a run into the Peak district
kirklees-badgers.co.uk buzzbeeman.co.uk peakdistrict.nationaltrust.org.uk/ driving from Meltham to Wessenden & walking ... With an estimated 22 million visitors per year, the Peak District is thought to be the second most-visited national park in the world (after the Mount Fuji National Park in Japan). The Peak District forms the southern end of the Pennines and much of the area is uplands above 1,000 feet (300 m), with a high point at Crowden Head on Kinder Scout of 2,070 feet (630 m). Despite its name, the landscape lacks sharp peaks, being characterised by rounded hills and gritstone escarpments (the "edges"). The area is surrounded by major conurbations, including Huddersfield, Manchester, Sheffield, Derby and Stoke-on-Trent. The National Park covers 555 square miles (1,440 km2) of Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, Greater Manchester and South and West Yorkshire, including the majority of the area commonly referred to as the Peak. The Park boundaries were drawn to exclude large built-up areas and industrial sites from the park; in particular, the town of Buxton and the adjacent quarries are located at the end of the Peak Dale corridor, surrounded on three sides by the Park. The town of Bakewell and numerous villages are, however, included within the boundaries, as is much of the (non-industrial) west of Sheffield. As of 2006, it is the fourth largest National Park in England and Wales. In the UK, the designation "National Park" means that there are planning restrictions to protect the area from inappropriate development and a Park Authority to look after it, but does not imply that the land is owned by the government, nor that it is uninhabited.
