Looking back up at the hill later in the walk you’ll see the sedimentary bands running horizontally across the exposed eastern slopes. The rock beneath your feet is made up of layered shale and gritstone, an unstable surface that has been weathered into flaky cliffs, which give Mam Tor its alternative name of the ‘Shivering Mountain’. In recent years the summit was becoming badly eroded so the National Trust decided to completely cover it with cobblestones. Excavations have revealed that the defensive ditch was originally topped with a timber palisade or fence, later replaced by stone, and that it enclosed hut circles as well as burial mounds, suggesting that this was once a proper settlement and not just a defensive position. At around 3,500 BC it’s one of the earliest and also the highest hill-forts found in England. Mam Tor, which means ‘mother hill’, is ringed by a fort dating back to the Bronze Age.
You may hear the hooting of the Manchester train as it hurries through the valley on its way to Sheffield. Edale is spread beneath your feet and the spire of the village church looks minute when compared with the rock-crested heather slopes of Kinder Scout. Although the views from Hollins Cross are good, since you are astride two separate valleys, they are ever better from the summit of Mam Tor further up. It’s also been used as a ‘coffin road’, since people who died in Edale were once taken over Hollins Cross to the church at Hope until consecrated land was established in Edale. It’s a former packhorse route and has been used by local people for centuries, including workers making a daily trip between Castleton and Edale Mill. The route from Castleton initially follows Hollowford Road and climbs up to the so-called ‘Great Ridge’ at Hollins Cross.
Mountain walks are seldom as easy to follow as this one to Mam Tor, since there are lanes and paved paths for most of the way and the views are terrific as well.
0 kommentar(er)
