ABSTRACT
Landscape, as John Berger has famously observed, is about a particular way of seeing.3 Like a sense of place, it is invested with different meanings which encompass both the ostensibly public and more private.4 This chapter is concerned with the more public dimension, exploring how a particular north Midlands landscape, that of the north Derbyshire Peak District, has been 'envisioned' by various travellers to and writers on the region between the late eighteenth century and the years immediately after World War II. It discusses the tensions inherent in symbolism attached to certain kinds of landscape, and how this may serve powerfully to centre areas formerly considered to be 'at the margins'; as happened with the Dark Peak, once the most inaccessible part of the Peak District whose former remoteness was to become an important symbol of urban physical and psychological needs. It also raises questions about the interaction between perceptions from the 'outside' and the views ofthose living on the 'inside', and suggests the contradictions of idealizing as empty a space with distinct economic and demographic needs of its own. In this case, an area manifesting many features of 'Northemness' is distanced from surrounding urban communities by a regional identity based on its being an integral part of Midlands Derbyshire. The chapter concludes by suggesting the implications such deep-rooted scenic assumptions and historical boundaries still have for certain aspects of contemporary life in this region.
