Christopher Somerville

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window


Around Blackstone Edge the gritstone moors roll away, breezy uplands that are a godsend to anyone bent on getting out of the former manufacturing towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire for a good day in the open air.

From White House Inn we crossed the road and followed the broad stony track of the Pennine Way. The path surface had broken down under millions of footfalls into sand and quartz, a creamy, honeyed hue, the components of gritstone disassembled once more after three hundred million years of clinging together.

A short cobbled section of Roman road led up to the Aiggin Stone, a medieval waymark pillar set up to guide benighted or mist-beguiled travellers. From here the Pennine Way rose to Blackstone Edge, a classic gritstone ridge with cliffs jutting westward like ships’ prows. Wind-distorted boulders stood at the edge, weathered to resemble stacks of black pancakes or gossiping trolls, their rough sandy bodies studded with specks of white quartz like globules of fat in coarse salami.

The narrow, stumbly path headed south down a long slope into the rushy declivity of Redmires and Slippery Moss. ‘Standing knee deep in this filthy quagmire,’ Alfred Wainwright wrote with mordant humour in his 1967 Pennine Way Companion, ‘there is a distinct urge to give up the ghost and let life ebb away.’ But thing have changed since Wainwright’s day. Nowadays it’s a dry-shod walk on a path of flagstones salvaged from the floors of redundant textile mills.

Beyond Slippery Moss the M62 cuts the moor with a roar and rush. We turned away to follow a trickling leat of water across the peat and heather to Green Withens Reservoir, a classic of municipal sandstone architecture, built in the 1880s in the middle of nowhere to supply Wakefield with water. From here the path ascended the dimpled face of Green Withens Edge before meeting Rishworth Drain and curling back towards the Aiggin Stone.

As we came level with Rishworth Drain a big bird of prey, its pale wings tipped with black, came flapping easily along the waterway. ‘Hen harrier!’ we exclaimed on the same breath. We watched spellbound as it launched itself downwards and pounced into a grass tuffet, then resumed its flight having missed its grab. Hen harriers are wonderfully efficient hunters, but even they have their off days, it seems.

How hard is it? 7½ miles; moderate; moorland tracks. Pick a fine day.

Start: White House Inn, Blackstone Edge, Halifax Road, Littleborough OL15 0LG (OS ref SD 969178)

Getting there: Bus 587 (Rochdale-Halifax).
Road – White House Inn is on A58 (Littleborough-Sowerby Bridge)

Walk (OS Explorer OL21): Cross road; follow Pennine Way/PW, then path beside Broad Head Drain. In 800m, left through gate (970169); up cobbled road to Aiggin Stone (974170). Right on PW (gate, National Trail acorn), southward by Blackstone Edge and Redmires. In 1¾ miles PW turns right to cross M62 (984147); don’t cross, but keep ahead with motorway on your right; then follow path on right of leat (986148) to Green Withens Reservoir (991160). Right along two sides; 100m beyond far end, right beside leat (991165). In 150m, left across leat. Follow path across moor, up Green Withens Edge; near the top, left on crossing track (991169). In ½ mile at Rishworth Drain (986172), fingerpost points right (‘Baitings Reservoir’); but keep ahead here. In 700m left across footbridge by pool (982176); bear back left on rutted Old Packhorse Road to Aiggin Stone; retrace steps to White House Inn.

Lunch: White House Inn, Blackstone Edge (01706-378456, thewhitehousepub.co.uk)

Accommodation: Premier Inn, Newhey Road, Rochdale OL16 3SA (0333-321-8449, premierinn.com)

Info: moorsforthefuture.org.uk; yorkshire.com

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window


It was one of the mightiest winds I’d ever encountered, and it tore across the Wiltshire downs from the west like a mad thing. I was smashed in the face and shoved around as I climbed the flank of the Neolithic long barrow called Adam’s Grave, and when I got to the top the blast of the wind sent me staggering sideways.

Maybe it was the unquiet ghost of Giant Adam, mythical occupant of the 5,000-year-old tomb, or maybe the bellicose spirits of the Anglo-Saxon warrior slain in a great battle here in 592 AD; but something up here was stirring the air into a maelstrom. My eyes were so blurred with wind tears I could hardly take in the magnificent view across the Vale of Pewsey, its brilliant green pastures and glittering floodwater lit up by the low winter sun.

