Goyt Valley
“It’s the place I tell my friends about, a world all of its own”:
IT’S NOT ALWAYS true that the first is always the best. Betamax came out first, then VHS blew it out of the water. REM put out five albums before they started winning Grammy awards. And Star Trek: The Motion Picture is easily the worst Star Trek film.
So firstness doesn’t always equal greatness. But with the Peak District, it does. It was Britain’s first ever national park. And while I love every one of our national parks (and plenty of places that aren’t national parks at all, for that matter), I just don’t think you can top the Peak when it comes to variety of scenery, warmth of welcome, and ease of access.
It got the gig on 17th April 1951, largely thanks to a group of local campaigners who were desperate to stop the Lake District getting the honour first. To be fair, the Lakes followed just a month later, with Snowdonia and Dartmoorswiftly behind, so it wasn’t like the Peak was years ahead of the rest. But still: there was a pioneering recognition that this tussle of upland between Manchester, Derby and Sheffield was worth the highest level of protection.
That’s all the more remarkable when you consider what a political hot potato the area was. This was the cauldron of the Access movement. Prior to 1951, huge chunks of what we now call the Peak District were carved up into private ownership and off limits to all but grouse shooters. Throughout the 1930s, common folk from the mills of Manchester, the steelworks of Sheffield and the docks of Liverpool fought hilltop battles with gentry and gamekeepers in a bid to open up the hills for all.
And yet despite that combustible backdrop – maybe even because of it – this was the place that became the template for national parks in Britain. This is Where It All Began.
The Peak does have a popularity problem, because about a million people live on the edges of it. It’s easy to get to, by road and (if you want the northern end, anyway) rail. But what’s bad about that? Yes, erosion is a worry. Yes, Mam Tor and Dove Dale will be very busy on a weekend. But isn’t it brilliant that people in those neighbouring cities love it, and have it as their playground? Go to Dovestone Reservoir on a Saturday and you will find families of every race, colour and creed strolling its banks, and to us that is brilliant.
But if you’re not keen on crowds, there are still parts of the Peak District that don’t come fitted with them. In these pictures you’re looking at one of them: the Goyt Valley. It’s at the western edge of the park, a little notch of loveliness sunk deep into the uplands between Macclesfield and Buxton.
The valley is slightly artificial in nature, as it was flooded in the 1930s to create Fernilee Reservoir, and again in the 1960s to create its neighbour, Errwood. But though their edges are straight and mathematical, the reservoirs still provide a perfect watery counterpoint to the upland around them.
There is also a mournfulness to the valley. The western shore of Errwood Reservoir was once the Errwood estate, abode of the philanthropic industrialist Samuel Grimshawe. From the 1830s he and his family cultivated the little side-valley beneath Foxlow Edge, filling it with exotic plant species culled from their global travels. But the family died out without an heir, and their mansion, Errwood Hall, was pulled down and its stonework used to build the dam for the reservoir.
Today only its skeletal ruins remain, along with some rhododendrons and a little bit of landscaping. But the Grimshawes’ most beautiful contribution to the valley still stands, hidden away off a path to the north: the shrine of Miss Dolores.
It’s a tiny, circular chapel found almost by
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.” JOHN MUIR
accident, but it never fails to delight those who happen upon it. Inside is a small altar and a mosaic showing St Joseph carrying the infant Christ.
Dona Maria Dolores de Ybarguen was a Spanish aristocrat who came to live at Errwood after meeting the Grimshawes on one of their tours. She taught at the local school and worked as a governess to the Grimshawe children. She died, still only in her 40s, while on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, and the family built the shrine in her honour in 1889.
It’s little stories like this that help to make the Peak so compelling: in very few other national parks do human stories and natural beauty coexist so completely.
But it’s on the skyline above Errwood that the Goyt Valley really struts its stuff. The ridge-walk from Windgather Rocks to Shining Tor is one of the grandest high-level wanderings in the country: a perfect bobble along a gently undulating edge with no nasty climbs, no knee-crunching drops, and – oh yes – a fabulous view.
To the east is the Goyt Valley, its manmade lakes shimmering beneath yellowy hillsides. And to the west is the Cheshire Plain, stretching all the way to
North Wales and Manchester. On a clear day you can pick out cathedrals of science (Jodrell Bank radio telescope), football (Manchesters United and City) and religion (the two cathedrals of Liverpool, if you bring good binoculars).
All the way along this flagstoned path, you’re dancing between the counties of Derbyshire and Cheshire. Never let anyone tell you Cheshire is flat.
And that’s another good point about the Peak District: its variety of identities. True, its biggest component is Derbyshire, but it also pulls in a further four traditional counties: Cheshire, Staffordshire, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire.
And they all feel different. The beautiful bleakness of the Staffordshire Moorlands has almost nothing in common with the white limestone villages of the Derbyshire Dales. The dark stone of Marsden and the elegance of Chatsworth could never be confused for each other. Yet they are all the Peak District.
Striding along the ridge throws up some lovely names: Windgather Rocks, Pym Chair, Oldgate Nick, Cats Tor and Shining Tor. And anyone with an Inbetweeners sense of humour can appreciate the oddly named farmstead of Thursbitch.
But Shining Tor is the point you should make for. Country Walking isn’t all about reaching the high point at the expense of all else and ‘conquering’ things, but arriving at the trig point on Shining Tor does have the feel of a big accomplishment. And while you might find one or two wanderers sharing it with you, you’re unlikely to face a big crowd here.
And up until recently, I would be mentioning another key attraction at this point, because on the next horizon from Shining Tor is the distinctive outline of the second highest pub in Britain: the Cat and Fiddle. A few metres lower than the Tan Hill in the Yorkshire Dales, but still a magnificently lonesome high-altitude hostelry.
Sadly the Cat has been closed since the end of 2015; Robinson’s Brewery is trying to find a new licensee. Surely it must be a no-brainer: a pub high on the hills with stunning views and sustainable custom, courtesy of both walkers and motorbikers, who love the zig-zagging A537 that passes it.
I might even put in a bid myself.
But hopefully the lack of a pub doesn’t spoil the appeal of the Goyt Valley for you. I haven’t put it in this love-letter of an issue because it’s my favourite part of the Peak District (that’s a truly impossible call) but because it’s the place I tell my friends about. Stanage Edge, the Great Ridge, Dove Dale, the Roaches, Kinder Scout, Bleaklow, Monsal Dale – these are all fabulous places and worth any day of a walker’s precious time. But the Goyt Valley is just that little bit further from the beaten track; a world all of its own, tucked away in a little corner where the crowds don’t get to. It’s everything that is great about the Peak District – natural beauty, human heritage, variety of scenery, clear paths and big skies – but without the baggage of fame.
Until this article, of course. Oops.
You are out of the world’s chatter, its corridor echoes, its muttering. You feel the silence as if it were a great fresh wind cloud.” blowing away FRÉDÉRICGROS, A PHILOSOPHY OF WALKING