The key characteristics of the North Pennines are:

10. North Pennines

The key characteristics of the North Pennines are:
• An upland landscape of high moorland ridges divided by broad pastoral dales.

• Remote moorland summits and high plateaux of blanket bog with a severe climate of high rainfall, cold winters and short summers and a unique wilderness quality. 
Broad ridges of heather moorland and acidic grassland managed for sheep and grouse.

• Sheltered dales of pastures and hay meadows bounded by dry stone walls and hedgerows containing small stone built villages and scattered farmsteads of a strong vernacular character.

• Alternating limestones, sandstones and shales of the Yoredale series with a stepped profile to hills and dalesides. Millstone Grits cap the higher fells and form distinctive flat topped summits.

• The high summit ridge in the west falling in a dramatic escarpment to the Vale of Eden.

• Igneous intrusions of the Great Whin Sill forming dramatic outcrops and waterfalls.

• A heavily scarred landscape of mineral extraction, with many active and abandoned quarries and the relics of widespread lead workings.

• Sparse tree cover with woodlands restricted to river gorges, gills and streamsides and larger coniferous plantations in the moorland fringes.

• Reservoirs scattered throughout the dales and moorland margins.

• A landscape of slow change and cultural continuity.

For further details on this character area and for an introduction to the region, please see the PDF documents in the box at the top right hand side of this page.