There is a drystone wall somewhere on the North York Moors. On one side of it the heather is wild and purple, photogenic enough for a shortbread tin. On the other side, the heather looks exactly the same: same sky, same curlews, same smell of damp wool and distance. But one side of the wall is inside the North York Moors National Park and the other is not. The tourist footfall, the cottage rental prices and the travel supplement coverage? Not the same at all.

This is worth thinking about, because it means that a significant chunk of what we call an "unfashionable" or "overlooked" destination is simply a place that a surveyor happened not to include when someone, at some point, sat down and drew a line.

How the Lines Got Drawn in the First Place

National Parks in England and Wales were mostly designated between 1951 and 1957, following the Hobhouse Report of 1947. The boundaries were not drawn by walking every ridge and deciding by feel. They were drawn through a mixture of landscape assessment, land ownership, existing administrative boundaries, and the kind of committee compromises that have been softening bold ideas since the dawn of committees.

Some decisions seemed sensible. Some were peculiar. The Forest of Bowland in Lancashire for instance is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Many people have never heard of it, compared to the Lake District an hour or so up the road. The Forest of Bowland has the limestone, the empty moors, the rivers full of insistent brown trout. But it just didn't get the National Park stamp, and that distinction, which might have seemed administrative and dull in 1964, has compounded quietly for sixty years.

The Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty designation, now rebranded in England and Wales as National Landscapes, was meant to give protection to places just outside the big tent. In practice, it created a second tier – respected in planning terms, largely invisible in marketing terms.

The Other Side of the Postcard

If you know what you are looking at, there is a pleasure to be had on the wrong side of these lines. The Bridlington coast is not part of the Yorkshire Wolds National Landscape but has the same chalk cliffs. The part of the Pennines that is outside the boundaries of the Peak District and Yorkshire Dales is of exactly the same quality, at a fraction of the foot traffic.

The Tamar Valley in Cornwall and Devon has AONB status but attracts a fraction of the visitors that funnel to Rock or Padstow fifteen miles away. The boundary of ‘fashionable’ Cornwall has been set for you in advance by decades of lifestyle journalism pointing at the same postcard corner of it.

Property prices respond to all of this with impressive obedience. Holiday lets on the famous side of a National Park boundary can command double, and sometimes more, what an equivalent property fetches five miles outside the boundary, for views that are objectively the same and in some cases less dramatic. It is the line that creates the value, not the landscape.

What the Line Doesn't Measure

This is the genuinely strange bit. The original designations were not really about measuring beauty. Rather they were measuring a combination of threat (what was most at risk from development?) and access (what was already attracting visitors who needed the footpaths to be protected?). The logic was partly reactive, which means plenty of places were simply too quiet and self-managing to have raised any alarm. They got left off not because they weren’t worth it but because nobody had got around to ruining them yet.

There’s arguably a strong argument for going to an unfashionable place which is doing just fine without intervention, rather than being warned off from going there.

The Clun Valley in Shropshire, the Eden Valley in Cumbria and the Nidderdale moors (eventually given their AONB but remaining under the radar) are not places that failed to make the cut. They’re places that the cut was drawn around, for reasons that often had more to do with 1950s committee rooms than with the actual quality of what’s there.

That surveyor's pencil line is still doing its work. Every time a travel piece tells you somewhere is "undiscovered", there's a decent chance what it means is: nobody redrew the map.

FAQ

When were the National Park boundaries in England and Wales drawn?

National Parks in England and Wales were mostly designated between 1951 and 1957, following the Hobhouse Report of 1947. The boundaries were not set by walking every ridge. Rather they were based on landscape assessment, land ownership, existing administrative boundaries and the compromises of the various committees involved. Some seemed more sensible than others.

What is the difference between a National Park and an AONB?

Originally designated as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in England and Wales to protect places just outside the National Park tent, these have now been rebranded as a National Landscape. They became a second tier: in planning terms they are given respect, but in marketing terms they tend to be largely invisible. The Forest of Bowland is an example.

Why are holiday lets more expensive inside a National Park?

Holiday lets inside a National Park can command double, and sometimes more, what an equivalent property fetches five miles outside the boundary. The views are objectively the same and sometimes less dramatic. It is the designation line, not the landscape, that creates the value.

Why were some beautiful places left out of the National Parks?

The original designations did not measure beauty. They weighed the threat from development and the access visitors needed, so quiet, self-managing places raised no alarm and were overlooked. The Clun Valley in Shropshire, the Eden Valley in Cumbria and the Nidderdale moors are examples of places the line was drawn around.