Bamford Edge, Derbyshire on a spring evening

© R A Kearton/Moment Open/Getty Image

On the edge. Bamford Edge, Peak District

Rising over Derbyshire’s Hope Valley, the spectacular precipice of Bamford Edge offers some of the best views in the Peak District National Park. At more than 1,380ft (420m) in elevation, this gritstone outcrop is popular with climbers who find the coarse rock serves up crucial handholds in tricky spots. But you can walk up here too, to enjoy amazing sunsets and take photographs from rocks jutting out over the wooded valley and Ladybower Reservoir below. Those imposing sheer rock walls soften a little in the warmer months, when they bloom with heather and provide a nesting site for rare ring ouzels.

Bamford Edge is one of many dramatic cliffs in the Dark Peak area, named after its gritstone escarpments which contrast with the lighter limestone of the White Peak. The best-known include Curbar, Burbage and Stanage Edge, boasting hundreds of climbing routes with memorable names like The Vice, Goliath’s Groove and Kelly’s Overhang. The gritstone here was once quarried to make massive millstones which ground grains into flour or grindstones to sharpen steel. More than 1,000 millstones, abandoned when the industry collapsed, are still scattered across the national park and feature on its logo.