Сочинение: The National Parks of Great Britan
The improved roads and the Cromford Canal both shortly came under competition from new railways, with work on the first
railway in the Peak commencing in 1825. Although the Cromford and High Peak Railway
(from Cromford Canal to Whaley Bridge) was an industrial railway, passenger
services soon followed, including the Woodhead Line (Sheffield to Manchester
via Longdendale) and the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction
Railway. Not everyone regarded the railways as an improvement. John Ruskin
wrote of the Monsal Dale line: ‘You enterprised a railroad through the valley,
you blasted its rocks away, heaped thousands of tons of shale into its lovely
stream. The valley is gone, and the gods with it; and now, every fool in Buxton
can be at Bakewell in half-an-hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton.
By the second half of the 20th
century, the pendulum had swung back towards road transport. The Cromford Canal was largely abandoned in 1944, and several of the rail lines passing through
the Peak were closed as uneconomic in the 1960s as part of the Beeching Axe. The
Woodhead Line was closed between Hadfield and Penistone; parts of the trackbed
are now used for the Trans-Pennine Trail, the stretch between Hadfield and Woodhead
being known specifically as the Longdendale Trail. The Manchester, Buxton,
Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway is now closed between Rowsley and Buxton
where the trackbed forms part of the Monsal Trail. The Cromford and High Peak
Railway is now completely shut, with part of the trackbed open to the public as
the High Peak Trail. Another disused rail line between Buxton and Ashbourne now
forms the Tissington Trail.
The main roads through the Peak District are
the A57 (Snake Pass) between Sheffield and Manchester, the A628 (Woodhead Pass)
between Barnsley and Manchester via Longdendale, the A6 from Derby to
Manchester via Buxton, and the Cat and Fiddle road from Macclesfield to Buxton.
These roads, and the pretty minor roads and lanes, are attractive to drivers,
but the Peak’s popularity makes road congestion a significant problem
especially during summer.
The Peak District is readily accessible by
public transport, which reaches even central areas. Train services into the
area are the Hope Valley Line from Sheffield and Manchester; the Derwent Valley
Line from Derby to Matlock; and the Buxton Line and the Glossop Line linking
those towns to Manchester. Coach (long-distance bus) services provide access to
Matlock, Bakewell and Buxton from Derby, Nottingham and Manchester, and there
are regular buses from the nearest towns such as Sheffield, Glossop, Stoke, Leek
and Chesterfield. The nearest airports are Manchester, East Midlands and Doncaster-Sheffield.
For such a rural area, the smaller villages of
the Peak are relatively well served by internal transport links. There are many
minibuses operating from the main towns (Bakewell, Matlock, Hathersage,
Castleton, Tideswell and Ashbourne) out to the small villages. The Hope Valley and Buxton Line trains also serves many local stations (including Hathersage,
Hope and Edale).
The Peak District forms the southern end of
the Pennines and much of the area is uplands above 1,000 feet (300 m), with a high point on Kinder Scout of 2,087 feet (636 m). Despite its name, the landscape lacks
sharp peaks, being characterised by rounded hills and gritstone escarpments (the
“edges”). The area is surrounded by major conurbations, including Huddersfield,
Manchester, Sheffield, Derby and Stoke-on-Trent.
The National Park covers 555 square miles (1,440
km2) of Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, Greater Manchester and
South and West Yorkshire, including the majority of the area commonly referred
to as the Peak. The Park boundaries were drawn to exclude large built-up areas
and industrial sites from the park; in particular, the town of Buxton and the
adjacent quarries are located at the end of the Peak Dale corridor, surrounded
on three sides by the Park. The town of Bakewell and numerous villages are,
however, included within the boundaries, as is much of the (non-industrial) west
of Sheffield. As of 2006, it is the fourth largest National Park in England and
Wales. As always in Britain, the designation “National Park” means that there
are planning restrictions to protect the area from inappropriate development,
and a Park Authority to look after it-but does not imply that the land is owned
by the government, or is uninhabited.
High Peak panorama between Hayfield and Chinley
12% of the Peak District National Park is
owned by the National Trust, a charity which aims to conserve historic and
natural landscapes. It does not receive government funding. The three Trust
estates (High Peak, South Peak and Longshaw) include the ecologically or
geologically significant areas of Bleaklow, Derwent Edge, Hope Woodlands,
Kinder Scout, Leek and Manifold, Mam Tor, Dovedale, Milldale and Winnats Pass. The
Peak District National Park Authority directly owns around 5%, and other major
landowners include several water companies.
The Broads is a
network of mostly navigable rivers and lakes (known locally as broads) in the English
counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. The Broads, and some surrounding land was
constituted as a special area with a level of protection similar to a UK
National Park by The Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Act of 1988. The
Broads Authority, a Special Statutory Authority responsible for
managing the area, became operational in 1989
The total area is 303 km² (188 sq.miles),
most of which is in Norfolk, with over 200 km (125 miles) of navigable
waterways. There are seven rivers and sixty three broads, mostly less than
twelve feet deep. Thirteen broads are generally open to navigation, with a
further three having navigable channels. Some broads have navigation
restrictions imposed on them in autumn and winter.
Although the terms Norfolk Broads and Suffolk
Broads are used to identify those areas within the two counties
respectively, the whole area is sometimes referred to as the “Norfolk Broads”. The
Broads has the same status as the national parks in England and Wales but as well as the Broads Authority having powers and duties almost identical to the
national parks it is also the third largest inland navigation authority. Because
of its navigation role the Broads Authority was established under its own
legislation on 1 April 1989. More recently the Authority wanted to change the
name of the area to The Broads National Park in recognition of the fact that
the status of the area is equivalent to the rest of the national park family
but was unable to get agreement from all the different parties. The Private
Bill the Authority is promoting through Parliament is largely about improving
public safety on the water and the Authority did not want to delay or jeopardise
these provisions for the name issue, so the provision was dropped before the
Bill was deposited in Parliament.
For many years the broads were regarded as
natural features of the landscape. It was only in the 1960s that Dr Joyce
Lambert proved that they were artificial features, the effect of flooding on early
peat excavations. The Romans first exploited the rich peat beds of the area for
fuel, and in the Middle Ages the local monasteries began to excavate the peat
lands as a turbary business, selling fuel to Norwich and Great Yarmouth. The
Cathedral took 320,000 tonnes of peat a year. Then the sea levels began to
rise, and the pits began to flood. Despite the construction of windpumps and dykes,
the flooding continued and resulted in the typical Broads landscape of today,
with its reed beds, grazing marshes and wet woodland.
The Broads have been a favourite boating
holiday destination since the early 20th century. The waterways are lock-free,
although there are three bridges under which only small cruisers can pass. The
area attracts all kinds of visitors, including ramblers, artists, anglers, and
bird-watchers as well as people “messing about in boats". There are a
number of companies hiring boats for leisure use, including both yachts and
motor launches. The Norfolk Wherry, the traditional cargo craft of the area,
can still be seen on the Broads as some specimens have been preserved and
restored.
Ted Ellis, a local naturalist, referred to the
Broads as “the breathing space for the cure of souls”.
A great variety of boats can be found on the Broads, from Edwardian trading wherries to state-of-the-art electric or solar-powered boats.
The point at which the River Yare and the River
Waveney merge into Breydon Water
Yachts on the Norfolk Broads
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