Peak District

valley from Mam Tor]] The Peak has been inhabited from the earliest periods of human activity, as shown by finds of Mesolithic flint artefacts and palaeo-environmental evidence from caves in Dovedale and elsewhere. Signs of Neolithic activity include monumental earthworks or barrows such as the one at Margery Hill. The Bronze Age saw the area well populated and farmed. Evidence remains in henges such as Arbor Low near Youlgreave and the Nine Ladies stone circle at Stanton Moor. In the same period and into the Iron Age, hill forts such as Mam Tor's were created. The Romans drew on the area's rich mineral veins, exporting lead from the Buxton area along well-used routes. Buxton was a Roman…

De Mirabilibus Pecci or The Seven Wonders of the Peak by Thomas Hobbes was an early touring description published in 1636. Much scorn was poured on the seven wonders by visitors, including Daniel Defoe, who called the moors by Chatsworth "a waste and houling wilderness" and scorned particularly Peak Cavern near Castleton, known as the "Devil's Arse". Visitor numbers did not rise until the Victorian era, when railways provided access and cultural appreciation of the Picturesque and Romantic developed. John Mawe's Mineralogy of Derbyshire (1802) and William Adam's Gem of the Peak (1843) raised interest in the area's unique geology. A tradition of public access and outdoor recreation grew up…