The Peak District is named after the indigenous people of the area, the Peak. It is not named after pointy mountain tops, which you will notice are conspicuously absent from the region.
Therefore one goes to visit the Peak [District], not the Peaks [District].
Every time someone writes “we are going to the Peaks” it makes me flinch violently.
It is of course OK to say “We are going to the Lakes” because the Lake District is named after lakes, plural.
Even worse. Wales comes from the Saxon word ‘wealhas’, meaning ‘outside people’, so it’s basically an insult and I find this hilarious every time.
We should really say we are going to visit Cymru
I think you guys do a great job hiding any useful information in this thread.
Also, if one considers they are going to see the peak people (the peaks) then it is all fine.
At the risk of sidetracking the discussion further, is there not only one lake in the lake District, the rest being merely a bunch of waters and meres…
Sorry for the transgression, this will be a hard habit to break! I did always wonder why such a rolling hillside area had the “Peak” term!
Begs the question why we didn’t stick to the original tribal name “Pecsaetan” District… suppose it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, sounds like it could be “Satan’s Pecs” when I say it out loud
I’m driving up Friday evening if there is a bunkhouse plan, returning Sunday evening. Long and short, I’ll have a space for 1 from Greenwich / East London, possibly 2 if Adam comes in his own car. will post this on that whatsapp too.
The Peak District is named after the indigenous people of the area, the Peak. It is not named after pointy mountain tops, which you will notice are conspicuously absent from the region.
So presumably you’d approve me me saying we are going to the Peak’s district?
I’ve often wondered if people who live in the Peak give a sh*t and this is one of those UKC echo-chamber things.
Couldn’t resist - now there are multiple versions of where the name came from but this guy (Gordon Stainforth) has actually written a book about the Peak district and on a UKC forum says this
"This was the answer I gave in that thread:
‘Pecsaetan’ means the (Anglo-Saxon) ‘Settlers of the Pec’, the Celtic name for the area we now call the Peak. And, contrary to what some pundits claim, Peak does mean ‘pointy/peaked’ and has exactly the same derivation as the word Pic in Europe (eg. the Pyrennees and France). Also a whole lot of other anglo-saxon and norse words have a similar origin eg. pick, peck, pike, spike, prick, beak. "
