Collins New Naturalist Library
K. C. Edwards
A survey of great interest to naturalists and to the thousands of ramblers who visit the Peak District.Lying as it does at the heart of industrial England, this area of intimate wooded dales, steep-sided gorges and windswept boggy moorland, is perhaps the most welcome of all Britain's National Parks; certainly, it is the most accessible, for within 75 miles of its border lives nearly half the population of England, and the rich variety of its scenery attracts tens of thousands of visitors yearly.This book is the general introduction to the region for naturalists. It presents a concise account of the Peak District's geological structure and history from ancient upheavals to the effects of erosion today - of its woods and wild flowers, its mosses and fungi, birds and fishes, roads and villages and farms, its weather and its rural economy.All this is obviously too much for one man to cover expertly, and the author, though he probably knows the geography of the Peak as thoroughly as anyone alive, has drawn freely on the help of his friends and colleagues at Nottingham University. These include notably Professor H. H. Swinnerton, the author of the successful volume on Fossils in this series, and Mr. R. H. Hall, who have provided the geological and botanical chapters respectively.To the many thousands of ramblers who visit the Peak District at weekends, summer and winter alike, here is a book by one who has trodden all the paths before them and is able to discover for them interests hitherto unsuspected to enhance their enjoyment. At the same time it is a survey of great interest to naturalists everywhere.
EDITORS
James Fisher, M.A.
John Gilmour, M.A., V.M.H.
Sir Julian Huxley, M.A., D.SC, F.R.S.
L. Dudley Stamp, G.B.E., D.LITT., D.SC.
PHOTOGRAPHIC EDITOR
Eric Hosking, F.R.P.S.
The aim of this series is to interest the general reader in the wild life of Britain by recapturing the inquiring spirit of the old naturalists. The Editors believe that the natural pride of the British public in the native fauna and flora, to which must be added concern for their conservation, is best fostered by maintaining a high standard of accuracy combined with clarity of exposition in presenting the results of modern scientific research. The plants and animals are described in relation to their homes and habitats and are portrayed in the full beauty of their natural colours by the latest methods of colour photography and reproduction.
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_ccd1972e-1c57-5a76-9121-57d0edd10ea1)
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://WilliamCollinsBooks.com) This eBook edition published by William Collins in 2018
© K. C. Edwards, H. H. Swinnerton
and R. H. Hall, 1962
The authors assert their moral rights to be identified as the authors of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN 9780007308293
Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2018 ISBN: 9780007403622
Version: 2018-11-23
CONTENTS
Cover (#uc32b8992-7e46-58d6-8270-cc0eb827b974)
Title Page (#u76ae2457-31e2-5f9f-907d-d6640852d044)
Copyright (#ulink_56800c72-a0b4-552c-aa09-66be4b695d62)
Plates in Colour (#ulink_e2d39bd4-664f-5ee6-ac6a-e07964966a67)
Plates in Black and White (#ulink_5c2ec22c-20bd-58ad-bc14-8f9fcc261baa)
Maps and Diagrams (#ulink_b8e569eb-5a1c-597f-849d-be54638d6f53)
Editors’ Preface (#ulink_3324be04-2739-53db-ac8d-6df230fcfa62)
Author’s Preface (#ulink_b42045da-5038-522d-b220-4968480f6dda)
Chapter
1 INTRODUCTORY: THE FIRST NATIONAL PARK (#ulink_eef1900f-4134-5991-a7fa-2928211fb3ce)
2 THE ROCKS AND THEIR HISTORY (#ulink_5c687fa5-a22d-5b16-bf60-4541ab709e03)
3 THE MAKING OF THE SCENERY (#ulink_b2a02770-a56f-5ec8-bf8c-7532e277f585)
4 CLIMATE AND SOILS (#litres_trial_promo)
5 THE FOREST (#litres_trial_promo)
6 THE MAJOR PLANT ASSOCIATIONS (#litres_trial_promo)
7 FLOWERLESS PLANTS (#litres_trial_promo)
8 EARLY MAN IN THE PEAK (#litres_trial_promo)
9 VILLAGES AND FARMS (#litres_trial_promo)
10 PEAKLAND TOWNS AND ROUTES (#litres_trial_promo)
11 PLOUGHLAND AND PASTURE (#litres_trial_promo)
12 WEALTH FROM THE ROCKS (#litres_trial_promo)
13 WATER FOR CITIES (#litres_trial_promo)
14 MILLS AND FACTORIES (#litres_trial_promo)
15 THE PEAK AS A NATIONAL PARK (#litres_trial_promo)
Picture Section (#litres_trial_promo)
Appendix I: Bird Life in the Peak District (#litres_trial_promo)
Appendix II: Fish Life in the Peak District Streams (#litres_trial_promo)
Appendix III: Nature Conservation Sites (#litres_trial_promo)
Appendix IV: Principal Ramblers’ Clubs (#litres_trial_promo)
Footnotes (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PLATES IN COLOUR (#ulink_498bd27e-cbd0-5057-a8d2-905035563561)
1 Alport Castle [C. W. Newberry]
2a Dovedale [H. D. Keilor]
2b Treak Cliff Cavern near Castleton [Trevor D. Ford]
3a Monsal Dale [H. D. Keilor]
3b Ski slope near Buxton [C. W. Newberry]
4a Common Dog Violet (Viola riviniana) [R. H. Hall]
4b Dwarf Burnt Orchid (Orchis ustulata) [R. H. Hall]
PLATES IN BLACK AND WHITE (#ulink_87231fcc-fef2-5c7c-b52d-5663c1022ae0)
MAPS AND DIAGRAMS (#ulink_a81fed38-bf91-54a5-8c20-2bc83a5aa564)
1 The boundary of the Peak National Park
2 Geology of the Peak District
3 Volcanic rocks of The Peak
4 Geological section across the central Peak District
5 Surface relief
6 Distribution of the principal caves
7 Mean annual rainfall
8 Distribution of woodlands
9 Vegetation of Kinderscout Plateau
10 Site and plan of Bakewell
11 Lead rakes in the Castleton-Bradwell district
12 Water gathering grounds
13 Upper Derwent valley before and after reservoir construction
14 Features of interest
15 Areas of public access
Reference to a topographical map will be an advantage in perusing this book. The most suitable one for the purpose is the excellent Ordnance Survey One-Inch Tourist Map of the Peak District, published in 1957. This sheet, which is on a scale familiar to all ramblers and nature-lovers, shows the boundary of the National Park
EDITORS’ PREFACE (#ulink_0e52962a-e1fd-5d99-9434-ca69f0d7be2e)
THE SITUATION of the Peak District in the heart of England as an island of varied hill land, often of spectacular scenic charm, almost surrrounded by industrial lowland in whose cities and towns, often gloomy and grimy, live a quarter of Britain’s population, made it a natural choice for the first of our National Parks. The old geography books not infrequently referred to the Pennines as the “backbone of England” and here, at their southern end, the earth’s bony framework of older rocks appears not only at the surface, but towering to heights whose grandeur belie their modest elevation.
Nottingham is but one of the cities which adjoin the Peak District, but one from which there are natural lines of entry by some of the most charming valleys. Certainly the members of the University of Nottingham have long shown a particular interest in the area—since well before the University College became the University—and it is thus especially appropriate that Professor K. C. Edwards should head a team of his colleagues and friends to act as principal author as well as editor of this composite volume. As Professor of Geography he has spent most of his academic life at Nottingham and, as the pages of that successful journal The East Midland Geographer show clearly, he has done much to encourage the scientific study of the surrounding area, including the Peak District. In this he carries on the tradition established by the octogenarian Professor Emeritus of Geology, the author of the volume on Fossils in the New Naturalist Library, Professor H. H. Swinnerton, who now contributes two of the basic chapters in the present volume.
Four main rock types dominate the Peak District—coarse sandstones or “grits”, shales, massive limestones and, less conspicuous, the old volcanic rocks locally known as toad stones. It so happens that these rock types offer very different resistance to the forces of nature and so The Peak has become a region of sharp contrasts—from the intimate wooded dales to the windswept, boggy moorland heights. The habitats afforded are correspondingly rich and varied and so naturally are both plant and animal life and the response of man as farmer. Mineral wealth has added to the variety of man’s responses, so that in addition to its other attractions the Peak District exhibits fascinating fragments of the story of man’s occupation of the area from prehistoric times to the present.
A region of such difficult relief has long offered a challenge to man—in selecting sites for his settlements, in finding routes for his roads and railways, in utilising the varied scattered resources. Each of these aspects is taken up in turn and we are led to see clearly the competing claims on Peak District land—for farming, grazing, forestry, water supply, recreations, sport, nature conservation and others—and how the solution may lie in the careful application of the principles of multiple use within the framework of a National Park administration.
Although with the names of K. C. Edwards and H. H. Swinnerton only that of the botanist R. H. Hall appears on the title page, Professor Edwards has been able to incorporate observations by many workers in many fields, and the resulting volume is one which we are confident will have a very wide appeal. As his long association with the Ramblers’ Federation, the Youth Hostels Association and many field bodies will show, Professor Edwards believes the way to see and know The Peak is on foot. His book has thus a special appeal to the legions of ramblers who use the National Park every week-end, winter and summer alike.
THE EDITORS
AUTHOR’S PREFACE (#ulink_79807cc2-4ef7-548e-9e36-6361000ff82b)
SO MANY books have been written about Derbyshire and the Peak District that there would seem little excuse for adding to them. The reason for doing so lies in the promotion of a National Park in this area some years ago. This timely and widely-acclaimed decision has given official recognition to The Peak as one of the regions of outstanding scenery in Britain. It has also heightened the interest of those who find enjoyment in the open country and of the many people whose inclination is the study of wild nature. To thoughtful and observant people who require something more than the conventional guidebook, it is felt that an account of the present landscape of The Peak, of how it came into being and of the activities it supports, would be of some value. Moreover, the ground covered by this volume extends beyond the limits of Derbyshire, for the territory embraced by the National Park includes portions of several adjoining counties.
The plan of the book is intended to be simple and logical. The earlier chapters deal with the strictly natural aspects of the area from the story of the rocks to the formation of the present land surface and its vegetation cover. Then Man enters on the scene and the later chapters describe how in different ways Man has imposed, and continues to impose, his cultural imprint upon the setting prepared by Nature. The concluding chapter examines those aspects of The Peak which make it so acceptable to the community as a National Park.
