trait is one of restrained menace. The land broods, waiting for an excuse to show its dark side, often suddenly from nowhere and in a most brutal way. There is a reason why seven Mountain Rescue teams surround the Dark Peak, which alone is enough of a warning to any walker to treat the area with respect.
The Dark Peak is fringed with gritstone edges that look out across wide valleys to high peat moorland. It is famous for two things. The first is gritstone, coarse sandstone laid down between 360 million and 300 million years ago when the area was a vast river delta. The gritstone forms long high edges, a Mecca for climbers, and outcrops that give walkers superb viewpoints across wide valleys to the high moors beyond. The second feature the Dark Peak is famous for is encountered by all who venture onto the high moors: peat. In summer, it takes the form of a dark chocolate brownie that has a gentle bounce which makes a gait slightly comical. In wet weather it is an entirely different matter. Chocolate fondant is perhaps an appropriate description. Peat, when saturated, still maintains its solid appearance, which makes crossing the moors a challenge, especially if you enter a grough, a steep-sided incision from which egress is less than noble. At best you can end up covered in the black ooze up to your knees; at worst it can be up to your thighs.
Peat is one of the Dark Peak’s characteristics
The walks are not just about this incredible landscape. They are also about the human element that lies deep within the Dark Peak. From the Neolithic remains of fire platforms to Bronze Age cairns and burial mounds, we walk in footsteps long ago imprinted into the soft peat. It is an area that has witnessed murder, with the martyrs at Padley Chapel (Walk 5), mystery at Cutthroat Bridge (Walk 8), and human despair in Hannah Mitchell, who lived a life under such cruelty at Alport Hamlet, yet went on to become a Manchester magistrate and writer (Walk 13). The first national park to be granted this status was the Peak National Park, in April 1951, with those who fought for the Right to Roam frequently at the forefront of the national parks campaign.
Industry has made its mark, first with the peat cutting and then more visibly along the gritstone edges and the quarries producing the famous millstones and the stone for the great dams. War also has played its part, with at least three areas taking part in military training, the most famous being the Dambusters of the Upper Derwent Valley. In the last century the area has been the resting place of many aircraft, the remains of which can still be seen.
The Dark Peak presents a different experience with each season. Autumn invites you to savour the blazing colours of the ancient woodlands around Longshaw, and the smell of the landscape readying for the winter slumber. Then take a winter’s walk on Higger Tor, the wind driving snow horizontally across the moor, the cold biting the cheeks: perhaps you will be lucky enough to experience the thrill of sighting a mountain hare in its white winter cloak. In spring the path up to Grindle Barn from Ladybower has a beautiful meadow full of cornflowers and buttercups. And finally summer beckons, promising long days exploring the groughs of the Kinder Scout plateau, lunch at Crowden Head, reclining on soft sweet-smelling grass, and bathing in the Fairie Pools at Slippery Stones after a hard day’s walking. There are ample opportunities for challenge and character-building, testing navigational skill and self-reliance, and endless moments of pleasure discovering this rich and varied landscape.
I hope you enjoy the walks in this book and that it leads to further exploration of the Dark Peak and some wonderful memories.
Geology
The Peak District is formed mainly of gritstone, which sits above a limestone bed. In the southern part of the Peak District, the White Peak, the gritstone has eroded away leaving the white limestone formed some 360 million years ago now visible on the surface. In the north and on the eastern and western fringes, the gritstone remains in place on the surface giving us the Dark Peak.
The gritstone of the Dark Peak was formed in the Carboniferous Period around 360–300 million years ago at a time of fluctuating sea levels due to ice melt. The gritstone of the Dark Peak, primarily made from sandstone and grit, was laid down when the area was a huge river delta that poured sediment from the north over the smooth limestone rock, resulting in the formation of gritstone rock, often in layers or strata. Between the layers can be found thin seams of shale and coal, formed from decaying plant material during periods of warmer weather.
Gritstone has a coarse surface that is harder than the limestone or shales upon which it sits. Layering of the gritstone deposits has produced horizontal banding while weathering has produced vertical fissures. This gives a distinctive look of long edges running in straight lines, with the edge interspersed with buttresses of horizontal layers separated by vertical cracks, as seen at Stanage Edge. Where harder sandstone deposits are present, erosion has resulted in gritstone tors where the surrounding softer stone has been weathered away. This is seen most clearly on Derwent Edge and Kinder Scout.
The Wheel Stones or Coach and Horses (Walk 12)
The shale formed from mud that lies deeper than the sandstone and grit can be found interspersed within a line of gritstone, the most easily visible being at Mam Tor, where gritstone sits above the shale at the base of the mountain. As shale breaks up easily this makes it a very unstable material and, as in Mam Tor, can produce significant landslips. Thin seams of coal are seldom visible but these remains of plant material laid down during warmer spells of the Carboniferous Period can be seen around Derbyshire Bridge and also in the Longdendale Valley.
Peat, formed from plant material some 10,000 years ago, sits behind the gritstone edges and on the slopes down into the valley at a depth of up to four metres. On the high moorlands the peat has been eroded, producing deep incisions called groughs where it has been eroded down to the underlying bedrock. This came about partially through natural processes but also through deliberate human activity. In the 19th and 20th century drains were cut into the peat in an attempt to make the moors drier for agricultural purposes. The effect of such drainage was to reduce the moors’ ability to hold water and also to take sediment from the moor down into the valleys. New peat could not be generated from rotting material, further reducing the moors’ water-retention abilities and affecting the delicate natural balance of plant and wildlife where drainage had occurred. Along with the peat, the Dark Peak is one of the world’s most important sites for blanket bog. Blanket bog enables the growth of plants such as sphagnum moss, a key plant for the production of new peat. The Moors For The Future Project seeks to reverse the damage caused by moorland peat erosion and promotes the development of new peat by the seeding of grasses, sphagnum moss and other plantlife that will increase the moors’ capacity to produce new peat material. The peat is also a major component of flood defences for the surrounding cities, the moor holding water for longer periods to allow floodwater to disperse without damaging settlements downstream.
Groughs should not be confused with cloughs, which are deeply incised valleys running down the hillside from the plateau above. They invariably have a stream running along the length that is cutting deeper into the hillside; many have waterfalls.
Plants and wildlife
Plant and wildlife within the Dark Peak is diverse. The high moorlands have a wide range of grasses and sedges, bilberry and crowberry and cottongrass, as well as managed bracken and heather. There is little tree cover except for the occasional rowan and conifer. The mountain hare is a common sight, as are grouse, which are heavily managed for sport shooting. Deer are also present on the Eastern Moors. Around the gritstone edges merlins, peregrine falcons, goshawks, hen harriers and buzzards may be spotted. Curlew, golden plover and dippers frequent the moors and valleys, while the common lizard and the adder may be found basking on moorland paths.
Cottongrass
