Hope Valley Line for Higger Tor

Ride this line from Sheffield and you’ll spend 3½ miles looking at the bricks of the Totley Tunnel, but it makes what’s coming even more impressive as you burst into the Peak District. First stop in the park is Grindleford at the south tip of Padley Gorge: follow the wooded cleft to pick up a six-mile loop over Higger Tor, Carl Wark and Burbage Rocks*. And there’s a top walk from every station: at Hathersage* you can walk with Jane Eyre past North Lees Hall, aka Thornfield; from Bamford you can hike to the great gritstone scarp of Stanage Edge*; from Hope you can tour the Great Ridge*; and from Edale climb Jacob’s Ladder to the edge of Kinder Scout (see Walk 12), before the line plunges back through the hills and on to Manchester.