In preparing the book much help has been given by various authorities on the area which is gratefully acknowledged. Chapters 2 (#u74af9c73-961c-5ad2-a8c6-30c9c8ee11b2) and 3 (#uf116df65-b19a-532f-b351-4605e3185af6) have been written by H. H. Swinnerton, C.B.E., D.Sc, Emeritus Professor of Geology in the University of Nottingham; Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo), together with parts of Chapters 5 (#litres_trial_promo) and 7 (#litres_trial_promo), have been contributed by Mr. R. H. Hall, F.L.S., a specialist on the botany of The Peak, while the section on Fungi has been prepared by Dr. C. G. C. Chesters, Professor of Botany in the University of Nottingham. Mr. F. A. Sowter assisted with the section on Lichens. For the remaining chapters, two sources of information have proved invaluable. These are the unpublished thesis, The Peak District National Park: a regional study of an amenity area, by Mr. G. J. Mosley, M.A., of the University of Nottingham, and The Report and Analysis of Survey of the Peak Park Development Plan by John Foster, A.R.I.B.A., M.P.T.I., Planning Officer to the National Park Planning Board. Two local publications were also extensively used, the Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (annually) and The Derbyshire Countryside (bi-monthly) of the Derbyshire Rural Community Council.
In preparing the Appendices on Bird Life and Fish Life in the Peak District I have been helped by Mr. E. L. Jones of the University of Nottingham, Mr. C. M. Swaine of the British Ornithologists’ Union and by Major J. I. Spicer, M.B.E., Chief Pollution and Fisheries Officer to the Trent River Board. I am most grateful to them, and also to Miss D. A. Clarke, Sub-Librarian at the University of Nottingham, for her kind assistance in assembling material and compiling the index.
Moreover, to the many friends and acquaintances who have generously made available their special knowledge of The Peak and to the numerous countryfolk encountered on the moors and in the dales who unwittingly contributed by their ready and forthright response to questions, grateful thanks are expressed.
K. C. EDWARDS
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_b7c752cc-6163-5fca-a1df-a316f8ef49bd)
INTRODUCTORY: THE FIRST NATIONAL PARK (#ulink_b7c752cc-6163-5fca-a1df-a316f8ef49bd)
By the side of religion, by the side of science, by the side of poetry and art stands natural beauty … the common inspirer and nourisher of them all.
G. M. TREVELYAN, O.M.
NATIONAL PARKS are tracts of country of outstandingly attractive scenery which are specially protected against adverse change and reserved for public enjoyment. In a country like our own, in which a high proportion of the population is concentrated in large cities and industrial districts, there is a real need for the setting aside of particular areas where townsfolk may find relief from the pressing throng and enjoy open-air recreation amid surroundings which bring them close to Nature. In national parks, moreover, the preservation of natural scenery is safeguarded as well as the surviving haunts of wild life. Indeed, for the study of living forms in their natural environment, whether plant, insect or animal, such areas are of special scientific value.
NATIONAL PARKS IN BRITAIN
Although the provision of national parks in Britain is a recent development, the idea of reserving selected areas of our finest landscape for the enjoyment of the public is by no means new. It stems in fact from the ideas connected with social betterment arising from conditions in the nineteenth century. The movement for national parks began well over half a century ago but not until the closing stages of the second world war did it gain official recognition.
In other countries national parks of various kinds have long been in existence, one of the earliest being the famous Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, established in 1872. Like others which followed it in America, this great reserve was “dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people,” words which expressed the aspirations of many who later advocated similar projects in our own country. In a long-settled, densely populated land like Britain, however, with much of its surface under private ownership, the problem of public access to areas of scenic attraction has provided a formidable obstacle to the realisation of such hopes. The contrast between the old and new countries in this respect was clearly demonstrated in 1885 by two events. In that year, within the space of a few months, James Bryce’s Bill to give access to mountains in Scotland was rejected by Parliament at home, yet a proposal to create the Banff National Park in the Rockies was accepted by the Government of Canada without opposition. But Bryce’s attempt marked the beginning of a long campaign for the acceptance of the national park idea. Apart, however, from an inquiry made by the Addison Committee in 1931 and the passing of the Access to Mountains Act in 1939, the provisions of which were made inoperative by the second world war, little progress was made until recent years.
Meanwhile voluntary bodies had given active support to the movement and the effect on public opinion contributed much towards ultimate success. In 1935 two of the leading organisations, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and the similar body for Wales, set up a Standing Committee for National Parks, which included representatives of many supporting interests. The Standing Committee worked unremittingly and proved a valuable instrument for educating the public and arousing interest among widely different sections of the community.
During the war, when much thought was devoted to post-war planning and reconstruction, the case for national parks was repeatedly stressed. Official publications such as the Report of the Scott Committee on Land Utilisation in Rural Areas (1942) and the White Paper on Control of Land Use (1944) gave firm support to their formation, while the Report on National Parks (1945) prepared by John Dower for the Minister of Town and Country Planning, by its cogent argument and its deep personal conviction, at last set the course for realisation. The Dower Report was followed by a detailed investigation resulting in the Hobhouse Report on National Parks (1947), of which the chief recommendations formed the basis of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act passed two years later. Indeed, so favourable had become the climate of opinion that the Act was passed without a single vote against it in either House.
Briefly, the Act of 1949 provided for the setting up of a National Parks Commission which is responsible for the designation of each individual park in England and Wales and for advising the particular authority chosen to administer it. The park authority, consisting largely of representatives from the existing local authorities within whose areas the park falls, undertakes the management and planning of the park. Other provisions of the Act dealt with important issues affecting public rights of way, access to open country and wild life protection. A further measure (under section 87) permitted the designation of smaller areas of outstanding natural beauty, not as national parks but as areas requiring the assistance of the Act in the interests of nature preservation and the protection of wild life. Several of these have already been designated, such as the Gower Peninsula and the Quantock Hills, and it is likely that many more will be added.
As a result of the Act, ten national parks have so far been established, of which the Peak District was the first. The others are the Lake District, Snowdonia, Dartmoor, Exmoor, the Pembrokeshire Coast, Brecon Beacons, the North York Moors, the Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland. Varying greatly in character and extent, these form a system having an aggregate area of nearly 4,750 square miles, or one-twelfth of the total area of England and Wales. This is surely an achievement which meets the long-felt needs of our highly urbanised people and which at the same time will secure large tracts of unspoilt country from inappropriate and unwarrantable forms of exploitation.
In Scotland the situation is different. The National Parks Act of 1949 referred only to England and Wales and no equivalent legislation has been passed for Scotland, except that the section of the Act dealing with nature conservation was made applicable to the whole of Britain. The Forestry Commission has nevertheless established a few national forest parks in Scotland, and although these have not the full status of national parks, they offer to the public increased facilities for access and open-air enjoyment.
The national parks of Britain differ from those of most other countries. To begin with, there are no large areas of wild scenery available for preservation like the huge National Parks of the U.S.A. or the great game reserves of Africa. Instead, the areas designated as parks are all of comparatively small extent and all are inhabited, even though the density of population in most cases is quite low. Again, the greater part of each national park is devoted to some form of economic activity such as farming, forestry and quarrying, thus creating problems of public access which seldom arise abroad. In every case in Britain the functions of a national park are added to an established pattern of economic and social life and must operate in such a way so as not to cause serious interference with existing activities. This circumstance naturally calls for much delicate negotiation in co-ordinating the various interests represented within a national park.
There is another important difference between our national parks and those abroad. Whereas the latter usually embrace truly natural scenery unmodified by human action, in Britain hardly any such areas remain. The land has been exploited by Man for so long that the results of his activities have profoundly altered the appearance of the surface. Even the natural vegetation has been greatly modified by various agricultural practices as well as by the chance or deliberate introduction of non-indigenous species. Forests have been entirely removed from some areas and have been created in others, while mining and quarrying have left their scars and debris on land once unspoiled.
In the sense that even our finest scenery, whether mountain, moorland or sea-coast, is in part the product of our cultural history, the national parks of Britain are of a rather special kind. In many respects the effects of long-continued human occupation signify a gain rather 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 and Cheshire to the west and the West Riding of Yorkshire, including a small area of the city of Sheffield, to the north (Fig. 1, opposite). Its greatest length from north to south is nearly 40 miles and its greatest breadth about 24 miles. The boundary which delimits the park would enclose a broadly oval shape but for the long narrow wedge reaching far into the interior from New Mills on the western margin to a point about five miles south-east of Buxton. This territory was excluded on the grounds of its predominantly industrial character; in it lie the towns of New Mills, Whaley Bridge, Chapel-en-le-Frith and Buxton, while around the last-named the landscape is seriously marred by intensive limestone quarrying and related lime-works. This feature has the effect within the Park of severing the High Peak of Derbyshire from the hill country of East Cheshire. On the south-east side for a similar reason, though without giving rise to a pronounced wedge, the Matlock and Darley Dale section of the Derwent valley was also excluded. On the south and west the towns of Wirksworth, Ashbourne, Leek and Macclesfield have all been omitted, though they lie only a little beyond the boundary.
Incidentally, two points concerning nomenclature should be mentioned here. In the first place, the term Peak District applies to the upland area of Derbyshire as a whole. There is no single mountain or summit named The Peak. The highest part of the area is in the extreme north where the two flat-topped moors of Kinderscout and Bleak Low both reach to over 2,000 feet. The highest point of all is on Kinderscout reaching 2,088 feet. Secondly, a distinction is sometimes made between the northern and southern parts of the upland. These are known respectively as the High Peak and Low Peak but the distinction is a vague one and is not based on altitude alone.
Fig. 1. The boundary of the Peak National Park (#ulink_36412650-0e8a-5c6f-abbf-2edec733eaa9)
From the standpoint of administration the Peak National Park is managed by a central authority in the form of a Joint Planning Board consisting of 27 representatives, of whom 18 are appointed by the constituent county authorities and the county borough of Sheffield, and the remaining nine by the Minister of Housing and Local Government. The Peak Planning Board has its own technical department at Bakewell under the direction of a Planning Officer. This form of administration is the only example of the method originally envisaged for the national parks although in one or two other instances the form adopted approximates to it. On the whole in the case of The Peak it has worked successfully. Certainly, by excluding a number of urban centres situated on the fringe of the Park, general planning problems connected with the location of industry and urban growth and re-development have been considerably reduced, enabling the Planning Board to devote its attention more wholeheartedly to the special interests of the Park.
