Gardom's Edge is part of the gritstone scarp which forms the eastern side of the Derwent Valley in the Derbyshire Peak District. Behind the edge is a broad shelf which contains many archaeological features. Like other parts of the Eastern Moors, the Gardom's Edge shelf is remarkable for the sheer density of field evidence for settlement and other forms of activity over the last 5000 years. The survival of field cairns, enclosures and other more ephemoral features is, in part at least, a product of later patterns of land use. Soil conditions and the elevated nature of the shelf has meant that production has not bitten so deep as it has on lower ground. Much of the land has seen no 'improvement'.The impact of clearance and the improvement of land for agricultural use in the last two centuries can be traced in the relative absence of visible prehistoric features within the walled fields that cut across the southern side of the study area (see plan).
 | | |
 |  | |