Ed Roberts
15 June 2016
Even the low points are high
The clue is in the name. It’s a district of peaks. For those of you that love obscure points of fact that may one day come in useful at a pub quiz or on Eggheads, here’s a bundle about the Peak District. Everything here is really high up, even the low parts.
So let’s begin with the highest point, which is the summit of Kinder Scout, found right at the southern end of the Pennine Way, north of Edale. Kinder Scout isn’t a mountain or a hill, it’s a plateau and part of it is 636m above sea level.
Beautifully bleak
Along the northern edge of the Peak District is the Pennine stretch of the M62, the highest section of motorway in the country. Only 10 miles separate the Greater Manchester area from West Yorkshire, but those 10 miles are very bleak, and yet your average driver can travel through in relative comfort. It’s the only trunk road to go this wild. Engineers spent about five years coming up with ways to dewater the moorland in order to build the motorway. Today it’s still an unsurpassed engineering feat in many respects. One of the strangest sights can be spotted along this section of the M62 and that’s of a working farm trapped on a small island between the east and west bound traffic lanes.
Visit England's highest village
The highest village is also in the Peak District, called Flash. It’s also home to England’s highest church and school at 465m. The village is close to Chapel-en-le-Frith. St Paul’s had recently fell into disrepair due to the harsh elements and had to raise a huge sum to fix the roof. The country’s highest pub is in the Yorkshire Dales as Flash has the fifth, but if you think about it, it’s still the highest village pub. The other four stand alone in their respective wildernesses.
Other highs
If you were to follow the Pennine Way northwards out of the Peak District National Park you would encounter three more places that can be kept in the ‘England’s Highest Box’. The highest pub is the Tan Hill Inn near Swaledale in North Yorkshire. It gets snowed in regularly and also has the pedigree of being the remotest English pub too. England’s two highest passes share the same elevation above sea level at 626m and they are Harthope Moss Chapel Fell, Co. Durham, and Killhope Cross in Cumbria. We don’t pretend to have the highest holiday cottages in the Peak District, but they do have great views – see for yourself.
Why not stay in the Peak District? Discover even more high points and some of the best views in the Peak District. We offer a fantastic range of holiday cottages across the region.
Disclaimer: Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information at the time of writing,
please ensure you check carefully before making any decisions based on the contents within this article.