REFERENCES
PILKINGTON, J. A View of the Present State of Derbyshire (2 vols). (1789)
RHODES, E. Peak Scenery, or the Derbyshire Tourist. (1818)
GLOVER, S. The History, Gazetteer and Directory of the County of Derby. (1829–1833)
DOWER, J. Report on National Parks in England and Wales. H.M.S.O. (1945)
Report of the National Parks Committee. H.M.S.O. (1947)
Report of the National Parks Commission. H.M.S.O. (annually since 1950)
MONKHOUSE, P. J. Some National Park Problems. Jour. of the Town Planning Inst.: 43 (March, 1957)
National Park Guide No. 3: Peak District. H.M.S.O. (1960)
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_47e5f80c-972e-5305-8078-825147eafe7e)
THE ROCKS AND THEIR HISTORY (#ulink_47e5f80c-972e-5305-8078-825147eafe7e)
The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
ALFRED TENNYSON: In Memoriam
A WANDERER returning to his native village in the Peak District finds his favourite haunts unchanged. The dales and streams, cliffs, hills and moors are all just the same as they were in his youth. If, however, he has studied the rocks they tell him that this peaceful, enchanting scene is but an episode in a long and eventful story which moves so slowly that for the brief period of his lifetime it seems to have been at a standstill. His going and coming have been no more than the flicks of a fly’s wings. That story is recorded for him in the rocks of the district; in the limestone of the uplands on the south; in the grits capping the moorlands of the north and forming the ridges which girt the uplands on either side; and in the shales which underlie the fertile vales that lie between the areas occupied by these two types of rock (Fig. 2, see here (#ulink_02d6b0c8-7470-5e57-8db5-a2fc4e404f4b)).
THE FOUNDATION ROCK
The limestone teems with fossils which may be seen and collected wherever the surface of the rock has been washed by the rain for a long time or etched by weak acids seeping down from the covering of soil. These fossils are the remains of creatures that lived in an ancient sea which 280 millions of years ago occupied the whole district. How different was the outlook then! Blue sea extended to the horizon in all directions except the south where, in the offing, stood the miniature mountainous island of Charnwood which lay across the area now known as the Midlands. Its rivers were small and carried very little sand and silt into the sea, the waters of which were in consequence clean and clear. The sea was of no great depth and the scenery of its sunlit floor varied from place to place. Here and there were forests of stone lilies, animals that were allied to the starfishes. Each one grew upon a tall stalk built up of rings of lime piled one upon another to a height of eight or ten feet. The main body of the creature was at the top and carried five branching arms spread out like the fronds of a palm tree, to catch both the sunshine and the small organisms upon which it fed. When the stone lily died its flesh decayed and the fairy bead-like rings of the stalk and the limy framework of the arms and body fell to the floor of the forest and in the course of many generations built up deep deposits of calcareous debris.
Out in the open, beyond the bounds of the stone lily forests, lay coral reefs. These were produced by the combined activities of myriads of polyps. Superficially they resembled modern reefs but the structural details of the individual corals were strikingly different. Surrounding the forests and reefs were spacious wastes of mud formed from the shells and bodies of minute organisms which fell in a perpetual drizzle from the waters overhead. Burrowing in the mud or crawling over its surface were many worms and other creatures that fed upon the mud or caught the drizzle as it fell. These latter included lamp-shells, a type of animal that is scarce today but was then varied and numerous and played a much more important part in the economy of the sea floor. Like cockles and mussels their bodies were also enclosed in shells, often prettily shaped and ornamented. They were usually small shells but some were giants a foot or more in diameter.
Of special interest were certain curious molluscs belonging to the far-off ancestral stock of the Pearly Nautilus which lives today in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Like this, they had shells which were divided into a succession of chambers separated by thin partitions. One large type is known as Orthoceras because its shell was straight and not closely coiled like that of the nautilus. Provided with a battery of tentacles round its mouth and with an apparatus for jet propulsion, it preyed upon fishes and other more peaceful creatures. The Goniatites were much smaller and their shells were closely coiled. In them the partitions between the chambers were folded, sometimes in sharp angles (gonia=angle) which suggested the name. These beautiful little creatures may be pictured as spending their days flitting or crawling over the coral reefs and browsing upon the coral polyps.
Fig. 2. Geology of the Peak District. A–B is the line of the section shown in Fig. 4 (#ulink_1c3c332e-7278-5068-a156-6fd841a7365b) (see here (#ulink_0db0e8a3-a156-5892-a5af-24b2c659a86e))
The shells of all these animals added their quota to the deposits that were being laid down upon the sea floor. Nevertheless, though the sea was shallow, it did not become filled, for its foundations were subsiding at about the same rate as the deposits were accumulating. Thus it came about that they ultimately attained a thickness of nearly 2,000 feet.
A temporary but fascinating feature in this submarine scenery was the occasional presence of small volcanoes. The ashes which they shot forth into the waters above settled down and became mixed with the mud beneath. Sheets of lava, full of steam bubbles, were poured out and flowed far and wide over the sea floor (Fig. 3, see here (#ulink_8f86ea6f-e272-5ea6-9916-514761e5dfcd)). The dark-coloured rock into which these lavas solidified is known as Toadstone and has a striking appearance due to the fact that the bubbles have been filled with a white mineral.
All the deposits described above consolidated and became the limestone which forms the Derbyshire upland. It is sometimes called the Mountain Limestone but to geologists it is known as the Carboniferous Limestone.
THE LATER ROCKS
The northern shores of the Carboniferous Limestone sea lay 200 miles away and stretched across the centre of the Scottish region. Scotland, at that time, was part of a great North Atlantic continent drained by large rivers flowing southwards. The general geographical picture thus presented was not unlike that of the United States with the Mississippi flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. These rivers carried the debris formed by the destruction of the uplands and by the rain washing the plains into the sea. Deltas of grit and sand were formed and banks built out along the shoreline. The fine muds were, however, carried farther afield and eventually reached the Peak District. Then for some time the sea-water was alternately clear and turbid, but eventually the latter condition prevailed. The mud accumulated and in course of time became those rocks known as the Edale shales which underlie the peaceful meadows of Edale and Darley Dale.
The fauna in the waters underwent a corresponding change. The stone lilies, corals and many of the brachiopods and molluscs departed from the area. A few of the last remained and were joined by other kinds of goniatites and bivalves. Meanwhile the deltas and sandbanks extended and began to invade the district from time to time. The quality of the water also changed from being saline through brackish to fresh. Marine animals disappeared and were succeeded by a less varied and sparse population. At first this included Lingula, a curious tongue-shaped brachiopod which had already existed for 250 millions of years from Cambrian times onwards, and was destined to continue in the world for a similar stretch of time until the present day. As the waters freshened still more, Lingula and its associates migrated elsewhere and were replaced by crowds of bivalves such as Carbonicola which resembled the mussel of the present-day rivers and canals. Towards the close of this phase in the story of the Peak District the occasional influxes of coarse sediments became more copious. Banks of grit and gravel were formed and ultimately became that massive hard rock known as Millstone Grit.
Fig. 3. Volcanic rocks occurring in part of the limestone of the Peak District. (Based on H. H. Bemrose) (#ulink_04b7e44e-aeae-5f02-bc33-d0c9ef8fe464)
Owing to slight oscillatory movements in the level of the region these deposits were sometimes raised above water level and produced a low-lying landscape of sandbank and water channels. Spores wafted by the breezes, seeds carried by the streams from the continent enabled plants of the northern continent to settle on this new land surface. In the warm moist atmosphere they quickly germinated and produced a jungle growth of fern-like plants and strange-looking trees. Of the latter the smaller ones resembled the Tree Ferns which now grow in the tropical forests of the East Indies. Others, known as Calamites, were closely related to the horse-tails, those tall weeds which look like miniature Christmas trees and today grow profusely in wet waste places. Some of the trees towered to a height of 60 or 80 feet and had trunks as much as five feet thick. The bark was often decorated with scale-like markings which suggested the name Lepidodendron (lepido=scale) for these trees. Their branches and twigs had a furry covering of small lancet-shaped leaves. The modern relatives of these trees are not to be sought for in luxuriant forests but on bleak moorlands where the Stags Horn Moss (Lycopodium) is to be found straggling through the grass. These plants do not grow from seeds but, like ferns, they reproduce by means of minute pollen-like spores.
Among the undergrowth of ferns and in the pools and sluggish streams were lowly types of four-legged animals, represented today by newts or salamanders, creatures which resemble fishes in that they lay their eggs in water and their young must spend at least the early part of life breathing by means of gills.
These conditions, so different from the present, lasted long enough for deep deposits of vegetable debris to accumulate and become peat. A gentle down-sinking of the whole region then ensued. The sandbanks with their cloak of peat were submerged and were gradually buried under thick beds of mud and clay. The peat, squeezed by the pressure of the increasing load and changed by complex chemical reactions ultimately turned into coal. The mud also was compacted into shale.
The sequence of events last portrayed was repeated a number of times and thus was built up a series of massive grit layers interspersed with shales and occasional seams of coal. These rocks were all destined, in the fullness of time, to play a large part in the scenery and other amenities of the Peak District. The layers of grit and shale, which had attained a thickness of a thousand feet, extended far beyond the bounds of the district and covered a vast area including the north of England and southern Scotland.
The transport of so much sediment from the North Atlantic continent implies a corresponding destruction of the rocks in its uplands and a general wearing down of its whole surface to lower levels. As one outcome of all this the formation of coarse grit ceased and henceforth only fine sand, silt and mud were transported into the southern waters. Deposition and sinking went on in unison continuously, except for an occasional upward oscillation which converted much of the region, including our district, into an extensive fenland of mud-flats, upon which forests grew once more and thick peats accumulated. When the sinking movement was renewed, sea-water sometimes flowed in and spread everywhere, bringing with it marine animals, especially goniatites. Such marine conditions lasted only for a short time and gave place to a long period of fresh-water conditions when mud accumulated and buried the peat, which was in turn converted into coal.
In this way 4,000 feet of clays, shales and fine sandstone with occasional coal-seams and marine bands accumulated. These are spoken of collectively as the Coal Measures. The economic importance of the coal suggested the word Carboniferous as the most suitable name for the whole sequence of rocks hitherto dealt with, including Mountain Limestone, Edale Shales, Millstone Grits and Coal Measures; and for the long period of time, amounting to 60 millions of years, which they represent.
The countryside now occupied by these Coal Measures is comparatively low-lying. Apart from tip heaps it has a scenic beauty of its own but makes no contribution to the amenities of the Peak District. It does however provide the basis for the livelihood of dense populations. From its cities at week-ends and holiday times streams of hikers and pleasure-seekers pour forth to find renewal of energy and refreshment of mind and spirit in the dales and on the moors.
THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE ROCKS
The process of forming those rocks which make up the Peak District was completed millions of years ago. Two sets of agencies then came into action and recorded their activities in quite different characters. One, which was concerned with rearranging the rocks, completed its work in a relatively short period of time. The other, concerned with destroying and carving the rock of the district, experienced a long interruption of its activities during the Mesozoic Era.
The hiker on Kinderscout or Bleaklow rejoices in the fresh breezes and in the fact that he is 2,000 feet or more above the sea. Though he takes that fact for granted it is nevertheless full of significance. Kinderscout is a little plateau with a relatively flat surface defined along its margins by rough, often precipitous slopes of Millstone Grit, for that is the rock which immediately underlies the plateau. When it was formed, that slab of grit was part of an extensive sandbank lying close to sea-level. As already seen, it was subsequently buried under Coal Measures down to a depth of some 5,000 feet, that is to say 7,000 feet below its present level. How then did it come to be at its present height? This was brought about by the joint action of two types of movement of the earth’s crust, of which the first must now be discussed.
Just as the process of burial described above was being completed, great revolutionary events began to take place across the south of the British area and the north of France. Mighty pressures in the earth’s crust acting from north and south crumpled the rocks along a belt of country about 200 miles wide and heaved them up into a mountain range of Alpine and even of Himalayan proportions. A small backwash of these great events was felt in the region of the Peak District. That threw the Carboniferous rocks into a number of folds which have exerted an important influence upon the physical features as seen today. As one result, the western margin of the district was crumpled into a series of narrow folds which merged into the main axis of the Pennines. Chief among these was a broad fold, elongated from south to north, which is known as the Derbyshire Dome. In cross-section it is asymmetrical and has the form of a wave that is just about to break; that is to say its eastern side or limb rises slowly to a crest from which the western limb drops down more rapidly and is broken by a series of rock fractures or lines of faulting. The slowly rising eastern limb is itself crossed by a succession of minor folds which run at right angles to the crest and which curve southwards beyond the east margin of the dome.
It is, of course, impossible to see a complete section across this and the other folds at any one point, but the visitor wandering from place to place, along footpath, road or rail, will see the rock layers exposed to view in valley sides, in railway cuttings and quarries, or in cliff faces. Sometimes they are seen to lie flat and horizontal. At other times they dip gently or even steeply. Geologists have carefully measured these angles and recorded them upon maps from which they have been able to piece together the structure of the region as a whole (Fig. 4, see here (#ulink_0db0e8a3-a156-5892-a5af-24b2c659a86e)).
The contemplation of such folded rocks creates the impression of a time of turmoil and grievous upset, a time when nature took the rocks in her hands and squeezed them as a child squeezes its plasticine. That impression is, however, quite false. The moulding of the rocks into these varied and complex forms was spread over a period of several millions of years and took place so slowly that except for an occasional earthquake the placidity of the scene was never disturbed.
It must not be supposed that any part of the district ever attained such lofty heights as 7,000 feet or more, for as the crests of the folds rose above the general level of the surrounding country, they became the targets for the destructive action of such agencies as frost, rain and running water. In this way the Coal Measures, while they were being slowly uplifted, were simultaneously skimmed off the upfolds and the debris was transported to the lowlands which during the succeeding or Permian period, were to some extent covered by sea. At the base of the Permian rocks today there is a layer of this debris, a rock called Breccia made up of angular fragments of Carboniferous rocks. This lies unconformably upon the upturned and bevelled edges of Coal Measure shales, sandstones and coal-seams. This unconformity is a silent witness to the fact that when this Breccia was being laid down the Coal Measures covering the upfolds in the Peak District had been removed. The Millstone Grits thus exposed were then attacked by the same destructive agencies. Being more resistant they were not so completely destroyed except over the south of the dome where the limestone core was exposed to view. Along its margins the limestone layers tilted downwards and disappeared under the surrounding shales and grits.
In this way the general surface plan of the district was established no less than 220 million years ago. In the southern half it exhibits a large roughly oval area of limestone encircled by Millstone Grit and shales with grit layers, which are arranged in a pericline; that is to say they dip outwards from the centre of the limestone dome. In the northern half of the area the grit covering remains. There the rocks are horizontal or nearly so along a north-south axis, but on either side of this they dip outwards beneath the east and west flanks of the dome.
Meanwhile, the mighty folding movements along the axes of the Armorican mountains had ceased but the destructive agencies went on working. As long as any part of this intensely folded zone stood up above the level of the lowlands the rivers flowed down the slopes and spread their burden of gravel, sand and mud across the plains. Thus as the mountains were being laid low the plains were being levelled up. The Peak District with its folds thus became only a small feature in the vast expanse and was therefore gradually covered up and buried under the waste from the distant mountains and remained out of sight throughout the whole of the Mesozoic Era.
A PROLONGED BURIAL
Subsequent to this burial, a cavalcade of great events swept across the Peak District without leaving any trace of its passage upon the present landscape. Nevertheless the story would be incomplete without some reference to those events.
The uprising of the Armorican mountains athwart the path of the dominant rain-bearing winds greatly influenced the climate of the British area. The warm moist climate which encouraged the growth of the Coal Measure forests and swamps passed away, a dry arid climate set in and barren deserts replaced the luxuriant forests and tangled swamps. The Peak District area lay hidden away under the centre of a vast plain swept by hot winds and dust-storms.
The section is drawn along the line A-B as shown on the geological map in Fig. 2 (see here (#ulink_02d6b0c8-7470-5e57-8db5-a2fc4e404f4b)). The individual grits of the Millstone Grit series, being lenticular in torm cannot be traced continuously across the area. Those outcropping in the east are indicated by inital letters as follows: K-Kinderscout Grit, C-Chatsworth Grit, RR-Rough Rock. On the west side Black Edge is formed by the Chatsworth Grit. (Prepared by Prof. W. B. R. King, Sc.D., F.R.S., based by permission on maps of the Geological Survey and other sources)
Fig. 4. Geological section across the central Peak District (#ulink_4d9c39f0-f4d4-53b2-9a0a-3eecf2095bd1)
Far away on the distant mountains, during rainy seasons, the rivers became swollen into flood. Their waters spread on the plains as shallow transitory lakes and deposited their sand and mud in thin sheets everywhere. Sometimes the flood-waters found their way into and replenished the more permanent lakes. When the dry season set in and the floods ceased the temporary lakes were dried up and the permanent were reduced by intense evaporation. In both cases the salts that were in solution were left behind. The lakes consequently became more and more salty until such minerals as calcium sulphate and sodium chloride were precipitated. In modern times these chemical deposits have been exploited for gypsum and alabaster in south Derbyshire and for salt in Cheshire.
At last this arid period known as the Triassic drew to a close. Its plains began to subside, were carried down below sea-level so that these too became submerged. This event ushered in the second division of the Mesozoic Era, known as the Jurassic Period. At first this new sea tended to be muddy but later its waters were often clear during long stretches of time and then limy deposits were laid down. The latter contained numerous small round pellets resembling the roe of fishes. For this reason the rocks formed from these deposits are known as Oolitic Limestones (oos=egg).
The animals that came along with these marine waters were many of them similar to but not identical with those that lived in the Carboniferous sea. There were some near relatives of the Pearly Nautilus but they were few in number and all closely coiled. Descendants of the goniatites abounded but their shells were more prettily ornamented and the partitions between their chambers were complexly folded and even frilled. They are therefore distinguished under the name Ammonites. When the waters were clean and clear, stone lilies and corals became common but differed from their Carboniferous allies in many details. Sea-urchins, sea-snails and bivalves also contributed their quota to the building up of the Jurassic deposits and rocks.
Shoals of fishes swarmed in the open waters. Their bodies were clothed in an armour-like mosaic of thick bony scales covered with shiny enamel. They were preyed upon by a new type of animal unknown in Carboniferous waters. These were large reptiles shaped like fishes and almost as perfectly adapted for a life spent wholly in the sea. Conspicuous among these was Ichthyosaurus, a fearsome creature with a large mouth as well-equipped with sharp teeth as that of the crocodile today.
During Jurassic times the floor of the sea was subject to occasional undulatory movements. The crests of some of these undulations rose above sea-level and formed long stretches of land on which grew strange-looking trees allied to the Monkey Puzzle (Araucaria) and to tree ferns. As yet there were no herbs with coloured flowers, no grasses, no grassy swards. The landscape must have been a drab expanse, varied here and there only by the dark green foliage of the trees. The scene was, however, enlivened by the presence of many kinds of reptiles of all sizes, crawling, running on all fours or leaping like the kangaroo. Some small forms fed on insects. The larger ones fed on foliage or preyed upon their fellows. There were also some with such large bulky bodies that only by wading up to their necks in water could they support their great weight. Other lightly-built reptiles had large flimsy wings like those of the bats. These pursued and fed upon dragonflies and other flying insects which were at home in the air. As yet there were no birds. From all this it is evident that this period was one in which reptiles dominated air, land and sea. There were a few furred animals or mammals, but they were no larger than rats and mice and survived largely because they led a furtive existence in the crevices of rocks or hiding in the foliage of the trees.
The Jurassic Period was brought to a close by a slow, nearly uniform, lowering of the earth’s crust in the British area. The sea flowed in and eventually submerged the whole with the exception of the highlands of Scotland and Wales. The waters of this sea were clear and warm and teemed with myriads of minute organisms that made tiny shells no larger than a pin’s head. These lived their lives floating in the sunlit waters near the surface. When they died their shells drizzled down to the floor and helped to form deep deposits of white mud which ultimately solidified into the white chalk which makes up the cliffs of Kent and the Downs. The period during which this chalk was formed is known as the Cretaceous (creta=chalk). It was the last of the great divisions of the Mesozoic Era. The thickness of the chalk deposits grew to be 1,000 feet or more and the laying down of the last of those deposits marked the ending of that period and era. The long process of burying the Peak District now ceased.
RE-EMERGENCE
The Mesozoic Era lasted about 120 million years, during which the Peak District lay hidden under an ever-increasing cover of limestones, sandstones, clays and chalk. The time of its eclipse was now, however, drawing to a close, for the British area, after its prolonged period of sinking, began to rise once more. The floor of the chalk sea was uplifted and converted into dry land, an event which marked the opening of the Cainozoic Era.
This uprising did not take place uniformly over the whole area but was most marked along a line running northwards through the area of the Peak District and the Pennines and resulted in the appearance of a low elongated dome. This formed an island which had the scenic features of chalk downs. The crest of this dome served as a natural water divide and many streams flowed down its gentle slopes. The sea floor continued to rise and the boundaries of the land were extended outwards in all directions. The streams lengthened out across the broadening plains as these rose out of the water. Uniting with one another they merged into larger rivers flowing to the sea which by this time was far away.
