Peak District National Park: Place

If you buy a map for the Peak District, the chances are that you will have the choice of either a White Peak or a Dark Peak map. However, increasingly the Peak District is divided into three 'character areas'. A 'character area' defines a landscape that is believed to have its own distinctive features.

The tables below compare the features of the three main character areas of the Peak District National Park

Landscape

White Peak

Dark Peak

South West Peak

Limestone landscape with flat plateaus cut by steep-sided valleys or 'dales'

Strips of broadleaved woodland

Clear, fast flowing, sometimes seasonal rivers and streams

Gritstone landscape with dramatic, vast plateaus and long, rocky ridges and edges

Sheltered deep valleys or 'cloughs'

Fast flowing streams from the plateau edges

Major valleys, some of which are flooded to form reservoirs

Landscape is a mixture of wild expansive moorland with heather on the hill tops, and valleys with hay meadows and pastures

Upland moor falls away to lower hills and broadening valleys with rivers that flow on into the Cheshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire plains

Isolated gritstone ridges e.g. the Roaches

Settlements

White Peak

Dark Peak

South West Peak

Small villages and towns connected by valley roads

Lack of habitation - occasional isolated farms

Buildings made of gritstone in a durable, stocky architectural style

Small villages within an associated area of farm land

Buildings made from local stone

Land Use

White Peak

Dark Peak

South West Peak

Land used for intensive dairy farming

Small strip fields close to villages defined by drystone walls forming a combination of white walls and bright green grass

Large scale limestone quarries

Rough sheep grazing

Edges of plateaus used by farms for winter grazing and lambing

Boundaries marked by gritstone walls

Grouse shooting on the moorland

Stock rearing (sheep and beef) with some dairy farming

Grouse shooting on the moorland

Distinctive field patterns with gritstone walls higher up and hedgerows in the lower valleys

Ecology and Archaeology

White Peak

Dark Peak

South West Peak

Lead rakes provide a different habitat for plants

Hay meadows and other grasslands

Features of special archaeological interest dating from earliest prehistoric

Blanket bog and heather moorland

Semi-natural ancient woodland along cloughs

Reservoirs often planted with coniferous trees

Upland heather moorland

Hay meadows and other grasslands in valleys

Remains of coal mining activity e.g. around Flash

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For more information about character areas visit http://www.countryside.gov.uk/cci, or for more information on natural areas go to www.english-nature.org.uk.

If you would like to find out how you can visit some of the Peak District's key habitats & geological sites,
or how you can get involved in looking after them, then please go to Taking Part.