I turned full face into the wind and battled along the slope of Walkers Hill. People with their backs to the gale came scudding by, hair and coat tails flapping, cheeks beaten red, gasping and nodding their complicity in outfacing the weather.

A turn of the hill brought the Pewsey White Horse into view, a slender-legged beast 180 feet tall with an elongated nose and a cropped tail twitched high. Farmer Robert Pile of Alton Barnes down in the vale below cut it out of the turf in 1812, and his handiwork has survived the two intervening centuries pretty well.

A crowd of fifty starlings went rushing across the slope, wings rigid, surfing the wind as one entity. I turned uphill past hissing gorse bushes and went east along the old bank and ditch of Wansdyke, a great groove thirty feet deep in the landscape. Wansdyke runs for sixty miles between the Hampshire Downs and the British Channel, but no-one knows the purpose of the Dark Ages folk who built it so tall and strong.

A broad green trackway took me down into the shelter of the valley once more. Beyond stood Knap Hill with its ceremonial ramparts and dimpled crown. I let the wind propel me up to the crest. There I revolved, soaking up the view of sun-gilded downland, marvelling at the energy of our ancestors who made their mark so forcefully all over these chalk hills of the west.

How hard is it? 4¾ miles; easy; downland tracks.

Start: Pewsey Downs car park, near Alton Barnes, SN8 4LU approx (OS ref SU 116637)

Getting there: On minor road between Alton Barnes and East Kennett (signed off A4 near Avebury)

Walk (OS Explorer 157): Cross road; through gate; immediately left through gate; follow clear grass path to top of Adam’s Grave (113634). Turn back across dip; bear left on path, passing above White Horse (107637) and on (‘Mid Wilts Way’/MWW; ‘White Horse Trail’/WHT). In 500m pass gorse patch on right; beside lone tree on left (101638), bear right uphill past another lone tree. Bear right to gate (101639, MWW, WHT); on to next gate; bear left with fence on right. In 450m, right through gate (102645, MWW, WHT); follow fence on right. In 200m through gate (103646); right along Wansdyke for 1 mile to T-junction (118648). Right on rutted track for ¾ mile to Pewsey Downs car park. Through car park, past stones and barrier; in 100m, left (117636, gate, fingerpost); fork right up Knap Hill. Half left off summit (122636) down to gate (123639); sharp left back to gate and car park.

Lunch: Barge Inn, Honey Street, Pewsey SN9 5PS (01672-851222, thebargeinnhoneystreet.uk)

Accommodation: Circles Guest House, 15 High St, Pewsey SN9 5AF (07769-018643, circlesbandb.com)

Info: visitpewseyvale.co.uk

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window


Birdsong was loud in the trees of the Luxulyan Valley on a morning of brilliant sunshine. Among the mossy trunks of oak and beech the giant legs of an aqueduct stepped across the ravine, a scene from a post-apocalyptic dream.

All over Cornwall, the landscape goes hand-in-hand with the architecture of long-dead industries, most notably here in the twisting valley that winds down towards the china clay port of Par. When Joseph Treffry built the structure that served as aqueduct and viaduct across the Luxulyan Valley in 1839-42, it was just one piece in a great jigsaw of tramroads, watercourses and railways this powerful engineer and industrialist created to link up his copper and tin mines and granite quarries with the ships and quays he operated down on the coast.

Nowadays the Luxulyan Valley is a showpiece of beautiful woodland where liverworts and mosses thrive in the stonework of Treffry’s redundant tramways and water gurgles seductively along his abandoned leats.

From the eastern end of the viaduct we followed the granite setts and rusted rails of the Higher Tramway beside the ferny channel of Carmears Leat, then down a long steep incline. Wagons of coal for the steam engines that pumped out the mines were drawn up this tremendous slope; tin ore rattled down in the opposite direction, heading for the port.

At the foot of the incline a chalky grey lane shadowed a tangle of railway lines along the flat valley bottom where glossy horses grazed and the stream beds sparkled with chips of mica. A swift blast of traffic fumes and noise at the level crossing in St Blazey, and we were heading away and up through quiet beechwoods on the Saints Way path.

Dark Ages pilgrims and holy wanderers used this ancient route across the Cornish peninsula to shorten the perilous sea journey from Ireland to the Continent. The Way led us north across undulating farmland with glimpses of the sea and of the Cornish Alps, pyramidal china clay tips, once dazzling white, now greening over.