Wherever streams and rivers flowed they excavated channels which as they deepened were widened into valleys. All this involved the gradual removal of large quantities of rock. The chalk was the first to be attacked. After that the more deeply seated layers of the Jurassic and Triassic rocks were penetrated, a piece of work which was begun and carried farthest upon the original dome. There at last the Carboniferous rocks began to peep out along the beds of the streams. The latter continued to carry away the waste formed by the gradual destruction of the younger rocks on either side of the valleys. But still the streams went on cutting their channels more and more deeply into the Carboniferous rocks. These channels were also widened into valleys and these old rocks came to occupy a correspondingly larger portion of the valley sides. The Mesozoic rocks were steadily reduced to mere remnants capping the hills on either side. Eventually even these disappeared completely and left the Carboniferous rocks in sole possession of the Peak District.
The long eclipse had ended. The precise date for that event is unknown for the complete removal of all the waste from the destruction of so much rock left no tangible evidence behind. It is, however, probable that it happened shortly before or at the opening of the Pliocene period, which was the last of the four major periods into which the last or Cainozoic Era has been divided.
The removal of the Mesozoic rocks was not the only great event that happened during this long period of time. The living garment that clothed the landscape also changed. True flowering plants that produced seeds in closed caskets had come into being in other parts of the world during Cretaceous times. These invaded the new lands as they rose into being over the British area. Among them were many kinds of woodland trees and numerous flowering herbs and grasses which covered the ground as with a multi-coloured carpet. Over this beetles crawled, butterflies flitted and bees hummed. Winged reptiles had passed into oblivion and their place was taken by birds. The long reign of reptiles was over and only a few insignificant representatives remained. On the other hand, mammals were rising rapidly to a position of dominance. A wonderful variety of insect-eaters, vegetable and flesh feeders haunted the woodlands and sported on the grassy plains. Many of these began to show recognisable resemblances to modern and familiar types, to horses, deer, wolves, cats and monkeys. Usually they showed some features that would seem to us to be peculiar.
The Peak District now entered upon the last phase of its long and eventful history. The carving of the scenery as seen now had begun. Even during the time of its eclipse the blue-print for the general arrangement of its hills, valleys and moorlands was being drawn. When in early Cainozoic times the streams and rivers first began to score the surface of the chalky slopes, their direction of the flow was the same as that in which the Mesozoic rocks were dipping. Just as a saw when it has begun cutting through a log of wood must keep to the same line in which it started, so likewise a stream, having once made a track, must keep to it. Having made its bed it must lie on it.
Thus it came to pass that the arrangement of streams laid down upon the surface of the chalk was eventually incised into the underlying Carboniferous rocks. These, however, had been folded long ago and the layers had been tilted at varying angles in differing directions. Henceforth the streams flowed on regardless of the directions in which the rocks dipped or of the way in which they were folded. Such a drainage system is said to be superimposed. One outcome of this is that the scenery along the valleys is more varied than alongside normal streams. Thus, for example, in the main valley of the area, that of the Derwent, grit scars, limestone gorges and wide fertile dales alternate with one another.
THE ICE AGE
One last event remains to be mentioned. The period popularly known as the Great Ice Age was on the whole a time of mild and even warm climate, interrupted now and then by polar conditions when icefields formed over the mountainous regions and, flowing thence, covered the lowlands and filled up the adjoining sea basins. During one of the earliest of these interruptions, or glaciations, all but the extreme south of England was covered with ice. Nevertheless the presence on the South Pennine moorlands of rocking stones and other stones fantastically shaped by prolonged weathering in pre-glacial times indicates that some of the highest parts of the Peak District were never subjected to the scouring action of overflowing ice.
During a later glaciation ice from the Irish Sea invaded the lowlands of Lancashire and Cheshire and, impinging against the flanks of the West Moors, attained an altitude of 1,250 feet. At that time a trickle of ice finding its way across a gap at the Dove Holes, northwest of Buxton, entered the tributary valleys of the Derwent and even reached the vicinity of Matlock. This ice did not, however, leave any appreciable impression upon the scenery of the district. Nevertheless, whenever such arctic conditions prevailed they intensified the action of more normal agents. The snow which accumulated in the winter melted in the early summer. On the shale areas the ground became sodden in the daytime and frozen at night with the result that soil creeping and land sliding took place on a massive scale and greatly accentuated the concavities of the valley slopes.
Elsewhere in England and north-west Europe, Old Stone Age Man appeared upon the scene and gained a livelihood by hunting. Outside the Peak District, though quite near, the caves at Creswell have yielded a very full and unique record of his sojourn in this part of England. In striking contrast is the solitary discovery of one flint implement referable to that time within The Peak in the vicinity of Wirksworth. It is sufficient, however, to indicate that Palaeolithic Man was an occasional visitor. As will be seen later, evidence for the presence of prehistoric man is much more abundant in post-glacial times.
REFERENCES
MARSHALL, C. E. Guide to the Geology of the East Midlands. University of Nottingham (1948)
Memoirs of the Geological Survey
WRAY, D. A., EDWARDS, W., and TROTTER, F. M. The Pennines and Adjacent Areas. Third edition. British Regional Geology. H.M.S.O. (1954)
WATERS, R. S. and JOHNSON, R. H. The Terraces of the Derbyshire Derwent. East Midland Geographer: 9 (June, 1958)
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_d788a670-476c-5f41-895b-deaa140d5bd5)
THE MAKING OF THE SCENERY (#ulink_d788a670-476c-5f41-895b-deaa140d5bd5)
Approach we then this classic ground:
More gentle name was never found
By chance, nor more of picturing sound
To tell the spirit of the scene.
EDMUND BLUNDEN: Dovedale
THE SCENERY of the Peak District is a treasury of features, some new, some old. Relics of the far-distant past are closely linked with others of more recent origin; some beautiful, others rugged, weird, mystifying. It is the outcome of a long process of sculpturing which was produced by slow incessant change. Throughout all these ages, however, the rocks have remained unchanged in quality and arrangement and have exerted a constant though passive influence upon the landscape. A brief consideration of the nature of that influence will provide a useful background against which to watch the development of the scenery as it exists today.
There are three main types of rocks in the district—limestone, grit and shale. Volcanic tuffs and intrusive dolerite play a minor but interesting part.
ROCKS AND SCENERY
Limestone is a hard, almost impervious stone. Consequently very little rain-water penetrates into its substance. This fact shields it from the shattering action of frost. On the other hand, it is slightly soluble in natural water. Just as a cube of sugar becomes rounded as it dissolves in tea, so the contours of the limestone surface tend to develop smooth curving outlines.
Even the purest limestone contains small quantities of dust and other earthy materials. This is left behind on the surface of the rock and accumulates to form soil. On slopes the soil is usually too shallow to give firm foothold for trees, except for the ash, but it is covered by a carpet of grass and flowers which provides valuable pasturage. The more level ground on the platforms and along valley bottoms has a covering of much deeper soil. Here trees and bushes may flourish except where the altitude is such as to expose them to the influences of strong winds.
The debris shed by the vegetation becomes mixed with the soil. There it rots and produces weak humic acids which are taken into the water percolating down through the soil and thus intensify its solvent action upon the limestone.
Limestone, like other rocks, is arranged in layers or strata, each of which is broken into more or less cubical blocks by the presence of two sets of cracks known as joints and bedding planes. Descending water finds its way down even the finest of the joints and along the closest bedding planes, and by dissolving the stone on either side widens these into open fissures. Eventually these become so spacious that most of the rain-water abandons the streams upon the surface and flows away along these newly formed underground channels. Below a certain depth all cracks and fissures are permanently filled with water. That depth is spoken of as the water-table and thus becomes the surface along which these underground streams flow.
Sometimes a surface valley is deep enough for its floor to lie along or even slightly below the water-table. In these circumstances a surface stream or river is maintained which is remarkably constant in its flow and rarely swells into flood in wet seasons or shrinks and disappears in times of drought. The Dove is a good example of this type of river.
Grit, on the other hand, is practically insoluble in water. It is, however, so porous that rain-water is quickly absorbed and, soaking inwards away from the surface, leaves this dry. The water, however, fills all the pores and cracks in the deeper layer, which then become saturated. The dry superficial parts of the grit are consequently less liable to destruction by frost action and therefore retain their angular forms and sharp edges. Some grits contain grains of felspar, a mineral which is gradually rotted by natural water. In these cases the rock disintegrates more rapidly.
Shale is more finely porous than grit. Water therefore percolates into it more slowly and is retained in its surface films. There its prolonged presence softens the rock and favours the pulverising action of frost. In areas where shale is the dominant rock, vertical erosion by streams and valley-widening proceed more rapidly. In these areas landslips occur on the steeper slopes and under the overwhelming pressure of superincumbent rocks the shaley sides of the valleys may even begin to bulge. Examples of such features may be seen around Edale and other vales.
The limestone, which is the oldest rock in this district, underlies all the others and occurs as a great mass at least 1,500 feet thick. In its uppermost portions thin layers of shale appear. Passing upwards these thicken and the intervening bands of limestone become thinner and eventually disappear. The succeeding 1,000 feet of shales are called the Edale Shales.
Thin beds of grit begin to appear in the upper levels of the shales which are referred to as the Grit Shales. Passing upwards through the rock series the grit layers become more massive. Of these there are five, of which the Kinderscout Grit may be specifically mentioned, for in the north of the district around Black Hill and Bleaklow it attains a thickness of as much as 600 feet. All these grits, however, have a lenticular form and tend to become thinner towards the south where the surface features they form are much less prominent than in the north.
Turning now to the arrangement of the rocks it will be recalled that they have all been folded, a fact which has a marked influence upon the features of the landscape. The folds are of the two general types—upfolds or anticlines and downfolds or synclines. The sides of each fold are its limbs and these link the crest of the former with the trough of the latter. The rock layers are horizontal or nearly so at these two points but are more or less steeply dipping in the limbs.
Erosive or denuding agencies naturally attack the upfolds to begin with and in doing so strip away the younger rocks first and the older ones in turn until in the centre of the crest the limestone is brought to view as in the Derbyshire upland. Northwards from the upland, earlier stages in this stripping process are exemplified in succession. In the moorland area much of the grit cover still remains. On the other hand, on the downfolds the youngest rocks survive longest in the centre of the trough, hence the presence of Coal Measures in the lower Goyt valley. Along the zones of country occupied by the outcropping limbs of the folds the rocks dip down from the surface and the edges of the strata produce such scarp-like features called “edges,” as Axe Edge, Froggatt Edge, Baslow Edge and Black Edge (Fig. 4, see here (#ulink_0db0e8a3-a156-5892-a5af-24b2c659a86e)).
