The Peak District is a land of high moors, narrow gorges, dark gritstone edges, white limestone cliffs, bleak plateau, lush valleys, fine churches, grand country houses, stone-built villages and spa towns. In 1951, much of the region was designated as Britain’s first national park and it is now one of the most visited national parks in the world. Given that its features, both natural and man-made, are well known to millions, it might be thought that there are very few secrets to be found in the region, but this is far from true. As this book will demonstrate, there are fascinating villages that are rarely visited by tourists, secret rivers that flow underground, either permanently or seasonally, architectural features that cannot be seen without the help of binoculars, buildings that have a split personality, tracks that are the fossilised remains of long-lost railways, and mysterious places that were known to prehistoric tribes. There are three substantial towns in the Peak District, with much that is hidden. Bakewell has many secret ingredients other than those which make up its famous pudding. In Buxton it is always rewarding to gaze upwards in the largest rooms of its most splendid buildings in order to discover the most spectacular ceilings to be found anywhere, and it is worth stepping behind the façades of many of Ashbourne’s Georgian buildings to uncover their Tudor origins. As this book will show, there are very many aspects of the Peak District that should not be taken at face-value.
