The Peak District
The
Peak District is an upland area in central and northern England,
lying mainly in northern Derbyshire, but also covering parts of
Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, and South and West
Yorkshire. Most of the area falls within the Peak District National
Park, whose designation in 1951 made it the earliest national park
in the British Isles. An area of great diversity, it is
conventionally split into the northern Dark Peak, where most of the
moorland is found and whose geology is gritstone, and the southern
White Peak, where most of the population lives and where the geology
is mainly limestone-based.
Theories
as to the derivation of the Peak District name include the idea that
it came from the Pecsaetan or peaklanders, an Anglo Saxon tribe who
inhabited the central and northern parts of the area from the 6th
century AD when it fell within the large Anglian kingdom of Mercia.
An alternative idea is that 'Peak' is a corruption of the word 'Pict',
the pre-Iron Age people whose culture may have persisted much later
in the uplands of Derbyshire and partially survives even now in
local traditions such as well dressing. Another possibility is that
the title is merely descriptive, referring to the Peaks or high
hills which are such a feature of the landscape.