TIME AND SCENERY
The Peak District is but a minute portion of the earth’s crust. This latter is often spoken of as “terra firma” as though it were quite rigid. But it is rigid only in the sense that a block of wood is rigid. Anyone who has jumped off a diving-board knows, however, that when the block is so long that it becomes a plank it is springy and flexible. The rock layers which make up the Peak District are similarly flexible. Deep down in the earth beneath them lies a plastic foundation which during long periods of time has crept slowly from one region to another and the crust of rocks which rests upon it has risen and fallen accordingly. In the middle and again in late Pliocene times movements of this kind took place in the Peak District and resulted in a general uplift of the region. Each uplift probably took place in a series of stages but, for the sake of brevity with clarity, only the total results will be considered for the two occasions.
With each total uplift of the Peak District its level above the sea was increased. Consequently all the agencies which had almost gone to sleep were aroused into activity once more; water flowed more rapidly; vertical and later on horizontal erosion were renewed. Thus it came about during the remaining 15 million years of Pliocene, Pleistocene and recent times, that rain and rivers, frost and glaciers gave to the district those magical touches of beauty which make it so attractive to its many visitors.
The process of carving the surface was by no means haphazard. On the contrary, as the result of successive uplifts there was a majestic rhythm about its progress which inscribed its score everywhere. For those who learn to read that score the appreciation and enjoyment of the scenery are greatly enhanced. How was that score written? That is the next problem to be explored.
The key agents in carving inland scenery have always been the rivers and streams. Those of the Peak District are all tributaries of large rivers—the Mersey, Trent and Don—which in turn pour their waters into the sea. This last phrase, though trite, leads straight to the central influence that ultimately controls the whole activity of running water, for both flow and erosive activity cease at sea-level. This last term, however, lacks precision for both land and sea rise and sink independently of one another. Strictly speaking, therefore, the controlling influence is the relative level of these two and this is called the base level. Throughout its course a river flows and works only so long as its bed is above base level.
The character of the work done by the river changes at different portions of its course. In its upper reaches the bed is steep and water flows rapidly. Like a man running swiftly, it follows almost a straight course and overcomes all obstacles that lie across its path. Downstream, as the slope of the bed becomes more gentle the rate of flow declines and the water is more easily diverted. Henceforth the river meanders from side to side.
Upstream the more rapid flow gives to the water greater power for rolling boulders and stones along, and these by their continual passage wear grooves and channels across even the hardest rocks. This wearing of the river bed is described as vertical erosion. Downstream this power is lost. Nevertheless as the river meanders along it impinges against the outside bank of each bend. In times of flood, when the water is carrying a load of sand and gravel, it undercuts and wears the bank away. It is then said to be eroding horizontally.
Upstream again, the valley sides come down to the margin of the water and the valley is V-shaped in cross-section. Downstream, on the other hand, as the river meanders it also erodes the lower fringes of the valley sides and thus the valley bottom is widened into a flat which increases in width as it approaches the sea. This broad flat with its cloak of gravel, silt and mud constitutes the alluvial plain.
While all these changes are going on frost and rain are busy working upon the valley side. The one pulverises the rocks and converts them into soil. The other washes away the surface of the soil and discharges it into the stream. At the same time the rain soaks into the soil and causes this to swell. In dry weather the water evaporates and the soil shrinks. This alternate wetting and drying, swelling and shrinking causes the soil to wriggle slowly downhill and ultimately to fall into the stream. This process is known as soil creep. Long after the river ceases to erode vertically these processes continue, the valley sides recede from the stream and the valley increases in width. There is, however, a limit to all these activities; they cannot be carried on below the level of the alluvial plain which serves as their local base level. As the steeper convex sides of the valley recede from the river they leave behind them a gently sloping apron of deep fertile soil which in these days is occupied by prosperous farms and villages.
Meanwhile the plateau-like high ground between the valleys diminishes in height and extent and becomes reduced to a gentle rise of ground. In this way hilly and even mountainous country is levelled down almost to a plain, a “peneplain” (pene=almost), and is characterised by a gently undulating surface with broad open valleys and low spreading rises. This late stage in the development of landscape was attained in the Peak District in or about early Pliocene times. The level of the land relatively to the sea was about 1,200 feet lower than it is now. It remained near this level for so long a time that the work of denuding agencies was carried almost to complete fruition even in the uppermost and far inland portions of the drainage system in the region.
The open breezy highlands of the Peak District are remnants of the peneplain then produced. The features described above are best exemplified in the limestone uplands where the rock is almost uniform in quality. An excellent viewpoint from which to see them in profile is from the summit of Thorpe Cloud. In the moorland areas in the north the alternating grits and shales have produced a rugged surface (Plate 1, see here (#ulink_8af04216-c3c4-5b3e-b040-573ad6dc4a29)). Upstanding peaks were absent, but even in those far-off days the plateaux and ridges rose above the general level of that ancient peneplain. Ancient indeed, for it dates back to early Pliocene times, when for several million years land and sea remained relatively stable with only small oscillations of level. The denuding processes continued their work without serious interruption until it was accomplished. At that time the Peak District did not rise above the surrounding country as it does now, for its surface was only a small part of an extensive peneplain that sloped away gently towards the far distant sea, the sea whose nearly constant level had for so long a time exerted a controlling influence that was felt along the whole length of every river and stream and across the breadth of the whole countryside.
Fig. 5. Surface relief of the Peak National Park (#ulink_8174dd1d-7b81-5bac-9d14-5b9193a72e8e)
BEYOND THE DALES
For many tourists the word Derbyshire spells “dales.” It is the dales they love to explore. It is up the dales they hike. When eventually they emerge into the upland, as for instance out of Lathkill Dale they lose interest for “there is nothing to see,” nothing but stone walls and tame pastures. Nevertheless, for a full appreciation of the more exciting vistas within the dales the story of these uplands must be told.
The sequence of events detailed in the last section is known as a cycle of erosion. Whenever the level of the land rises or that of the sea sinks, the current “cycle” is interrupted or even ended. A general movement of this kind took place about the middle of the Pliocene period. The whole landscape was uplifted about 300 feet and remained at the new level for a long time. The rivers were rejuvenated and recommenced excavating their channels, first of all in their lower reaches. The point near which the steep new bed joins up with the gently sloping old one is commonly called the knick point. Below this the newly formed valley was at first a narrow gorge and ran like a trench along the floor of the broad, open, ancient valley of the former cycle. Above the knick point that valley remained unchanged. The river continued excavating its channel and the knick point receded upstream along nearly the whole length of the former valley.
Meanwhile the sides of the gorge were worn by weathering agencies into steep and then gentle slopes. The gorge was thus slowly converted into a wide valley lying within the limits of the old one. Along its margin where the steeper side of the new valley merged into the floor of the old one there was a “break of slope,” essentially a greatly elongated extension of the knick point. Had this widening process been carried on to its utmost limit all traces of the older landscape would have been destroyed. Fortunately this cycle of erosion was interrupted in late Pliocene times and consequently relics of the earlier landscape survive in the loftiest portions of this upland.
The late Pliocene uplift raised the general level another 200 feet and all the weathering machinery was set going once more. Through out the Pleistocene and later times, river channels were worn deeply once more and thus the dales as now seen came into being as the youngest features in the Derbyshire scenery.
That, then, in rapidly drawn outline is the general story of this limestone scenery in the Peak District. Further details must now be considered and these vary from dale to dale mainly in association with the size of the streams.
The Lathkill, though only a small stream, provides a pocket edition of the whole story. In the centre of its basin lies Monyash surrounded by a broad open valley formed mainly in mid-Pliocene times. The high ground enclosing this basin bears the last traces of the early Pliocene peneplanation. Downstream from Monyash the floor of the valley is gashed by the dale, the excavation of which was begun in late Pliocene times and continued until now.
The survival of so many traces of the early phases in the development of the landscape is largely due to the fact that it lies wholly within the limestone region. Apart from the Lathkill there are no surface streams. Had such streams been present they would have inscribed an intricate pattern of new valleys and in doing so would have removed still further and larger portions of the ancient surface. The rain, however, instead of flowing off along the surface descended down cracks and joints in the rock and dissolved out underground channels along which it journeyed to the newly forming dale. Thus many of the dales are now dry at the surface, Gratton Dale being a good example (Plate VIIb, see here (#litres_trial_promo)).
It must not be supposed that the relics of the more ancient landscape have survived the passage of ages without undergoing change. On the contrary the whole of the limestone area is like a marble statue which has been exposed to the weather for a long time. Every fall of rain which has washed its surface has dissolved away some of the marble and gradually destroyed the finer details of the carving. But the major features of the face, chin, nose and eyes can still be recognised as such. So though the limestone of this upland has been washed by rain for 5, 10 or 15 million years, the major features originally carved upon its surface can still be recognised.
The water which disappears underground is by no means idle. It finishes its downward journey when it reaches the water-table, that is to say the surface below which all cracks and joints are already filled with water. This surface differs from that of a lake in that it is not flat and horizontal but has a general slope roughly parallel to that of the surface of the countryside above it. The water newly arrived from above now flows along this watery surface, dissolving the limestone away on either side of the crack which forms its path. The level of the water-table rises and falls according as the season is wet or dry and consequently the crack is widened into a tunnel or cave within the limits of that rise and fall. Such a cave may be seen soon after entering the dale from its upper end. In a rainy season the water-table rises above the floor of the dale and the stream is then seen issuing from the cave as a surface stream. In times of drought the water-table sinks and the stream, finding that its underground channel is enough, disappears from the surface and continues its course below ground. With this alternating rise and fall of the water the roof of the underground channel is being gradually dissolved away and ultimately collapses and thus a new and romantic addition is introduced into the floor of the dale. This type of deepening has been going on in all the dales since late Pliocene times.
The limestone varies in quality from place to place throughout the uplands. Sometimes it is rich in fossils which are slightly less soluble than the rock itself. This is particularly the case where coral or shelly reefs existed on the floor of the Carboniferous sea. At such places the rock is less rapidly dissolved than is the surrounding limestone and so it stands up as a more or less prominent hill known as a reef knoll. Thorpe Cloud, Bunster, Wetton and Gratton Hills are examples of such knolls.
