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Picture
the Past: Peak District
Neil Bettridge
The Derbyshire Peak District, Britain's first national
park, has long been admired for the stunning beauty
and variety of its landscapes. Some have found it
too harsh an environment for comfort, “a howling
wilderness” according to Daniel Defoe, yet later
generations of town dwellers came to revel in that
sense of remoteness from civilisation.
But the Peak District is far more than a natural wonder.
In this book we see it as home, community and workplace,
sharing moments in the lives that have been lived
here over the years rather than focussing on the landscape
itself. We peep into home and family life, see the
children, some on their best behaviour for the camera
and some definitely not! We glimpse the lives of these
small village communities and their market towns of
Ashbourne, Bakewell, Buxton and the Matlocks. What
we see is both ordinary and extraordinary. Historic
customs like well dressing and street football have
survived from times gone by alongside the more mainstream
clubs and societies, sporting events and leisure moments
that make up the social fabric of our communities.
There are magnificent stately homes, spa towns with
elegant architecture, famously pretty villages, visited
for centuries by well-dressed tourists. It is easy
to forget that this has always been a place of work,
where hill farmers and quarry workers wrest a living
from the inhospitable land, mill workers spin and
weave textiles in water-powered mills, and a whole
range of shopkeepers and tradespeople supply the needs
of locals and tourists alike. We see them travelling
around the area in a wide variety of transport over
the years and always battling with the notorious Peak
District weather.
Here is a collection of individual moments, frozen
in time, giving a unique and very personal insight
into the heart of this most characterful area of Britain.
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