A lovely experience on the moors – pity about the people
AS the Lockdown was eased again, in my view much too early, we ventured out a little further to the moors and valleys, above and beyond Top Mossley, and it was a mixed experience, both good and bad.
Firstly, the amazing beauty of the snow-like blanket coverage of bog cotton across Saddleworth Moor, with calling golden plover and skylarks doing their thing, was sublime, but then, sadly, another layby full of rubbish, seen here, cheers guys, great job.
’We’re all in this together’, has never been further from the truth.
Be positive I thought to myself; so we carried on down into the natural bowl holding Digley Reservoir, dodging cars and walkers, while taking in the stunning yellow gorse, strutting cock pheasants and bobbing wheatears and I couldn’t help reflect on my meeting many years ago with the cast of, ‘Last of the Summer Wine’, on this very same road.
I was about 28 then and living at Bleak House, Crowden, travelling between Woodhead and Chew Reservoirs in my trusty North West Water Land Rover.
If it was today, and me at nearly 67, you could be forgiven for thinking I was part of the show.
Joanie Lucy, my latterday Nora Batty, is only 30 years old, but still keeping me in check, thankfully without the wrinkled stockings and hair net.
Nora would certainly have given the scruffy flytippers a piece of her mind and maybe even a lick of her rolling pin, not least because the local municipal tips are back open.
Anyway, be positive Sean, I need to remind myself.
There’s a cracking fourmile circular walk around Digley, which is located to the southwest of Holmfirth, this circular route starts alongside the Reservoir and then continues along the shoreline before exploring the surrounding countryside, using a mixture of lanes, field paths and moorland routes providing some excellent wide ranging views across the reservoir and surrounding countryside, including an old friend from my Crowden years, the brooding and aptly named Black Hill.
This tall shapeless wodge is the most northerly of the three great gritstone and peat plateaux which dominate the Dark Peak region.
Smaller in area and lower than either Kinder or Bleaklow at 582 metres above sea level, it nonetheless is a remote and bleak place to be in bad weather.
And it has peat bogs which are a match for those on either of its larger neighbours to the south, but none of the eroded rocks which are such a feature, for example the wonderful Wain Stones.
The summit of Black Hill is known as Soldiers’ Lump after the group of Army Engineers who came to survey and erect the first trig point.
They had great difficulty finding solid ground on which to plant it.
Thirty years ago it was impossible to approach the trig point without wading up to the knees in peat.
But erosion has now made the approach much easier.
This erosion has removed large amounts of peat over the last 30 years and consequently the Pennine Way path has been paved for most of its length across the upper part of Black Hill.
The Pennine Way passes across Black Hill, traversing from Crowden in Longdendale, to Wessenden and Standedge to the north.
On the southern side of the hill it broadly follows the western side of Crowden Great Clough, climbing up to the top of Laddow Rocks along the way.
Joanie’s three girls were keen to do a bit of stream scrambling, so it was towards Crowden Great Brook we headed, via Holme Moss, however, we were stopped in our tracks by the sheer number of cars that were parked in the car park and on every kerb and spare piece of grass you could find, it was a car-fest and social distancing a couple of dirty-words.
Fortunately after living for 28 years at Crowden, I know a few places that even in the hottest of weathers never see a soul, and so it proved when I escorted the girls to ----------- (sorry I cannot tell you) and we spent several hours undisturbed in this little Paradise, rich with the smell of pine, grey wagtails, a passing merlin and a few stingers.
‘Ouch!’ said Aoife, Joanie’s youngest.
I left the girls paddling in the crystal clear brook and managed half and hour watching a roe deer buck, but then it was one, two, three, back in the real world as we traversed Saddleworth Moor on the way home only to find Dovestones ablaze.
When will these idiots ever learn?
My guess is, never.