than a loss, for these effects tend to heighten the distinctive character of each designated area. Each national park bears the impress of its cultural history and this, taken in relation to the physical conditions gives it a high degree of regional individuality which it would not otherwise possess. It is for this reason that the national parks of Britain offer such impressive contrasts in landscape.
THE PEAK NATIONAL PARK
The upland region traditionally known as the Peak District, which forms part of the southern Pennines, has special claims to rank among the earliest of the national parks established in Britain. It was in fact the first to be designated, in December, 1950, although the Lake District and Snowdonia were included shortly afterwards. On grounds of the quality of its scenery alone its claim was irrefutable. The vast open moorlands which spread out from the massive summit of Kinderscout, the green dales of Dovedale and the Manifold Valley, the rocks and caves like those around Castleton and the glistening trout streams such as the Dove and the Wye, have long been enjoyed by large numbers of visitors from all parts of the country. Above all, The Peak has been cherished by the thousands of ordinary people, young and old, from the industrial towns of the Midlands and the North, who find recreation and adventure in the attractions it offers.
Like the National Parks movement as a whole, the promotion of such a park in the Peak District owes much in the first instance to voluntary bodies. Among these the Sheffield and Peak District Branch of the C.P.R.E. has been particularly active. More than any other body it was responsible for the idea in the first place, and from 1939 it has undertaken a great deal of pioneer work, including the preparation of a preliminary map of the boundaries. No less than ten thousand copies of the booklet entitled The Peak District a National Park, published in 1944, have been sold. Today, even though the Peak Park is now an accomplished fact, continued vigilance on the part of such bodies is perhaps more than ever necessary. An illustration of this is seen in the recent proposal to build a motor road along the Manifold Valley, a scheme which was happily defeated, again largely through the protests of the Sheffield C.P.R.E. supported by many other like-minded persons and societies.
From the standpoint of its geographical position the claim of The Peak to become a national park was particularly strong, for nearly half the population of England live within 50 miles of its boundary. Not only do the large cities of Manchester and Sheffield virtually adjoin it, but many other industrial centres of South Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Potteries are only a short distance away. Less than 60 miles away are Liverpool and the rest of Merseyside, while Birmingham and the Black Country, Leicester, Hull and Tees-side are all within 75 miles. Moreover, of all the national parks so far created, The Peak is the nearest to London and the most accessible from it by rail or road. The proximity to the park of such a large population has an important bearing upon its use by the public and hence upon problems of management. It can be approached from all directions and is frequented, at all seasons of the year, especially by people from the nearby industrial centres.
Popular claims to The Peak as an amenity area are further supported by the variety of interest which it offers to the more serious observer such as the naturalist, geologist, geographer, and archaeologist. The Peak is a part of highland Britain, yet is readily accessible from the lowland zone. As such, in its natural (including biological) features and its cultural forms, it exhibits elements of both environments. Its distinctive physical composition and its rich cultural legacy combine to form a regional complex with a character entirely its own. To both the week-end rambler and the holiday-maker with an inquiring mind the area affords a rewarding field for observation and study in the open air. To the naturalist in particular it is significant for its examples of true mountain and northern moorland habitats.
The attractions of The Peak have long been recognised by travellers from other parts. They gave rise to a literary cult rather similar to that inspired by the Lake District, though it may well have begun at an earlier date. In 1636 Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher and author of Leviathan, published his poem De Mirabilibus Pecci (Concerning the Wonders of The Peak), describing in ponderous hexameters the outstanding features of Derbyshire. Provided with an English translation in similar verse form, the poem became widely known and was reprinted several times in the next fifty years. Izaak Walton, whose delightful treatise The Compleat Angler (1653) offered pleasant instruction in the art of fly-fishing, shared with Charles Cotton of Beresford, with whom he pursued this quiet sport, a lasting affection for the Dove, the Wye and other Derbyshire streams. Though not accessible to visitors, the Fishing House overlooking the Dove, which Cotton built in 1674 to serve as an idyllic retreat, still stands. With their monograms inscribed over the door it bears witness to the long friendship between these two men. Cotton, besides being devoted to country pursuits, was influential both locally and in London and drew the attention of numerous friends to the scenic attractions of the Derbyshire-Staffordshire border, and in 1681 issued The Wonders of The Peak, a eulogistic poem much in the vein of Hobbes. Really in the nature of a guide, its true object is perhaps revealed by the fact that it was published in Nottingham and sold by the booksellers of York, Sheffield, Chesterfield, Mansfield, Derby and Newark, all of them places from which visitors might be expected to start their journeys into the region. Later on Celia Fiennes, a shrewd and observant traveller, describes in her Northern Journey, made in 1697, the route through Derbyshire, visiting each of the seven wonders in turn as if to do so were already the conventional tour. To the eighteenth-century writers, who almost invariably depicted the notable features of the area in exaggerated terms, six of the seven acknowledged wonders were natural features while the other was the Duke of Devonshire’s great mansion at Chatsworth. Its accepted place in the list is probably due to its inclusion by Hobbes as a compliment to his patron. Not everyone at this time held such favourable views, for Daniel Defoe in his Tour through Great Britain (1778) denounced Derbyshire as “a howling wilderness.” It was left to Edward Rhodes in the early nineteenth century, however, to establish for The Peak a lasting reputation as an area of beautiful scenery with many attractions for the tourist. His book on Peak Scenery (four volumes: 1818–23), splendidly illustrated by the artist and sculptor Sir F. L. Chantrey, R.A., who was a native of Derbyshire, was widely read and thus helped to make the area known to people from more distant parts of the country. The discovery of The Peak by visitors from outside was soon to be facilitated by the early railways. The new mode of travel brought the lovely scenery within reach of people belonging to all sections of the community, just as a century or more previously the fashionable spa at Buxton had attracted the well-to-do.
Recently, work by Mr. R. W. V. Elliott has revealed the existence of a literary association of a very different kind. By relating descriptions given in the text to actual topographical features, Mr. Elliott has shown that in all probability the Staffordshire portion of The Peak between Leek and Macclesfield, which now falls within the National Park, provided the setting for much of the famous medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The site of the castle of the Green Knight, to which Sir Gawain came, can be identified as that occupied by Swythamley Hall. Though the castle was evidently fictitious, Swythamley itself was certainly a hunting lodge in medieval times and came to be part of the endowment of the abbey of St. Mary and St. Benedict of Dieulacres near Leek, with which the origin of the poem may be connected. The Green Knight’s hunting grounds can be traced across the Roaches towards Flash and northwards beyond the headstreams of the Dane. The Green Chapel sought by Sir Gawain is doubtless the curious rock-chamber known to Dr. R. Plot, the seventeenth-century Staffordshire historian, as Lud’s Church and still named as such on present-day maps. (There is a tradition that the chapel served as a refuge for Lollards.) From the evidence it is clear that the author of Sir Gawain was not only minutely acquainted with this district but possessed a remarkable eye for detail and an exceptional capacity for precise description. It is to be hoped that further research will lead to a closer knowledge of the unknown poet of the fourteenth century whose work surely ranks with that of Chaucer.
In size The Peak National Park, covering 542 square miles, is not so large as those of the Lake District and Snowdonia, though it is larger than any of the others. It occupies a considerable part of the county of Derbyshire, together with adjoining portions of Staffordshire
