An area of typically heavily grazed open moorland of rough grass and remnant patches of heather with little or no tree cover, it is characterised by the virtual absence of surface drainage and an extensive subterranean drainage network resulting in cave systems and numerous sinkholes.

[2] It surrounds the high point of Gragareth 627 metres (2,057 ft) between Leck Beck and Kingsdale.

[1] The pasturing of animals, along with changes in the climate in the later Bronze Age, contributed to deforestation of the open fell sides and the development of hill peat deposits.

[2] The present landscape is dominated by long straight enclosure walls of late 18th or 19th century date.

In some places there are limestone pavements, in whose cracks and fissures grow ferns and the unusual subshrub baneberry, out of reach of grazing sheep.