Peak District National Park: Study Area

White peak
7. limestone heath
8. the limestone plateau
9. old limestone quarries
10. Old lead mines
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12
13. Upper pastures
14. Flushes
15. Plantations
16. Sessile oak woodlands
17. Escarpments
18. Heather (ling)
19. Peat bog

The Peak District National Park is at the Southern tip of the Pennines, at the junction of highland and lowland Britain. For this reason, it has plants and animals which are typical of both the northern mountainous region and also the central and southern area of England. Plant and animal communities are determined mainly by the underlying rocks, the climate and human management of the land.

This Fact Zone looks at a cross section of the Peak District countryside from the high moorlands of the Dark Peak through the fertile shale valleys and on to the plateaux and dales of the White Peak. The numbers on the cross-section below, refer to the information on the inside pages, about each type of habitat.

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White peak

Limestone is the underlying rock of the centre and south of the Peak District. Because it is light in colour, the area is called the White Peak . The White Peak mostly lies less than 350 metres above sea level and consists of plateaux with some hills rising above them, crossed by deep, steep-sided dales. The plateau is mostly improved pasture. There is a wide variety of plants growing in the unimproved vegetation.

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7. Limestone heath

(on roughly level land) remains in a few areas. It covered much of the plateau until the land was enclosed and divided into fields in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Heather grows in the leached acid topsoil (the lime has been washed out of this top layer), while lime-loving plants put their roots down into limey material (lying under the topsoil)

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8. The limestone plateau

has almost entirely been improved for agriculture, as the soil and summer weather allow good growth of grass. Some fields have not been reseeded or fertilised and have a good variety of flowers. Dog daisy and yellow rattle are often most noticeable in old hayfields. Road verges have good displays of meadow cranesbill , knapweed and many other flowers.

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9. Old limestone quarries

often develop a vegetation similar to limestone grassland and cliffs. The very poor soil means that there is little danger of coarse vegetation crowding out very fine plants such as fairy flax , eyebright and autumn gentian . Quarries are often good places to see orchids , whose seeds are blown in and get established on bare ground.

Mountain Pansy

Dipper

Harebell

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10. Old lead mines

are surrounded by mounds of waste material from the mines, with very poor soil. There may be fairy flax, eyebright and autumn gentian as in the quarries, but the most typical plant is leadwort (spring sandwort) . This plant is tolerant of the toxic soil around some lead mines, which may prevent almost anything else from growing. Some waste heaps have leached soil and yellow mountain pansy often grows on them.

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11. Upper pastures

The Park contains many RESERVOIRS (large man-made lakes) where water is stored for use by the surrounding towns and cities. The water in the reservoirs is acid and they support little wildlife, except for some wildfowl, including in some placaes, goosanders and red-breasted mergansers . Trout are put into the reservoirs for anglers. Common sandpipers nest on the shores but are easily disturbed. Streams feeding the reservoirs often have grey wagtails and dippers .

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12.

The soil in the SHALE VALLEYS is less acid and more fertile than on the gritstone. It is also less exposed with a milder climate. and soil which is good for agriculture. Most lower land has been improved by fertilising, reseeding etc, and has less wildlife interest. Skylarks may still nest in spite of fewer insects and the risk of nests being destroyed by early silage cutting.

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13. Upper pastures

have bent and fescues as the main grasses. If unimproved, they usually have a number of flowers; tormentil and harebell being commonest. Snipe and curlew may be found on damp ground with rushes. Bracken, gorse and tufted hair grass show that the land has not been managed intensively.

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14. Flushes

where water emerges at the joints of gritstone and the impervious shale, often have almost the only sphagnum moss left (S. recurvum). Sedges, bog asphodel, cranberry, marsh thistle and marsh pennywort may also grow.

Conifers in the Derwent Valley

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15. Plantations

of conifers have little wildlife interest as the heavy shade stops the growth of most plants. There may be patches of semi-natural woodland surviving as glades. Birds such as crossbills, coal tits and goldcrests live in conifers.

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16. Sessile oak woodlands

are rare survivors of the woodland which once covered most of the landscape. In most areas, grazing has prevented young trees growing, so woodlands have gradually disappeared. Most remaining semi-natural woods are now protected from grazing to allow regeneration. Other trees in the woodland are birch and rowan . The woodland floor often has a rich flora with bilberry, cowberry, wavy hair grass, woodrush, ferns, mosses and lichens (mosses and lichens also grow on trees). Woodland birds may include the pied flycatcher and the green woodpecker , which feeds on ants. Anthills of wood ants are often obvious - please leave them alone.

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17. Escarpments

(steep cliffs usually called edges) of gritstone may have ledges that sheep cannot reach. Luxuriant bilberry, heather and other plants grow here, as well as trees such as rowan . These edges are very popular with climbers and this has caused erosion of the vegetation on the ledges.

Heather moorland

Red grouse

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18. Heather (ling)

is typical of MOORLAND on mineral soil or shallow peat . Other dwarf shrubs which often grow with it are bilberry and cowberry but where it is managed for grouse , heather is often almost continous over big stretches. Management for grouse means winter burning of small strips in rotation to encourage new growth of heather which is their main food (and is also eaten by sheep in winter). Grouse nest and roost in the tall old heather (as do some birds of prey such as Hen Harrier and Merlin ). Heavy grazing of sheep removes the heather which is replaced by mat grass . Wetter land is usually covered with purple moor grass and cross leaved heather . Bracken grows in areas of more fertile soil and is used by birds such as whinchats and ring ouzels in some places.

Cotton grass

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19. Peat bog

developed on plateaux during periods of heavy rainfall, particularly from around 600 BC. Peat consists of the remains of vegetation, such as sphagnum mosses , which haven't decayed because of acidity and lack of oxygen. Traces of the woodland which was engulfed by the peat can sometimes by seen. The sphagnum has nearly disappeared because of acid rain since the Industrial Revolution. Cotton grass (a type of sedge) has taken its place, with cloudberry (a dwarf blackberry) in a few places. Erosion of the peat is common, due mainly to summer fires and overgrazing by sheep (which prevents vegetation from recovering after fires). Where the peat is drier, on the edges of groughs (gullies) and haggs (islands of peat left where the rest has gone), crowberry and bilberry grow. Golden plover and dunlin are typical birds of the peat.