Walking guide Derbyshire, Peak District - England, UK

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Maps

Without doubt Derbyshire is one of the most picturesque counties in England, renowned for its varied scenic beauty ranging from wild sombre moorland in the north to sparkling rivers laced with delightful deep dales in the central area and gentle rolling countryside further south. Derbyshire has it all, except for a coastline and natural lakes. The poet John Ruskin, whose work was heavily influenced by his many visits to the county, described it as ’a lovely child’s first alphabet’ because ’in its very minuteness it is the most educational of all the districts of beautiful landscapes known to me’. Another poet inspired by Derbyshire’s countryside was Byron, who in a letter to the Irish poet Thomas Moore said ’there are things in Derbyshire as noble as in Switzerland or Greece’.

Derbyshire is situated at the crossroads of England where highland meets lowland. Many people tend to think of Derbyshire and the well-known Peak District (1437sq km/ 555sq miles, created as Britain’s first national park in 1951) as virtually one and the same thing, but this is totally incorrect, as the bulk of the Peak District sits in the north of Derbyshire and overlaps into several other counties. Another popular misconception about the Peak District is that it is a region of ’peaks’. Surprisingly there are few hills over 610m/2000ft, and Kinder Scout, which is the highest at 636m/2088ft, is a plateau as opposed to a peak. The name is derived from Anglo-Saxon times when a local tribe known as the Pecsaetans called the area Peacland.

The Peak District National Park receives an estimated 22 million visits a year, which makes it the second most visited national park in the world after Mount Fuji in Japan. Its magnetic quality is assisted by the fact that half the population of England lives within 100km/60 miles of the Peak District borders, in areas including the conurbations of Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Stoke and Derby. The latter is the county city of Derbyshire, and home to the car and aero-engine manufacturer Rolls Royce and to Royal Crown Derby porcelain. The south of the county receives far fewer tourists and remains less well-known despite its outstanding natural beauty and a wealth of historic houses and parklands. This book visits many of these properties, including Hardwick Hall, Bolsover Castle, Kedleston Hall, Calke Abbey, Wingfield Manor, Melbourne Hall, Shipley Hall and Elvaston Castle. Taken as a whole, Derbyshire has not only a memorable natural splendour but also a great array of tourist attractions spread liberally across the county and providing endless interest for all the family.