Dark Peak

The Dark Peak is the higher, wilder northern part of the Peak District in England.

It gets its name because (in contrast to the White Peak), the underlying limestone is covered by a cap of Millstone Grit which means that in winter the soil is almost always saturated with water. The land is thus largely uninhabited moorland plateaux where almost any depression is filled with sphagnum bogs and black peat.

The areas of Millstone Grit form an 'inverted horseshoe' around the lower uncapped limestone areas of the White Peak. Hence the Dark Peak is said to cover the higher Derbyshire Peaks north of the Hope Valley, as well as the Western Moors in the area of Buxton, and the Eastern Moors stretching south towards Matlock.

Principal areas include Kinder Scout, Bleaklow (both of which rise to over 2000 ft, and lie wholly within Derbyshire), and Black Hill.

The High Peak is an alternative name for the Dark Peak, but High Peak is also the name of an administrative district of Derbyshire which includes part of the White Peak.

Over the years, a number of military aircraft have crashed on the Dark Peak, generally due to atrocious weather conditions. Due to the bleakness and emptiness of the high moorlands, their wrecks tend to remain untouched, and are often stumbled across by hikers in these remote places. There have been reports of ghost planes in the area for years. Many of the aircraft witnessed are wartime machines such as the Wellington Bomber, B-29 Bomber, Dakota and Lancaster. The reports of eyewitnesses are usually of a low flying, propeller-driven plane, which appears to be in difficulty before seemingly crashing into the moors. Several people who recovered items from the crash site were allegedly then visited by ghosts.