If you were totally ignorant of England’s geography and new to its national parks, you’d probably first head for the Peak District in search of its tallest mountains. You’d find relatively nice hills and some high moorland to explore in “the Peaks”, named so for the Anglo-Saxon Pecsaetan tribe who settled there and not for its absent array of Matterhorns. You would not, however, find any mountains.
No, to seek the highest peaks, to find the country’s mountains, you have to head to the Lake District. Here, all of England’s tallest mountains are found – forged by ancient volcanos, carved by glaciers, resplendently rocky and rising above Cumbria’s famously picturesque green dales. To be fair to whoever decided that this exquisite region should be called the Lake District, there are admittedly quite a few lakes here, including England’s largest, Windermere, and its deepest, Wast Water. Nevertheless, this land of tightly knit fells could have very easily been the Mountain District, or the Fell District… or even the Peak District.
