View of the rocky gritstone edge of The Roaches looking over the patchwork landscape, Peak District, Staffordshire.
View of the rocky gritstone edge of The Roaches looking over the patchwork landscape, Peak District, Staffordshire. (© George W Johnson/Getty Images)
The Peak District turns 70
Seventy years ago, on 17 April 1951, the Peak District became the UK’s first national park. It was the culmination of decades of campaigning for greater access to open spaces, boosted by the 1932 ‘Mass Trespass’ on Kinder Scout, the Peak District's highest point at 2,086ft (636m). Hundreds of people defied the law to walk across moorland to its plateau and public sympathy grew until a National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act was finally passed in 1949.
© George W Johnson/Getty Images