Peak Experience

 

Cows graze around a stone circle of prehistoric farmers  Medieval ridge and furrow near Bradbourne

 

You’ll find ancient farming remains scattered all over the Peak District.

 

Over 5,000 years ago the first farmers built Arbor Low henge and impressive chambered tombs on White Peak pastures.  These prehistoric monuments are the most obvious reminder of the earliest farming families to live in the Peak District.

 

Bronze Age and Iron Age farmers created small fields between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago.  Extensive traces survive undisturbed on the lower areas of the Eastern Moors as piles of cleared stones, field boundaries and house platforms.  Some of these fields were built by the same people who built stone circles such as Nine Ladies, Nine Stone Close and the Seven Stones of Hordron.

 

When the Romans arrived 2,000 years ago farming intensified, because locals had to grow crops for taxes.  Small square fields with distinct boundaries survive from these days in a number of places across the Peak District.

 

Ridge and furrow layouts were created over 1,000 years ago by medieval villagers growing crops in village common fields.

 

Gardom’s Edge. Prehistoric clearance mounds, field boundaries and house platforms survive on moorland.  You can explore the area with a Peak Experience audio tour.  

Download the Gardom’s Edge audio tour onto an MP3 player.

 

Romano-British fields survive at Chee Tor near Blackwell, North Lees north of Hathersage and Roystone Grange near Bradbourne.

 

You can download a self-guided trail around Roystone Grange.

 

Bradbourne, Chatsworth Park, Wetton, Nether Haddon and Youlgrave are all good places to see medieval ridge and furrow field layouts.