A survey of unique landscapes and ecosystem that should be of great interest to naturalists and to the thousands of ramblers who visit the Peak District every year. Lying as it does at the heart of industrial England, this area of intimate wooded dales, steep-sided gorges and windswept boggy moorland, is perhaps the most welcome of all Britain's National Parks; certainly, it is the most accessible, for within 75 miles of its border lives nearly half the population of England, and the rich variety of its scenery attracts tens of thousands of visitors yearly. This book is the general introduction to the region for naturalists. It presents a concise account of the Peak District's geological structure and history from ancient upheavals to the effects of erosion today, of its woods and wild flowers, its mosses and fungi, birds and fishes, roads and villages and farms, its weather and its rural economy.