Peak District

Heading to the Peak District we took a little detour and visited Sherwood Forest the home of Robin Hood. Legend has it that Robin Hood would rendezvous with his merry men at a large old oak tree, today that tree is known as Major Oak. The tree is estimated to be 1150 years old and anything of that age deserves to be respected and is worth a visit. 

While in the 16th century forest covered most of Nottinghamshire, in the 1950s Sherwood Forest was no more than an open grassland with a few old hollow Oaks. The forest had since been nurtured and re-generated; it now attracts some 500,000 visitors each year. 

To the west, in the Peak District there are many limestone valleys which in the Victorian era were filled with mills and industry. Today these areas are sleepy tourist towns with quaint stone cottages and English cottage gardens. 

We cycled the Monsal Trail, a 6.5mile rail trail through the Wye Valley from Bakewell to Wye Dale; and hiked the peaks and ridge lines near Castleton and Edale including Mam Tor and the Grand Ridge. The views of the heather on the hill tops and the lower sheep farms on green rolling hills below were iconic England. 

England is covered with walking paths that give the rambler the right to cross private farm land on marked trails. We learned from a local that the right to roam came about because of the Mass Trespass at Kinder Scout in 1932 where 400 ramblers illegally trespassed to hike the mountain. This relatively peaceful protest was the start of a movement which resulted 17 years later in the National Park Act 1949, enabling people to access common and private land to walk through. This was the start of the British long distance footpath such as the Pennine Way being established.