Peak District

Eldon Hill is a hill in the Peak District National Park in the county of Derbyshire, England, 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) southwest of the village of Castleton. It is a 470-metre (1,540 ft) limestone hill whose pastureland is used for rough grazing, although a large proportion has been lost to limestone quarrying. It lies within the Castleton Site of Special Scientific Interest. Eldon Hill was formed when a bed of pure limestone was squeezed and upfolded by geological forces to form a dome; it is the highest limestone hill north of the River Wye.The hill is of considerable geological, historical and industrial interest; it lies at the northern limit of the carboniferous limestone in the Peak District, as further north it merges into the millstone grit of the Dark Peak. The name Elveden is first attested in 1285 as Elvedon and seems to have meant 'Elves' hill'.Quarrying permission was granted in 1950 and huge quantities of limestone have been excavated, mostly for road-building purposes. A large amount of the northern and northwestern slopes of the hill have disappeared and it has been called the best-known eyesore in the Peak District. In 1995 an application by RMC Aggregates to extend the quarrying further east was denied as parliament tightened up on environmental problems caused by old mineral permissions granted between 1948 and 1981. The quarry closed in 1999 and now stands unused with vegetation starting to grow on the quarry face. There have been some attempts at natural restoration with several aquatic pools being established in the former workings. The termination of quarrying has also given cavers the chance to explore some of the narrow caves exposed by the work, with Sidetrack Cave (discovered 2002) being one of the most impressive. In September 2020 the quarry was used as a film location for a TV series called Ray James, inspired by H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds.350 metres south of the summit lies Eldon Hole. At 55 metres it is the deepest pothole in the area and was named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Peak by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes in 1636. According to folk tradition, it is the abode of the Devil. Close to the summit of the hill lies a Bronze Age tumulus, a large burial site measuring 16 by 15 metres and 1.5 metres high. The tumulus, a Scheduled Monument, has been excavated on several occasions with human skeletons and jewellery amongst the finds. The hill is dotted with numerous lead mines, all disused and many capped off for safety. Eldon Hill can be climbed either from the villages of Peak Forest to the south or Castleton to the north. The approach from Castleton goes up Cave Dale with a return down Winnats Pass to give a very interesting walk. The approach from Peak Forest is shorter and passes Eldon Hole on the way. The summit of the hill stands just 100 metres from the edge of the fenced quarry workings and gives good views with Mam Tor, Axe Edge Moor and the town of Buxton all well seen.

Giant's Hole is a well-known cave near Castleton in Derbyshire, consisting mostly of large passages. It is a stream-way cave, and part of the Karst topography of the area.There is a complex system connecting the cave to Oxlow Cavern and Maskhill Mine to the south. The Entrance Series is easily accessible making it a favourite with novices and groups. The stream that flows into the entrance can be followed through the cave, bypassing three sumps, to the East Canal, Giant's Hole's terminal sump. There are several major tributary passages and a high-level fossil series that provides an alternative route through the cave and makes up part of the classic "round trip". East Canal has been dived to a depth of 24 metres (79 ft) in drought (but water levels are normally much higher). The connection to Oxlow Cavern is a "serious undertaking" and many cavers have underestimated the difficulty of the passage. Access is permissive, on payment of a fee at a parking area near Peakshill Farm. The cave is within the Castleton SSSI.Since 2002, the Derbyshire Cave Rescue Organisation has attended 11 callouts to Giant's Hole, one of which resulted in a fatality.

Rushup Edge is a ridge in the Derbyshire Peak District of England. The ridge's highest point is Lord's Seat at 550 m (1,804 ft), while Mam Tor lies beyond its eastern end, at the western end of the Great Ridge. Lord's Seat is the site of a round barrow.

Old Dam is a hamlet in Derbyshire, England. It is located 3 miles (4.8 km) south-west of Castleton on the edge of the village of Peak Forest.

Oxlow Cavern is a part-natural and part-mined cavern near Castleton in Derbyshire, England. It is situated on the south side of the road running from the A623 at Sparrowpit to the Winnats Pass, west of Castleton, and is almost opposite Giant's Hole on the other side of the road. A few yards from Oxlow Cavern is the connecting Maskill Mine.

