Peak District Information
If you are thinking about staying in one of our Peak District Holiday cottages you will probably want to know a bit more about the Peak District itself.
The Peak District is an upland area that mainly lies in the North of Derbyshire, but also occupies areas of Cheshire, Staffordshire, West and South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.
The majority of the Peak District is made up of National Park, which was designated in 1951, making it the first national park in the UK. It is the second most visited national park in the world after Mt Fuji in Japan.
The Peak District covers around 540 square miles of land and consists of diverse scenery. The area is unofficially divided by geology into two sections of land. The White Peak is the name of the Southern half which consists of grey/white limestone rocks that are found in the area and the Dark Peak is the Northern area of the Peak District that features hard brown sandstones and tracts of moorland covered in peat.
The area offers visitors to our Peak District Cottages various aspects of the countryside to explore; consisting of valleys, dales, caves, rock faces, hills and meadows. Nature lovers will be interested to hear that there are over 50 species of plants per square mile available to see. The huge areas of woodlands not only add to the stunning scenery but provide home to native oak trees. The local environment of the Peak District thrives with wildlife, birds, insects and amphibians. Like any area of nature in the world, The Peak District is under pressure to retain its natural beauty. Thankfully the Peak District National Park Authority is working on maintaining and protecting the beauty and wildlife in the area so that other generations can benefit from this stunning area in the future.
Many Industries have been supported by the Peak District over time including farming, cement making and mining. But it’s tourism that is currently one of the largest industries active in the Peak District. Around 24% of residents of the area are said to work in tourism, with 19% working in manufacturing, 12% in quarrying and 12% in agriculture. The single largest employer in the area is a cement works in Hope. The park is home to approximately 2,700 farms but the majority of them are said to be under 100 acres and approximately 60% are said to be run part time meaning the farmers have second jobs.
Springs in Buxton and Ashbourne are used to produce bottled mineral water and limestone is the largest mineral in the area that is quarried.
The climate in the Peak District used to be fairly harsh as moorlands usually are, but these conditions have been softened over the years, possibly due to global warming. Most notable is the fact that the moors are generally frosted over for around 30% of the winter and the average rainfall is 150cm a year in the Dark Peak and 100cm on the White Peak.
For more information on the Peak District please visit the Official National Park website.
