Peak Experience

The limestone White Peak is named for its distinctive outcrops of light-coloured limestone rock, which form the White Peak area’s characteristic dales scenery and spectacular caves.  The White Peak is rich in wildlife and flowers and you’ll find natural woodland clinging to the sides of the craggy steep-sided valleys.  It is surrounded on three sides by the gritstones of the Dark Peak.

 

A picture of Limestone reefs exposed at the Whinnet Pass

 

The White Peak has been farmed since prehistory. Pastures and hay fields dominate today, but every village was surrounded by open fields of arable crops over 700 years ago.  Here you see the Peak District’s classic limestone dry-stone walls.  Curving walls forming narrow fields near to villages fossilise the pattern of open fields.  Ruler-straight walls elsewhere were only built in the 18^th and 19^th centuries during enclosure of rough pastures.  Look between the walls to see gently sloping fields of cattle and sheep, and distinctive limestone farmhouses.

 

Much of the limestone rock of the White Peak is porous and cracked.  Water easily runs away through the cracks, so a strange phenomenon occurs.  White Peak streams often ‘retreat’ underground in summer or during periods of drought.  They appear to have run dry, but in fact continue to run underground.

 

A pictures of a stream surging from underground in Lathkill Dale A picture of Odin lead mine, Castleton

Mining and quarrying have long been part of the Peak District’s history.  Lead was mined from surface veins at least the Roman period until the 19^th century.  Many farmers were also lead miners.  Lead rakes – the local name for these veins – run across the landscape.  Their lines of waste hillocks, shafts and working areas can be seen across the White Peak.  The area still provides much of the limestone modern builders use as aggregate and cement in our buildings, homes and roads today.

 

Visit the area around Castleton, Hope and Edale to see clearly the geological contrasts between Dark Peak and White.  White Peak landscapes can be visited at Dovedale, Manifold and Hamps valleys, Lathkill Dale and Stoney Middleton Dale.

 

Download a leaflet about the White Peak’s lead legacy .