, sharpening tools in industrial centres such as Sheffield and crushing timber for wood pulp as far away as Scandanavia.
The millstone has changed over the centuries. A mushroom-shaped conical stone is an earlier shape that appears to be peculiar to the Peak District and may be medieval in origin. The more familiar wheel-like cylinder shape was produced in the 18th and 19th centuries and these millstones were used to grind grain such as oats, barley and rye.
At Millstone Edge, near Hathersage, you can see the remains of old millstones abandoned after cheaper imports became available. The stones were used by the Sheffield cutlery industry, and also to sharpen steel wire into needles and pins.
Farming
Millions of years ago the Peak District was a tropical lagoon. The fossils of tiny sea creatures can be seen today, even at the highest peaks of the National Park.
The Peak District was first farmed for sheep, cattle and crops 6,000 years ago. You can still see traces of fields and terraces cultivated in Roman times. By the end of the 20th century there were around half-a-million sheep, cattle and pigs in the Peak District.
The name ‘Peak’ does not in fact relate to the region’s uplands, but is thought to derive from the Pecsaetan, an Anglo-Saxon tribe which settled in the area.
The lead for white paint in Vermeer’s painting of Girl with a Pearl Earring came from the Peak District.
Peveril Castle in Castleton is one of England’s earliest Norman fortresses. The stone keep was built by Henry II in 1176 and is now managed by English Heritage.
Thousands of years of human influence can be seen throughout the National Park – in walls and field patterns, buildings, lanes, villages and former railways as well as prehistoric features such as burial mounds and stone circles.
London’s landmark Nelson’s Column wasn’t the first memorial to the Battle of Trafalgar. In 1810 Peak District residents erected an impressive obelisk on Birchen Edge near Baslow. Three massive rocks close by – said to resemble ships’ prows – are inscribed with the names Victory, Defiant and Soverin.
Sir Richard Arkwright – one of the most important figures in the Industrial Revolution – built an unusual home in the style of a castle at Cressbrook. From here you can walk along the side of the river to the wonderfully named Water-cum-Jolly Dale.
Film and Literature
The Dark and White Peaks form the backdrop to murder and mystery in crime novelist Stephen Booth’s worldwide best-selling novels.
The area has inspired writers for generations, from Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte to William Wordsworth, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and current writer Berlie Doherty.
Charlotte Bronte stayed at North Lees Hall, Hathersage, in 1845 as guest of the Eyre family. North Lees appears in the novel Jane Eyre as Thornfield.
Jane Austen based her novel Pride and Prejudice in Bakewell and Chatsworth. Chatsworth House was her inspiration for Mr Darcy’s magnificent Pemberley.
A TV series of Pride and Prejudice – featuring Colin Firth as dashing Mr Darcy – was filmed in the Peak District in 1995 and cameras returned for a feature film, starring Keira Knightley, in 2005.
In 1943, the RAF’s 617 squadron trained over Derwent and Howden reservoirs as they prepared to unleash Barnes Wallace’s bouncing bomb on Germany’s Ruhr Valley dams. In 1954 the bombers returned – along with leading actors Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd – in classic film The Dam Busters.
A few facts…
The Peak District was the first of Britain’s 15 national parks and was designated on 17th April, 1951.
It covers 555 sq miles (1,438km) in the heart of England (that’s about the size of Greater London).
The Peak District reaches into five counties: Derbyshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.
It is the most accessible national park – close to the cities of Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham and Derby.
The Peak District is made up of impressive gritstone edges (Dark Peak), steep limestone dales (White Peak) and rolling hills and farmland (South West Peak).
The highest point is Kinder Scout at 2,086ft (636 metres).
The Peak District welcomes more than 13 million people each year.
An estimated 20 million people live within an hour’s travel time of the Peak District.
Unlike many of the world’s National Parks, which are wilderness areas, the Peak District is a true ‘living landscape’, home to 38,000 people (an IUCN ‘Category 5’ National Park).
