The Peak District National Park was established in 1951, partly as a
response to increasing demands in the 1920s and 1930s from walkers and
ramblers for greater access to the countryside. The Peak District was
surrounded by conurbations such as Manchester, West and South Yorkshire,
Sheffield, Nottingham, Derby and The Potteries. Many people working in these
industrial areas sought to spend their gradually increasing leisure time in
the fresh air of carrying out Peak District walks. Cycling and walking were particularly
favoured activities but for walkers the options were initially limited,
because many of the moorland areas were closed to the general public, kept
private by their owners for the management of grouse, or protected as
drinking water-gathering grounds. There were only a handful of public
footpaths across the Peak District moorlands, and little of the de facto
access which had traditionally been afforded to, say, the Lake District
fells.
An early objective of the Peak Park Special Planning Board was to secure
access to moorlands, by agreement with the landowners, so that they could be
enjoyed by walkers, as well as for more specialist activities such as
rock-climbing. Between 1951 and 1965 agreements were voluntarily entered
into by landowners for 76 square miles of moorland, allowing walkers freedom
to roam these agreed areas except for a few days each year during the grouse
shooting season. It provided access for walkers to iconic locations such as
Kinder Scout, Bleaklow, Laddow Rocks, Black Hill and the beautiful moorlands
of the Upper Derwent Valley, all of which had hitherto been ‘off limits’.
Walkers took up these new opportunities with enthusiasm and trains and buses
from cities such as Manchester and Sheffield would be filled with hikers and
ramblers, at weekends and holidays, heading for the Peak District hills.