Soon a run of stone arches, pale grey and ghostly, floated into view above the trees of the Luxulyan Valley, and we dropped down to cross the Treffry Viaduct in woodland now hushed with the approach of nightfall.

How hard is it? 5 miles; easy; woodland, farmland tracks; many stiles on homeward leg.

Start: Black Hill car park, Luxulyan PL24 2SS approx (OS ref SX 059572)

Getting there: Luxulyan Valley is signposted from Luxulyan (signed from A390 at St Blazey, A391 at Lockengate).

Walk (OS Explorer 107, interactive map at luxulyanvalley.co.uk): Up steps by info boards; right along leat; in 30m, left up woodland path to Treffry Viaduct (057571). Left; in nearly 1 mile, at foot of incline (070563), ahead along lane. Follow lane; then from Ponts Mill (073561) follow old railway track south to A390 in St Blazey (071551). Right; in 100m, right (‘Luxulyan’). In half a mile, right (062553, ‘Saints Way’/SW) up woodland path. In 100m bend right along edge of woodland. Follow SW (cross logo, yellow arrows/YA) past Nanscawen (060554), Great Prideaux (058558), Trevanney Farm (056566) and on across fields for 1½ miles. Descend into valley. Just before bridges, right off SW (053574, YA). In 50m cross stile into field; in 100m, left at cross-paths to gate onto old tramway (055573). Right across Treffry Viaduct and retrace outward route to car park.

Lunch: King’s Arms, Bridges PL30 5EF (01726-850202, kingsarmsluxulyan.org)

Accommodation: Old Vicarage, Luxulyan PL30 5EE (01726-858753, tovl.co.uk)

Info: Friends of Luxulyan Valley (luxulyanvalley.co.uk)

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window


There’s an air of menace, faint but definite, that clings to the Pass of Glencoe as the road from Fort William threads it between the jagged ridge of Aonach Eagach and the massive, troll-like faces of the Three Sisters of Glencoe. These volcanic mountains are dark and precipitous, giving the impression of hanging threateningly over the road even on a crisp winter day with clear sky and glassy visibility. That haunted feeling may derive from the notorious 1692 Massacre of Glencoe, when dozens of members of the local MacDonald clan were murdered by soldiers billeted in their houses or died of exposure as they fled through a snowstorm to hide in the mountains.

A couple of miles down the glen the mountains draw further back from the road and the atmosphere lightens as the glen broadens. Here we set off from the packed car park at Altnafeadh for a morning’s saunter up the Devil’s Staircase. All right, maybe not exactly a saunter, but certainly not the grim unrelenting grind we’d been led to expect of this ancient cattle droving pass that climbs to the ridge between Glencoe and Kinlochleven.

It was soldiers working as navvies who converted the old hill track into a paved military road in 1752, hauling stones and equipment up and down the zigzag path on the mountainside. They detested the job, and named the road the Devil’s Staircase accordingly. Today a pale sun struck glints of pink and gleams of mica out of the granite rocks. Where the Allt a’ Mhain stream sluiced across, the water rush had scrubbed and smoothed the rocks to a beautiful smooth orange, a very intense colour.

It was one of those ‘watch your step, take the next zig and zag as they come, how long to the top?’ slogs up the Devil’s Staircase, but at last the path smoothed out at the bealach. Here we turned off the West Highland Way onto a narrow stony track that rose across slippery slabs and squelchy black bog to the modest cairn at the summit of Stob Mhic Mhartuin, 400 metres above the floor of Glencoe.

From here the southward view over the glen burst out in all its glory. Twin mountains stood opposite, their volcanic history written in their crumpled faces, Buchaille Etive Beag on the right looking east across the tight-squeezed glen of Lairig Gartain at her big sister Buchaille Etive Mòr. Snow streaked the gullies on Buchaille Etive Mòr, and a party of hikers were outlined against a smoky grey sky as they inched their way towards the summit. A really magnificent view, worth every step of the hike up the Devil’s Staircase.

How hard is it? 3½ miles; moderate hill climb of 418m/1,371ft; stony track to the pass, then hill track to Stob Mhic Mhartuin. Check the weather (mwis.org.uk); choose a clear day for the best views; hill-walking gear advisable.