One important result accruing from the solvent action of rainwater upon the limestone is that the insoluble residue remains on the surface and accumulates to form soil. This is particularly the case where the surface is almost level, for then rain-wash and soil creep have only slight effect. The soil is then said to be stationary. Where the surface has a marked slope these two factors come into action more vigorously and the soil is transported downhill. On such slopes the soil covering is thin but in the adjoining valley it is deep. These differences from place to place exert an important influence upon the agriculture of the upland.
The wet surfaces over which the escaping water flows become moss-grown. The moss, however, takes up the carbon dioxide from this water with the result that it can no longer hold much lime in solution. The latter is therefore deposited and, covering the moss, forms a spongy-looking rock called tufa. This is often used for rockeries and sometimes for building as in the case of Tufa Cottage in the Via Gellia. In some springs the water rises from great depth and as it does so the pressure upon it diminishes rapidly. Once more much of the lime held in solution is set free and covers any objects, such as toys and birds’ nests that are put into it, with a hard coating lime. As they have the appearance of having been changed to stone such springs are spoken of as petrifying wells.
In caves the water dropping from the roof or flowing down the sides also parts with its lime. In so doing it deposits this either as icicle-shaped pendants from the roof or as pinnacles rising from the floor. These features are known as stalactites and stalagmites respectively. Sheets of lime may also be laid over the walls or hang like curtains from ridges on the ceiling. When such a cave is judiciously illuminated it becomes a beautiful scene and a profitable centre of attraction.
WITHIN THE DALES
The rambler approaching Dovedale and the uplands along the Belper-Ashbourne road begins to catch visions of the promised land when he passes beyond Hulland. He looks across a succession of level-topped hills with an altitude of six or seven hundred feet. These level tops are relics of a mid-Pliocene peneplained platform. Away in the distance beyond them the uplands appear as a lofty rampart, bounding this platform on the north, and extending to the Weaver Hills.
In the centre of the rampart is Thorpe Cloud, rising like a bastion at the entry to Dovedale. Making that his first objective, he scrambles to the top and, looking northwards, finds himself on a level with the upper or early Pliocene platform and sees it as a gently undulating landscape having all the general characteristics of a peneplain (Plate VIIa, see here (#litres_trial_promo)).
In striking contrast to that is the deep steep-sided dale looking like a cleft in that ancient landscape. Closer inspection of the cleft reveals a feature that is easily overlooked. The precipitous sides of the cleft do not rise to the level of the upland itself for their rims spread out like a shallow funnel about 200 feet deep. The sides of this funnel curve upwards from the lips of the gorge to the level of the upland platform. The funnel is in fact the profile or cross-section of a moderately broad valley in the floor of which the gorge has been carved. This floor extends southwards into the 600-700-foot platform already noticed between Hulland and Ashbourne. The sight of this valley takes the thoughts back to middle Pliocene times when the Dove flowed along this floor and debouched on to the plain of which this platform is a survival.
Leaving his eyrie, the rambler descends and sets out to explore the dale (Plate 2a, see here (#ulink_8fc9d959-31b9-5bd3-a90f-47c235ce3a5f)). At first his path lies alongside the stream. Presently it rises steeply and takes him up to the Lover’s Leap, the name given to a spur which projects towards the gorge. Standing upon the tip of the spur he looks down into the gorge and his eyes come to rest on the wooded slopes of the opposite side. Here and there amongst the greenery may be seen grey pinnacles of limestone known as the Twelve Apostles. How these came to be there will emerge later. For the present it must suffice to say that they are the degraded remnants of another spur that once projected from the other side, the counterpart of the Lover’s Leap.
Turning back from viewing the Twelve Apostles, it is seen that the flat surface of the Leap slopes upwards like a valley side and merges into the upper plain. Looking up the dale similar spurs may be seen farther on. Each of these shows the same traces of the old valley features, for all these spurs are also relics of the mid-Pliocene valley. The observer is standing where at that far distant date the Dove actually flowed.
Leaving the Lover’s Leap behind, the explorer descends past the successive levels through which the river excavated on its way down to its present bed. Once more the path lies alongside the stream through smooth grassy flats unimpeded by boulders. On either side are the rocky cliffs criss-crossed by vertical cracks or joints and horizontal or gently dipping bedding planes. In winter some of these become filled with water from melting snow. When this freezes it expands and the ice, acting like a quarryman’s wedge, gradually prises lumps of rock from the face of the cliff which fall and form a blocky scree at the base (Plate VIa, see here (#litres_trial_promo)).
Here and there other narrow spurs once projected into the dale, but these have been partly or wholly destroyed. Frost working at both sides of the spur has worked its way in along major joints or fractures and cut it up into isolated columns such as that of the Ilam Rock (Plate III, see here (#ulink_5375b2f9-a0d8-5315-a557-ffd8f4edbd29)). Rain falling upon such a column dissolves the corners and edges and eventually reduces it to the shape of a pinnacle such as those already seen from the Lover’s Leap.
Another feature of the dale that is easily overlooked is the fact that it follows a winding course. One result of this is that the vistas are usually not long but are closed in by a succession of rocky pictures often of great beauty. As each bend of the gorge is passed there come into view new cliffs, fresh and fantastic shapes or even a cave, such as Dove Hole and Reynard’s Cave. These last are a reminder that the excavating of the dale has not been entirely due to the direct deepening of the river channel. Disappearing streams like those of the Lathkill and the Manifold have played their part by dissolving underground passage-ways beneath the floor of the dale which became open to the air and the sunshine, in the way already described for Lathkill Dale, and henceforth became part of the main dale. The two caves just mentioned were formed by tributary streams which, however, were drained dry when the Dove itself deepened its channel below their level.
The winding of the dale is reminiscent of the meanders of a river flowing along an alluvial plain. When such a river is rejuvenated the knick point, followed by the deepened channel, travels upstream along the meandering course round bend after bend. Such was the history of the Dove when, with the mid-Pliocene uplift, it became rejuvenated and incised its new valley into the early Pliocene peneplain, and at a later date excavated the dale in the floor of that valley.
At last the explorer comes to the end of the dale and finds that it opens out into a normal valley. From this point up to its source on Axe Edge it does not flow over limestone but over shale with some grits. As already seen these shales yield much more readily than does limestone to the destructive influence of rain and frost. When therefore this uppermost section of the river came under the influence of the latest rejuvenation, the sides of the deepening channel were more rapidly worn back and a wide valley formed.
THE MOORLANDS
The striking change of scenery met with along the upper reaches of the Dove is a reminder that the limestone uplands form only part of the Peak District; the other part is made up of grits and shales. The change reflects the still greater contrast between the uplands and the moors. This gives to the district much of its attractiveness as is typified by the streams of visitors to the dales and the comparative trickle of energetic hikers who make the lofty, windswept moors their main objectives.
The rocks which form the moorlands completely encircle the uplands like the oval frame of a beautiful portrait. At the top of the frame, where the grits have their maximum thickness, the moulding stands out in bold relief. Along the sides this declines and at the bottom it almost disappears for the grits become much thinner as they pass southwards round the limestone. On the south such features as they produce still remain largely hidden under ancient covering of Triassic sands and marls.
In the uplands the limestone is almost uniform in character, but in the moorlands extremes meet and resistant grits lie in close juxtaposition with the much more easily weathered shales. This is illustrated in The Peak itself which is capped with a mighty slab of grit, several hundred feet thick, resting on a pedestal of shale. The slab forms a plateau bounded by steep rugged cliffs. The pedestal is flanked by slopes whose surface is roughened by landslips or broken by steps caused by the presence of occasional thin beds of grit.
The rock of the plateau is so porous that rain-water soaks into it rapidly and, percolating downwards, saturates the lower layers. This great slab of grit therefore functions as an underground reservoir having an impervious floor but is without retaining walls around its margins where, at the junction of the two kinds of rock, the water leaks slowly away and is lost. Within the grit the water flows freely through the fissures but elsewhere its flow is hindered as it seeps slowly through the fine pores of the rock. Unlike the water-table of an ordinary open-air reservoir, the surface of which is perfectly flat, that in the grit is heaped up in the centre and slopes thence in all directions.
Wherever a valley has been developed on the plateau deep enough for its floor to reach the water-table, water escapes and forms a stream flowing along the valley bottom. Elsewhere the plateau is dry and streamless.
At the base of the cliffs bounding the plateau water leaks away perpetually and, soaking into the adjoining shale, softens it to such an extent that it yields to the pressure of the overlying rock and is slowly squeezed out. The cliff, with its foundation thus weakened, eventually collapses and tumbles its fragments down the slopes. It is in this way that the slabs of rock which cap the highest grounds in the district have been and are being worn away gradually, so that large plateaux in time become small ones, e.g. Brown Hill and Stanton Moor, and small ones become conical peaks or pikes such as Win Hill near Hope and Oaker Hill near Matlock.
Where a crack or fissure running through the rock emerges at the cliff-face a copious spring of water gushes forth. At such a point the destructive action just described takes place more rapidly and leads to the formation of a notch, a gully or even a “clough,” the floor of which is cumbered with fallen blocks of grit (Plate IV, see here (#ulink_af784047-a0de-5f0f-a97d-ee13bea8bb09)). All these features may be seen well developed round the margins of any grit plateau or along a grit edge.
Turn now to the pedestal which supports the rock. This consists mainly of shale with occasional thin grits. Each of these as it crops out to the surface acts as a protective covering for the shale below; but the shale above it is weathered into a concave slope. This merges downwards on to the flat upper surface of the grit which is exposed as a narrow platform.
The vicinity of Matlock Bank yields an excellent and easily accessible example of these types of topography. Standing in Salters Lane and looking across the valley, the step-like features produced by the sub-divisions of the Kinderscout Grit are well seen. They are indeed emphasised by the plan of the town in which main roads run parallel to one another along each shelf and are flanked by buildings which have developed along the ledges.
On the skyline above all this are Matlock and Farley Moors, which owe their presence to a small plateau formed by the Chatsworth or Belper Grit. This layer, however, does not lie quite flat but is bent into a broad shallow downfold having a slight southwards tilt. Rainwater falling on this seeps through the rock to the centre of the fold, where it accumulates as a valuable underground reservoir from which the Matlock Urban District draws its main water supply.
The vegetation cover of the plateau shows an interesting zonation of plants from those which flourish on very dry situations near the scarp margin where the ground level is high above the water-table, to those which favour the boggy conditions near the centre where the ground has dipped down to the level of the water-table.
