Walking in Peakland

The 16 routes in this guidebook cover walking in the central part of Peakland, from 6 miles to over 40, split into regional sections coveing Barlow Vale, Alport Dale, the White Peak and the Cheshire part of the Peak. With detailed background as well as original routes.

When Rambles in Peakland – my first hardback title – first appeared there were few walking guides to the area then in print. Since that time there has been a plethora of publications on the subject, of widely varying content. Many of them simply provide route-finding data with no additional research.

The Peak District, first British National Park and now reputedly the second most visited on earth, got its name from the ‘Pecsaetan’, the colonist tribe who lived here and were first recorded in a seventh-century survey. Certainly it is not a district of ‘peaks’ in the modern sense of the word – few highland areas of Britain have less claim to peaky topography than this one.

The three predominant rocks of Peakland are carboniferous limestone, millstone grit and coal measures. The ancient limestone provides the ‘white peak’ with its white-walled upland and villages, and deep, sometimes dry valleys. The millstone grit provides wilder, loftier country, with steep ‘edges’ and plateaux and warm-coloured farmsteads. The coal measures, especially along the eastern borders of the National Park, have been moulded into typically rolling, verdant, hedge-and-wood, hill-and-vale countryside.

Along with the ‘king of the ramblers’, G.H.B. Ward, I much prefer the millstone grit and coal measures scenically and for walking on. Routes tend to be restricted to the relatively fertile fields of the limestone upland rather than over the open uplands on the grit, and the ‘white dales’ (as of Dove and Wye) provide natural ‘route-ways’ for dense weekend and holiday populations compared with the wonderfully wide and lonely hills of the surrounding rock formations. Ward once put it well:

‘From the point of view of walkers like myself a great deal of the charm of a ramble is lost when you are cooped in a cleft where there is too little air, and sun has double power. In fact, the freshness and invigoration of the moorland are lost, and walking is a task rather than a spontaneous delight. It is just as well to remember this before setting forth on a summer-time ramble through the dales, and to allow yourself more time than if you were keeping on the breezy ‘tops’.

The point of this book is to provide walkers with interesting routes and at the same time to give details of local history and other human interest and to mention some of the features to be seen in distant views. These details are by no means exhaustive, but I hope they will provide an incentive to walkers to find out more about the countryside over which they are walking. I have not restricted routes to within the boundary of the National Park – the first walk never enters it and some enter and leave it to suit the route chosen.

The book describes 16 routes: it starts with walks in the east of the region and generally works westwards, with a few deviations to north and south. All the walks are circular, except for three linear routes – 9, 10 and 12. The book also has four sections giving general background information on four areas of the Peak District.

Walk lengths vary greatly to suit the individual and the mood, and range between half a dozen and over forty miles. An outline of the route and other details, including a suggested parking place, are given at the beginning of each route description.

Some of the lower level, shorter routes require only limited walking experience, while the longer ones at higher altitudes require previous experience of walking in high places and, of course, a degree of physical fitness. On the high plateaux areas, especially, a compass and the skill to use it properly are also essential.

Each route is accompanied by a sketch map, but these are for general guidance only; an OS map is an essential companion. The two most useful maps are the OS 1:25,000 Outdoor Leisure Sheets 1 (The Peak District – Dark Peak Area) and 24 (The Peak District – White Peak Area), though one or two routes (such as Walks 1 and 2) require the OS 1:25,000 Pathfinder Sheets specified at the beginning of the relevant walk. Placenames marked on the sketch maps are highlighted in bold type in the text to aid route orientation.