Mountains and hills of England

Sca Fell and Scafell Pike in the Lake District

The North of England includes the country's highest mountains, in the Lake District of Cumbria. This was one of the first national parks to be established in the United Kingdom, in 1951. The highest peak is Scafell Pike, 978 m (3,209 ft), and at least three other summits exceed 3,000 feet or 914.4 metres making them Furth Munros. The mountains are chiefly Ordovician slates and volcanic rocks, with some limestone and outcrops of other rock types. The peaks were catalogued and described in Alfred Wainwright's seminal Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells series of books, which listed 214 summits, which have subsequently become known as Wainwrights.

North of Hadrian's Wall and the Tyne Valley, the land rises to form the Cheviot Hills, which extend into Scotland and could probably be considered part of either the Southern Uplands or the northern Pennines. They are included in Northumberland National Park, along with Kielder Water and the Kielder Forest.

Pen-y-ghent in the Yorkshire Dales

The North Pennines (an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, or AONB) lie south of Hadrian's Wall, and east of the Lake District, from which they are separated by the Eden Valley. These are younger rocks, mostly Carboniferous limestone, and the mountains are characterised by shallower slopes covered with moorland vegetation, culminating in Cross Fell at 893 m (2,930 ft).

South of this, the main line of the Pennines (often called "the backbone of England") continues into the Yorkshire Dales, a limestone-dominated area of broad valleys and moorland. The Yorkshire Three Peaks are some of the highest summits in the area, which became a national park in 1954.

The Yorkshire Dales end at Skipton, and a short distance to the south is a range of moors that rises up between the urban cores of Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire. The range has no continuous name - the western part as far as Blackburn is called the West Pennine Moors, the eastern part north of the A646 (including the famous Ilkley Moor) is called the South Pennines, and the small area in between is known as the Forest of Rossendale. These three groups of hills are dominated by peat bogs over Millstone Grit, and merge into the northern part of the Peak District, known as the Dark Peak. These areas of West Yorkshire are marketed as "Brontë country", and the local landscape provided inspiration for many of the works of the Brontë sisters, including most famously, Wuthering Heights.

Fair Snape Fell in the Forest of Bowland

The Forest of Bowland AONB, in Lancashire is a western spur of the Pennines.[1] It is separated from the surrounding Yorkshire Dales and South Pennines by the Aire Gap and Ribble Valley. The isolated Pendle Hill falls within the boundaries of the AONB.

The Peak District was another of the original national parks designated in 1951, and remains one of the most popular in the country, largely because of its proximity to several large cities. One end of the Pennine Way, the first long-distance footpath in the British Isles, is in Edale, in the Peak District, while the other end is at Kirk Yetholm, in the Southern Uplands of Scotland.

The southern part of the Peak District (White Peak), around Buxton and the Hope Valley, is another limestone area, with a number of caves, especially around Castleton. The Peak District marks the southern end of the Pennine chain, as it peters out into the lowlands of the English Midlands.

The Howgill Fells are an area of uplands in Cumbria lying between the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales. The area falls within the boundaries of the Yorkshire Dales National Park[2] and are sometimes considered as a western spur of the Pennines.[3]

The Orton Fells are an area of limestone uplands in Cumbria lying between the Lake District and the Eden Valley. The area mostly falls within the boundaries of the Yorkshire Dales National Park with a small part lying in the Lake District National Park. Like the Howgill Fells, the area may be considered a western spur of the Pennines as it predominantly lies in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.[4]

Near the North Yorkshire coastal towns of Whitby and Scarborough, and extending inland as far as Thirsk, the North York Moors are one of the few major upland areas in eastern England. Reaching a maximum height of 454 m (1,490 ft) at Urra Moor, the North York Moors are home to the RAF Fylingdales radar base. The Jurassic limestone rocks are rich in fossils, which are regularly exposed by erosion of the sea cliffs.