On the southern margin of the fold the water from the reservoir spills out as a copious stream, the Bentley Brook. This flows for a short distance through a rock-strewn clough whose rugged sides suddenly diverge and pass into two long curving scarps which enclose a broad shallow valley excavated out of the underlying shale down on to the upper surface of another grit layer. This is a good example of a type of hanging valley which is frequently met elsewhere in the moorlands. After flowing for about a mile the stream plunges over the lip of the grit and sets out on a tempestuous journey down the steep valley side east of Matlock, cascading through Lumsdale in a succession of cloughs and ultimately joining the Derwent river.
Similar combinations of topographical features are met with repeatedly throughout the moorlands especially in its northern section. Here, as already seen, the underlying form of the region is based upon a dome-like arrangement of the rocks. Owing to the asymmetry of the anticline its crest lies nearer to the west side, a fact which accounts for the asymmetric position of the dominating features situated along the line from Kinderscout to the extreme northern end of the Peak District, where the influence of the Derbyshire dome ceases to be felt. There the moorlands have a minimum width of only about two miles as contrasted with twelve or more miles in the latitude of The Peak. Along the crest the higher members of the Millstone Grit series have been removed and the lower ones which are more massive dominate the scene. In association with the dip of the rocks away from the crest, the summit level declines most rapidly towards the west. Towards the north-east and east, owing to the low angle of dip, the grits and shales give rise to more widely spaced scarps and broader vales than those on the west.
Thus the general form and arrangement of the major features of the moorlands are controlled by the arrangement of the rocks. But these alone would have led to nothing more than a vast expanse of desolate and even repulsive moors. The area has, however, been redeemed from such a fate by the carving activities of running water. Everywhere are to be found streams fed from the inexhaustible reservoirs of the grits. These set out from the crest on their journey to the lowlands, carving for themselves narrow, often deep gorges through the massive grits. By joining forces they become larger streams. With their power increased and aided by associated agencies they excavate an endless variety of cloughs ranging from mere notches down the faces of steep scarps to narrow, wild and impressive valleys such as that of the Crowden Great Brook which opens on to the north side of Longendale. A swift torrent flowing down the western slope of Kinderscout starts as the Kinder Downfall, which is the only considerable waterfall in The Peak (Plate V, see here (#litres_trial_promo)) Two rivers, the Etherow and the Derwent, are the centres towards which many of these streams converge. The spacious valleys of these rivers have steep sides with the usual step-like grit features at successive levels crowned by magnificent scarps. In each case the left side rises more abruptly, forming a continuous feature of great grandeur only slightly broken by notchlike cloughs. On the right side the valley sides are less abrupt and are deeply dissected by larger valley-like cloughs.
In the northern outskirts of the drainage basin of the Derwent much of the Kinderscout Grit has been removed and has left the underlying shales with minor grits exposed over extensive areas. These are occupied by moors and mosses lying some 500 feet lower than The Peak. They also are redeemed from monotony by the presence of attractive tributary valleys, spacious but steep-sided.
East of the Derwent the outcrops of the Kinderscout Grit continue south as the East Moors. These are defined on the west by a series of prominent scarps (Derwent, Stanage, Froggatt and other Edges) overlooking the main valley. They dip at a steeper angle than that already seen in the north but carry a similar series of dip slopes and scarps. Here, however, the continuity of the latter is interrupted by the transverse folds already mentioned. They give rise to structural and surface features like those described above in detail for Matlock Moor.
In the West Moors, between Buxton and Macclesfield, the geological structure of the district reaches its maximum of complexity in sharp north-to-south folds crossed by minor ones trending west to east, thus producing an area of intermingling types of scenery like those already described but on a smaller scale, surrounding or enclosing in their synclinal hollows patches of lowland types due to the presence of pockets of Coal Measures and even of Triassic rocks.
One more element in the make-up of the district remains to be mentioned. The Edale Shales which lie between the limestone and the grit have a maximum thickness of some 1,000 feet. Under normal circumstances it should crop out as a relatively broad zone between the limestone uplands and the moorlands. Owing to cross-folding and faulting, especially in the west, the zone is broken into a number of separate patches which give origin to the gracious landscapes of Darley Dale, Edale, overlooked by Mam Tor (Plate VIb, see here (#litres_trial_promo)), and Hope Dale. The more extensive patches lie outside the area to the south and south-west.
THE WORLD UNDERGROUND
Reference has already been made see here (#ulink_db329224-d24e-5d91-aa42-ec496e5ff054) to the formation of caves as a common feature of the limestone area of The Peak. The exploration of these caves under proper auspices is a challenging form of recreation for the physically fit, exciting but rigorous, while many of them are of special scientific and archaeological interest. Some of the larger and more spectacular examples are exploited commercially, like the famous Blue John Cavern (strictly the Blue John Mine), the Peak and Speedwell Caves and the Treak Cliff Caverns (Plate 2b, see here (#ulink_8fc9d959-31b9-5bd3-a90f-47c235ce3a5f)), all in the Castleton district, and are an unfailing attraction for the general sightseer, though they are not quite so impressive as those of Cheddar.
While the processes by which caves are formed are not disputed, opinions differ as to the conditions necessary for the processes themselves to operate. As already explained, caves mainly owe their origin to water action, either as a solvent in the limestone or as an agent for the transporting of rock material by which the beds of underground streams are scoured. The relative importance of each of these forms of water action doubtless varies with local conditions. Authorities hold different views, however, as to where, in regard to the underground water, the cave-forming processes take place. Some maintain that caves originate and develop above the water-table within what is termed the “vadose” zone, i.e. the zone between the surface and the level of saturation, within which water moves downwards by gravity. This view implies that water percolating downwards from the surface will dissolve almost all the calcium carbonate it can hold before it reaches the water-table. Others have shown that many caves must have originated below the water-table in the “phreatic” or water-logged zone. Regarding this issue much depends on such factors as the extent to which solutional activity may continue below the water-table and the nature of water movement resulting from pressure exerted in the phreatic zone. It is likely that each of the theories is applicable to certain caves. In many cases, since there is ample evidence in the Peak District, as elsewhere, of past changes in the level of the water-table, it is reasonable to favour a compromise involving the application of both theories.
Although the phenomenon of limestone caves has been widely studied in many parts of the world, there is scope for much further investigation. For this the Peak District presents an obvious field. As Dr. G. T. Warwick has pointed out, the need is for a careful examination of particular caves, including the basic work of surveying them, without which detailed study cannot be advanced. In this connection the recent work of Dr. Trevor Ford on the Treak Cliff Caverns is to be welcomed not only for its intrinsic value but as pointing the way for further investigations.
Caves are seldom found in the Millstone Grit and when they do occur they generally take the form of narrow fissures resulting from the displacement of large blocks of rock. The Kinderlow Cavern on the western edge of Kinderscout is of this type, where a large but narrow block of gritstone has slipped from the main mass, yet still leans upon it, so forming a roof. The Kittycross Cave in Bradwell Dale, though primarily a limestone cave, is partly developed in decomposed toadstone.
In the limestone area it is important to distinguish between natural caves on the one hand and the underground passages and chambers resulting from lead-mining operations on the other, although the latter have often been the means of revealing some of the deepest and most impressive of the natural caves. A good example is the Bottomless Pit in the Speedwell Mine at Castleton which is due to the solution of lime-bearing minerals, mostly calcite, surrounding the ore body. Again, in the Blue John Mine and the Treak Cliff Mine the search for lead resulted in the discovery of extensive natural chambers. In fact many of the more intricate caverns now exploited as show-places owe their accessibility to former mine workings.
Fig. 6. Distribution of the principal caves in the Peak District. (Based on G. T. Warwick) (#ulink_d08ca058-c042-56b0-87ea-88722be58d55)
In the Peak District the distribution of caves is by no means haphazard. The majority tend to occur around the margin of the limestone in the neighbourhood of streams which flow on to that rock from the higher gritstone areas around it (Fig. 6, see here (#ulink_14a78743-46af-5f3c-8376-9de256d801b9)). Such streams, on encountering the limestone, have developed considerable underground drainage, the more so since much of the limestone, especially along the northern and western margins, is of the reef type (see here (#ulink_b505daa3-0087-546b-a563-b58f75afad06)), which is relatively pure and highly soluble. Under such conditions there is a marked concentration of caves in particular districts. Of these the Castleton, Bradwell, and Eyam-Middleton districts in the north, the Dove-Manifold area in the south-west and the Matlock-Wirks-worth district in the south-east are the chief. In the interior of the limestone area caves occur along some of the valleys such as the Wye and the Lathkill.
Most of the caves, except some in the Castleton group, are situated on the valley slopes or near the present stream level. High-level caves like the Harborough Cave near Brassington, at over 1,000 feet, are seldom found though they are of interest in indicating that ages have elapsed since the water-table stood at such an altitude and they must therefore be of great antiquity. Eldon Hole and Nettle Pot on opposite flanks of Eldon Hill are the only Derbyshire pot-holes, i.e. caves with a vertical pitch, like Gaping Gill in Yorkshire. Eldon Hole is 120 feet long and about 20 feet wide; it reaches to a depth of over 180 feet where it opens into two distinct caverns. Many of the Peak District caves have yielded significant palaeontological and archaeological remains. Thus, from a fissure in the old Victory Quarry north of Buxton, remains of Pliocene mammalian species, including the sabre-tooth tiger, mastodon and southern elephant were brought to light at the beginning of the present century and rank among the few instances of Pliocene cave-finds in Europe. Numerous relics of primitive Man dating as far back as the Bronze Age and even earlier have been found in such places as the Harborough Cave, Thor’s Cave, Thor’s Fissure and Beeston Tor (St. Bertram’s) Cave. None of these, however, is of such outstanding importance as regards evidence of prehistoric conditions as the famous series of caves in the Magnesian Limestone at Creswell in east Derbyshire well beyond the boundary of the National Park. It is their detailed features, including calcite curtains of varying hue, cavities lined with fluorspar, diverse forms of stalactites and stalagmites and the subterranean streams which give to the caves their popular appeal. The Peak Cavern has been famous for centuries. It is referred to as a “marvel of England” in Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum, which was written in the twelfth century. Just as generations ago the Cavern earned a reputation among travellers as one of the wonders of The Peak, so today thousands of people each year are attracted to this and other caves which are exploited as commercial ventures. The caves in this category at present open to the public are the Blue John Mine, the Peak Cavern, the Speedwell Cavern and the Treak Cliff Caverns, all in the neighbourhood of Castleton, the Bagshawe Cavern near Bradwell, Poole’s Cavern at Buxton, the Cumberland, Masson and Rutland Caverns at Matlock Bath, and the Fern Cave and Roman Cave at High Tor, Matlock.
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