Start: Altnafeadh car park, Ballachulish, Glencoe PH49 4HY (OS ref NN 221563)

Getting there: Bus 914 (Fort William-Glasgow) – ask to alight at Altnafeadh.
Road: Altnafeadh is on A82 between Glencoe and Kingshouse Hotel.

Walk (OS Explorer 384): From A82 turn north up West Highland Way/WHW, keeping to left of forestry. Climb 259m/850ft up the Devil’s Staircase zigzags to the bealach or pass at 548m/1,797ft. Just before big cairn (216575) at bealach, left off WHW on clear path that becomes rocky, boggy and steep in places. In ½ mile it bends left to climb to summit of Stob Mhic Mhartuin (707m/2,319ft). Return the way you came.

Lunch/Accommodation: Kingshouse Hotel, Glencoe, Ballachulish PH49 4HY (01855-851259, kingshousehotel.co.uk)

Info: visitscotland.com

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window


After a day of torrential rain, a cold blowy morning had broken over the Dark Peak. Grey clouds rolled east like cannon smoke, and there was a muted light over the moors of the South Yorkshire/Derbyshire border. Neatly built walls of chapel-black gritstone lined the green lane we followed uphill between sheep pastures.

A gate led onto the open moor at Rud Hill, the winding path a glinting trickle of water among bracken and rocks as the moors disgorged yesterday’s rain. There was something bracing and exhilarating about tramping this watery path with the blustery wind in our faces and the three slit-grey eyes of the Redmires Reservoirs coldly winking below.

Down beside the reservoirs it was astonishing to note how far their water levels had fallen during the past summer of drought. These water stores were built up here in the 1830s and 40s after an outbreak of cholera in nearby Sheffield had claimed more than 400 lives. Drinking-water unpolluted by sewage was desperately needed in a city that had doubled in size since 1800 but still relied on medieval drainage.

We stopped to watch a flock of fifty mistle thrushes descend to strip a rowan of its orange berries, then turned along the stony upland track of the Long Causey. Roman soldiers laid it out, packmen and their horses crossed the moors along its cobbled roadway. Today it was runners and walkers who passed the trackside verges where the bright scarlet fruit of cranberry added a dash of colour to the sombre grey of the stone and the foxy brown of the moors.

Stanage Pole stood tall among its rocks, a waymark for travellers since medieval times. Here we crossed from South Yorkshire into Derbyshire. The Long Causey dipped to Stanage Edge and a tremendous southward view across an undulating green valley to where the landscape rose towards the limestone uplands of the White Peak.

The homeward way led along Stanage Edge, a gritstone cliff filled with landscape dramas in its own right. The finely layered rocks had been weathered into faces, towers, animal shapes, stacks of pancakes. Helmeted climbers’ heads popped up over the edge, children jumped yelling off the rocks, and the wind blew everyone inside out. What a wonderful natural playground, halfway between the earth and the clouds.

How hard is it? 7½ miles; easy gradients, but watch your step; stumbly rocks, boggy patches, rough moorland paths.

Start: Fulwood Lane car park, near Norfolk Arms Hotel, SN10 4QN (OS ref SK 285840)

Getting there: Bus 258 (Sheffield)
Road – Fulwood Lane is beside Norfolk Arms, Ringinglow Road, S11 7TS

Walk (OS Explorer OL1): Right along Fulwood Lane. In ⅔ mile at right bend, ahead (277845, ladder stile) on green lane (permissive path). In 400m, through gate onto moor (273845); boggy but clearly trodden path with occasional waymark posts. In 1 mile descend from White Stones (261845 approx) to stile (258849). Left across bridge; left up stony Long Causey (257851). In ¾ mile pass Stanage Pole (247844); in 500m, left along Stanage Edge (241843 – watch your step!) for 1¼ miles to trig pillar (251830). Bear a little left; in 200m drop down through rocks on right (253830); left on path to Upper Burbage Bridge (259830). Left along road (path on left verge). In 1¼ miles opposite forestry plantation on right, left (279834, gate) on moor path. In 400m, just past white ‘gate’, fork right (278838, waymark post) to wall stile (280840). Diagonally across field; stile; across field, keeping right of wall, to Fulwood Lane (285842). Right to car park.

Lunch/Accommodation: Norfolk Arms, Ringinglow Road (0114-230-2197, norfolkarms.com)

Info: peakdistrict.gov.uk