Visitors come to enjoy walking, climbing, cycling, mountain biking, caving, angling, nature-watching, photography, gliding, visiting historic houses, country pubs and tearooms.
The nationally-renowned Pennine Way begins in the Peak District (in the village of Edale) and stretches 268 miles (431km) all the way to Scotland.
The National Park has 202 sq miles of open access land – open to walkers without having to stay on paths – and 1,600 miles of public rights of way (footpaths, bridleways and tracks).
The Peak District National Park Authority owns and manages 34 miles of traffic-free trails, mostly along former rail routes.
Following the coronavirus lockdown, the numbers of those using some of our traffic-free trails to exercise doubled to almost 4,000 a day (nearly 230,000 visits over a three month period).
The Trans-Pennine Trail through the Peak District is part of the E8 European Walking Route, connecting the National Park to the Turkish border – a walk of 2,500 miles!
The introduction of new rights for access in 2004 doubled the amount of moor and heathland open to the public – from 240 to almost 500 sq km.
Rivers and reservoirs
Peak District reservoirs supply surrounding towns and cities with 450 million litres of water each day. Each year, that’s equivalent to a shower for the world’s entire population.
Several rivers flow through the Peak District, the longest being the River Derwent. Others include the Dove, Wye, Manifold, Dane, and Etherow. The rivers support an amazing diversity of wildlife.
Peak District rivers are renowned for their quality. The 17th Century author Charles Cotton described the River Lathkill as “the purest and most transparent stream I ever yet saw, either home or abroad”.
The Peak District has some of the purest natural mineral water in the world, and is famous for brands including Buxton and Ashbourne.
The water is naturally filtered during its long journey through hundreds of metres of porous rock. The water that emerges today from some sources fell as rain up to 5,000 years ago.
In the late 18th Century, the National Park’s rivers supported the industrial revolution by providing power for the world’s first factories – including cotton mills at Calver, Cressbrook, Litton and Lumford.
From the Victorian period, the Peak District was seen as a source of a fresh, clean water for the growing urban conurbations of Sheffield, Manchester, Nottingham, Derby and Leicester.
There are three main reservoirs in the National Park – Derwent, Howden and Ladybower. Howden and Derwent dams were built between 1901 and 1916 of huge millstone grit blocks quarried from Grindleford and transported on a specially built railway line. They are finished with Victorian gothic architectural embellishments including towers, crenulations, arched windows and buttresses.
The dams were built by hundreds of skilled workers who were housed in a specially built village called ‘Tin Town’, of which some traces can still be seen. Ladybower dam was built between 1935 and 1945. Today, the reservoirs are a focus for recreation and conservation interest, as well as continuing to supply the surrounding the towns and cities with clean water.
75 years of extraordinary people
From the spark of an idea amongst a bold and ambitious few, to the inspiring personalities bringing the joy of National Parks to the masses today – people have always been the heartbeat of our protected landscapes.
An impossible task to include everyone who has made a positive impact to this special place, but see below a selection of pioneers who helped make the Peak District what it is today.
Alderman Norman Gratton CBE (1889-1982) – ‘Man of the people’
Ethel Haythornthwaite (1894–1986) – Environmental campaigner
Fred Heardman BEM (1896-1973) – First unofficial information officer
John Dower (1900-1946) – The Father of UK National Parks
Pauline Dower (1905-1988) – A National Parks commissioner
Tom Tomlinson (1908-1995) – First warden
Benny Rothman (1911-2002) – Leader of the Kinder Mass Trespass
Harold ‘Harry’ Brunt MBE (1919-1980) – Deputy Peak District National Park Officer 1951 to 1980
John Foster CBE (1920-2020) – Peak planning pioneer 1951 to 1968
George Challenger (1937-2021) – Local historian, naturalist and former National Park landscape architect
Dr Derek Yalden, BSc PhD (1940-2013) – Naturalist
John Thompson (1948-2022) – Champion of access and recreation
