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Peak District Farms
The Peak District is an area with a large number of farms, many of them small hill farms as the land does not natually lend itself to large scale intensive agriculture. The Peak District has a history of farms and agriculture that dates back over 4,000 years, the first farmers of the area were Neolithic settlers who took advantage of the excellent soil in the Peak District and used it to graze sheep and cattle and to grow a small number of crops. These small strips of cultivated land were organised into terraces and later proper farms, some of which archeologists have uncovered such as the historic Peak District farms area near Roystone Grange near Brassington.
The low lying land in the Peak District is unsuitable for farming as it is very wet and boggy, henceforth many early settlements in the area were located on hill tops or in sheltered valleys and wooded clearings where the land could be used for agriculture. Gradually the entire forest was cleared to make way for farm activity (as it was in much of the UK), and huge flocks of sheep for farmed by monks who exported their valuable fleeces as wool to Europe. The Peak District is not known for its arable farms, the farming in the area is primarily based around cattle and sheep.
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