Peak Forest is a small village and civil parish on the main road the (A623) from Chapel-en-le-Frith to Chesterfield in Derbyshire. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 335.The village grew from the earlier settlement of Dam (still inhabited, with a number of houses and farms) at the conjunction of Perrydale and Damdale. There is an inn, a church and a primary school. Its name probably derives from the Forest of High Peak. The village is at the heart of the old royal forest and was formerly known as Chamber of Campana. The nearby Chamber Farm or Chamber Knoll may have been the exact location of the residence and meeting place of local forest officials.Its church is dedicated to 'Charles, King & Martyr' (King Charles I of England, executed in 1649). First erected in 1657, it was replaced in 1878 as a gift from the Duke of Devonshire. Until an Act of Parliament was passed in 1754 its minister was able to perform marriages without the need for reading the banns, and the village was known as the Gretna Green of Derbyshire.The Peak Forest Canal, although originally aiming for the limestone quarries in Great Rocks Dale just to the south of the village, never reached nearer than Buxworth, seven miles away, where it terminates at Bugsworth Basin. Instead, a horse-drawn tramway, the Peak Forest Tramway, was constructed in the late 18th century to connect the canal with the quarries between Dove Holes and Peak Forest. The original limestone-carrying purpose of the canal was replaced long ago by the Great Rocks mineral railway line serving the quarries around Buxton and joining the Manchester–Sheffield line, via the diverging Chapel Milton Viaduct over the Black Brook valley at Chapel Milton (between Chapel-en-le-Frith and Chinley). Its railway station (now closed) was built by the Midland Railway, two miles away at Small Dale. This was on its extension of the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway, part of the main Midland Line from Manchester to London. It was also the northern junction for the line from Buxton. Stage 1 of the Peak District Boundary Walk runs from Buxton to Peak Forest.

High Peak is a local government district with borough status in Derbyshire, England, covering a high moorland plateau in the Dark Peak area of the Peak District National Park. The district stretches from Holme Moss in the north to Sterndale Moor in the south, and from Hague Bar in the west to Bamford in the east. The population of the borough taken at the 2011 Census was 90,892. The borough is unusual in having two administrative centres for its council, High Peak Borough Council; the offices are in Buxton and Glossop. Other towns include Chapel-en-le-Frith, Hadfield, New Mills and Whaley Bridge. High Peak was the name of a hundred of the ancient county of Derbyshire covering roughly the same area as the current district. It may have derived its name from the ancient Forest of High Peak, a royal hunting reserve administered by William Peverel, a favourite of William I, who was based at Peak Castle. High Peak contains much of the Peak District National Park. The district contains the highest point in Derbyshire, Kinder Scout, which stands at 636m (2,087 ft) above sea level. Its settlements act as commuter centres for people who work in the surrounding counties and other parts of Derbyshire, owing to its proximity to Cheshire, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, Staffordshire and West Yorkshire.

High Peak is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Robert Largan, a Conservative.The constituency is in north west Derbyshire and based in the heart of the Peak District, including the towns of Buxton, Glossop and New Mills. Since the 1966 general election, the seat has been somewhat of a bellwether, with only three exceptions: at the February and October 1974 general elections the seat was won by the Conservative Party when the Labour Party won the most seats nationally, and at the 2017 general election when the seat was won by Labour but the Conservatives won the most seats nationally.

Rushop or Rushup is a small North Derbyshire village. It is in the town of Chapel-en-le-Frith. Agriculture has until recently been the main occupation in the village. At present very few of the residents work in Rushop and several of the houses are second homes only occupied at weekends and holidays. There is archaeological and documentary evidence that there was a settlement at this site since before the Roman invasion of Britain. The settlement is alleged to have been a British village, under nominal Anglo Saxon rule after the fall of the area to Angles from Bernicia around 590, mainly due to the lack of Anglo Saxon placenames in the valley and the presence of names, such as Eccles, Inch and Pen-, which have origins in a Brythonic language of Britain.

Mam Tor is a 517 m (1,696 ft) hill near Castleton in the High Peak of Derbyshire, England. Its name means "mother hill", so called because frequent landslips on its eastern face have resulted in a multitude of "mini-hills" beneath it. These landslips, which are caused by unstable lower layers of shale, also give the hill its alternative name of Shivering Mountain.In 1979, the continual battle to maintain the A625 road (Sheffield to Chapel en le Frith) on the crumbling eastern side of the hill was lost when the road officially closed as a through-route, with the Fox House to Castleton section of the road being re-designated as the A6187. The hill is crowned by a late Bronze Age and early Iron Age univallate hill fort, and two Bronze Age bowl barrows. At the base of the Tor and nearby are four show caves: Blue John Cavern, Speedwell Cavern, Peak Cavern and Treak Cliff Cavern where lead, Blue John, fluorspar and other minerals were once mined. Mam Tor was declared to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Peak by Thomas Hobbes in his 1636 book De Mirabilibus Pecci.Simon Jenkins rates the panorama from Kinder Scout to Stanage Edge as one of the top ten in England.

The Blue John Cavern is one of the four show caves in Castleton, Derbyshire, England. The others are Peak Cavern, Treak Cliff Cavern and Speedwell Cavern.

Sparrowpit is a small village between Chapel-en-le-Frith and Peak Forest in the High Peak area of the Peak District, Derbyshire, England.The name is derived from 'spar row pit' from the fluorspar mines. The village has an active community, including a methodist chapel and village hall. It is situated at a crossroads where the main road (A623) takes a right-angled bend at the Wanted Inn. From this junction, one minor road takes a different and hillier route to Chapel-en-le-Frith, and another heads for Mam Tor and Castleton by way of the Winnats Pass.The watershed between rivers running east into the North Sea and west into the Irish Sea runs almost exactly through the village.