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Transcriber’s note:

      Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.





[Illustration: THE WYE NEAR CRESSBROOK DALE]


THE PEAK DISTRICT

Text by R. MURRAY GILCHRIST

Pictures by E. W. HASLEHUST


[Illustration]






Blackie & Son Limited
London and Glasgow

Blackie & Son Limited
50 Old Bailey, London
17 Stanhope Street, Glasgow

Blackie & Son (India) Limited
Warwick House, Fort Street, Bombay

Blackie & Son (Canada) Limited
Toronto

      *      *      *      *      *      *

BEAUTIFUL ENGLAND

    The Heart of London.
    Dartmoor.
    Canterbury.
    Oxford.
    Bath and Wells.
    In London’s By-ways.
    The Peak District.
    Winchester.
    The Thames.
    The Cornish Riviera.
    Shakespeare-land.
    Cambridge.
    York.
    The English Lakes.


BEAUTIFUL SCOTLAND

    Loch Lomond and the Trossachs.
    Edinburgh.
    The Scott Country.
    The Shores of Fife.

      *      *      *      *      *      *


Printed in Great Britain by Blackie & Son, Ltd., Glasgow




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                      Facing
                                                        Page

    The Wye near Cressbrook Dale      _Frontispiece_

    High Tor, Matlock                                      5

    Bakewell, South Church Street                         12

    Monsal Dale                                           16

    Queen Mary’s Bower, Chatsworth                        21

    Haddon Hall                                           28

    Dorothy Vernon’s Bridge, Haddon                       33

    Miller’s Dale                                         37

    Lathkil Dale                                          44

    Dovedale                                              48

    Peak Cavern Gorge, Castleton                          53

    Mam Tor                                               60




[Illustration: HIGH TOR, MATLOCK]




[Illustration: THE PEAK DISTRICT]




FROM SPA TO SPA


In Peakland one marvels most at the strange variety of
scenery--illustrations of all English inland beauty seem to have been
grouped there for man’s delight. There are tender meadows, streams such
as must have meandered through Arcady, fantastical hillocks, mountains
that cut the skyline with dog-tooth edges, moors that change colour
every day of the year; there are two of the most notable houses in
existence--houses famous all over the civilized world--and two spas
unlike each other and unlike any spas in England.

The folk are genial and ever willing to pass the time o’ day; they show
themselves, as in the days of Philip Kinder, the eighteenth-century
historiographer, “courteous and ready to show the ways and help a
passenger. The women are sober and very diligent in their huswifery;
they hate idleness, and obey their husband.”

Kinder also asserts that they are much given to “dance after the
bagpipe, and almost every town hath a bagpipe in it”. To-day the
Peaklanders are as fond of dancing as ever, and although no piper
produces eerie music, at feast times they can still make a very
pretty show. The hill country has endowed the youths and maidens with
suppleness and they trip it with exceeding grace.

Peaklanders are shrewd, lovable, and unspoilt, somewhat distrustful of
foreigners--all unrelated folk who dwell on the farther side of the
moors are foreigners--yet quite as hospitable as the more reserved
natives of Yorkshire. Old customs are tenaciously preserved--in some
places the wells are dressed with flowers for the festival of the
patron saint, and in one of the most remote villages every Royal Oak
Day a quaint and pretty pageant enlivens the irregular grey streets. At
such times the kin from far-distant towns return to the old home and
spend a few hours of happy merrymaking.

