An eco-friendly moorland visitor centre will open in the Peak District next month.

The Moorland Visitor Centre will also house a research centre for moorland issues, with a library for specialist study into the eco-system of the moors in the Peak.

The visitor centre will be opened by the Duke of Devonshire on 14 September. It stands near the start of the Pennine Way in Edale, Derbyshire and was built on the site of the old Fieldhead information centre and an adjoining farmhouse. Its roof is made of turf and the building is heated by an energy-saving ground-source heat pump – whatever that is.

The visitor centre will also have ‘interactive’ exhibitions (does that mean I can press buttons? – Ed) explaining the purpose of the Moors for the Future Project which was set up to restore and conserve the fragile upland environment in the Peak national park.

The centre cost £1m and includes oral history tapes of locals who lived and worked on the moors. The official opening is invitation only, so give it a miss unless your invite has arrived in the post, but you should be able to have a look round later in the week once His Grace and the bigwigs have cleared off.