26 March 2021

Pavement

Sheffield and Manchester sit thirty five miles apart with the Pennine hills between them. Transport connections between the two cities are woeful. Living in south west Sheffield, the best road link for us is the two lane Snake Pass that weaves over the hills through The Peak District before descending to the town of Glossop with its inevitable hold-ups.

The bleakest part of The Snake Pass is a wild moorland area known as Snake Summit. It feels as if you are on the roof of England when you are up there. A long distance footpath bisects the road. It is The Pennine Way that runs from Edale in Derbyshire to  Kirk Yetholm just over the Scottish border. 268 miles in total.

Yesterday, I commanded Clint to take me to Snake Summit. "Certainly my lord,"  he snivelled. I sat on the back seat reading a book as my South Korean servant transported me to my desired location.

With boots on, I set out south from the road along The Pennine Way. The landscape was a huge peat bog that would have been treacherous to traverse were it not for the paving stones laboriously placed there several years ago by The Peak Park Authority. I estimate that I stepped over seven thousand paving stones before reaching MIll Hill that overlooks The Ashop Valley and the northern edge of The Kinder Plateau.
Kinder seen from Mill Hill

There I sat down on a  small guidestone to eat my apple and observe the moorland landscape.  There's little life up there. A few meadow pipits and red grouse and where the bog relents a handful of hardy sheep. I could see "The Edge" of the Kinder Plateau and recalled the day  I walked along it observing its outdoor gallery of weathered outcrops that seemed like abstract sculptures.

A woman from Glossop in  a magenta anorak and an amber bobble hat reached Mill Hill soon after me and we chatted for a while. She was a Londoner who had moved up to Glossop ten years ago to build a totally new life there. Fortunately, the plan had worked.  She walks the nearby hills very regularly, breathing in the fresh northern air while maintaining her fitness.

I returned to Clint along the same three mile  path, treading on the same paving stones and when I reached him he said, rather obsequiously, "Your carriage awaits sir."
Looking towards Manchester from Black Moor

27 comments:

  1. I'm not sure what you have done to get Clint to this point, but it must have been awful. This will require some serious couples counselling to work through.

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    1. Just like the cowboys of The Wild West, you need to show a frisky horse who's boss. Also, his annual service and MOT test is coming up - this always affects his mood.

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  2. That path - I want to walk it, and I want to walk it NOW!
    As far as I remember, I have only ever crossed the distance between Sheffield and Manchester by train, never in a car.

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    1. Two cities - each with half a million souls - linked by a winding lane. Scenic but not economic.

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  3. I suppose the paving stones are necessary to minimise the damage to the peat moor. I haven't been since they laid it, but it used to be great fun before it was there, especially in wet weather.

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    1. "Fun"? Knee deep in black porridge? Whatever turns you on TD!

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  4. Those pavement laying sheep are very hard working and talented YP.

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    1. It was all going well until Baa Baa Black Sheep unionised the workforce.

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  5. Hmmm.. good job you were not stopped by the traffic police whilst travelling in the back seat with an invisible driver.

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    1. Oh, is that not allowed yet? I didn't know.

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  6. One of my ambitions in life - to visit Snake Pass.

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    1. You won't see any snakes there. The name "snake" was taken from the coat of arms of the then Duke of Devonshire who funded much of the road's construction. He had pots of money so he didn't mind.

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  7. Looks like an excellent place for a walk, except the bog part. I'm not fond of bogs, they seem creepy. When we were in Newfounland, in Gros Morne Park, we walked through a bog to get to Western Brook Pond. The trail was elevated and covered in gravel but if you ventured off the trail you sank. Gave me the willies.

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    1. You may realise that in England a "bog" is also a slang name for a lavatory or rest room. Perhaps your English mother taught you that though I believe she was from "Down South" so maybe not.

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  8. Rather desolate. In my present state of mind I most likely would have thrown myself off the path into the bog and let nature take course.

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    1. The Peak Park Authority would have fined you for illegal dumping.

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  9. Great shot of the Kinder plateau and sky.

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  10. My goodness, what has happened to Clint - he's not normally so subservient!
    Excellent photos again, YP, but I'm not sure I would want to walk in such a bleak landscape alone. You, and the lady in the bobble hat, were very brave to tackle such desolate scenery.
    I seem to remember that the Snake Pass was (and probably still is) always impassable to traffic at the first snow fall? Having only driven over it in summer, it's still easy to see how desolate it must be in winter.

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    1. You are right CG. It often gets blocked. Clint was being subservient because he has his MOT test next week and he is fretting about it.

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  11. I walked the pennine way in my late teens and returned to walk sections of it again a few years ago. The pathways have made what was a bog more possible and pleasurable actually. I know your area well - more than once I ran from the north end of Stanage to the Robin Hood Inn - about 17 miles I think. Lovely area - so many memories. There are pieces on the Bikeshed and in my books of times spent there. The blogger Heronthehill is near you - well, other side of the pass near Glossop - a very good writer and blogger.

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    1. Thanks The bike shed. You must have been as fit as a butcher's dog when you were younger. I will be coming over to your blog real soon. Put the kettle on!

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  12. The blog I mentioned is actually https://viewfromthehighpeak.blogspot.com/

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    1. Okay. Thanks for the link. I had never stumbled across that blog before. Looks like one I will enjoy.

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  13. Kinder seen from Mill Hill ... Manchester from Black Moor.
    This is like Jane Eyre's long trek back to Mr Rochester: it is what John Fowles (rereading Charlotte Bronte) called *deep England*.
    In Room at the Top, Simone Signoret told her faithless husband that she was planning to take the car and drive over the Pennines to Manchester, to see the ballet.
    As a boy I remember how vividly that moment in the film stayed in my mind.
    The roof of England still has the power to excite the imagination.
    Did you ever read Millstone Grit by Glyn Hughes?
    Haggerty

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    1. Thanks Mr Haggerty. Now I want to see "Room At the Top" too. That era of northern films - "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", "Kes", "A Kind of Loving" etc. - it was so gritty and emotionally authentic. "Millstone Grit" sounds like my kind of book as I once described as "the king of Stanage Edge".

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  14. I have never seen a moor, and I am always struck by your pictures of that landscape. I was just looking at a map of that area recently, thinking about trips!

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