The Guardian - Peak Passions: A country diary

7th December 2010

There was a sparkle on the surface of Langsett Reservoir as we went along the dam-top road towards the village. The sky was clear and the frosty air perfectly still as we crossed on this the longest public road atop any British reservoir impounding wall. Ahead rose the fortress-like Lodge with its battlemented tower and the Valve Tower modelled on the gateway of Lancaster Castle.

A dozen years ago a Guardian reader contacted me to tell of how a tank belonging to the United States Tank Regiment based locally in the last war traversed this road, crashed into the roadside wall and then slipped into the reservoir. Local people gathered for the entertaining spectacle offered by the subsequent rescue.

The original plan of 1896 envisaged that the Langsett Inn (re-named The Waggon and Horses about 1924) would have to be demolished to allow the dam-top road to join the adjacent main highwat. The landlord objected and persuaded the water board to curve the road to avoid his property, hence the bend we walk round to come in sight of the main road and the useful shop and caf so loved by generations of motorised travellers, walkers and cyclists. A last chance of refreshment before the long climb westwards over the Woodhead Pass.

In another half hour we had climbed northwards by Gilbert Hill and headed for the spectacular viewpoint of Hartcliff where we could sit amongst the sunlit bilberry banks on top of the 40 feet (12 metres) deep bed of Greenmoor Rock. This was once quarried here at 1,194 feet (364 metres) above sea level, its fine grain and even texture earning it the accolafe of most valuable and beautiful stone of the Yorkshire Coal Measures. Now, though, the workings are long since abandoned and we can view in peace the huge vistas to the Pennine watershed in the west and the rolling green valleys of West Yorkshire northwards.

7th August 2007

From the heather beds atop Hartcliff I looked out to the north to see a wide sky filled with languid rolls of steel grey loud, not a speck of blue peeping through or a single sunbeam slanting down upon West Yorkshire. There was no wind either; just grey heavens and green, rolling hills topped here and there by manmade points of interest Royd Moor wind farm turbines, Emley Moor transmission tower, distant glimpses of coal-powered power stations towards the eastern flatlands.

By the time we had descended through the sodden fields to the banks of the roaring Don there was more rain in the air. This moor-born river flows down through Millhouse Green and on to the east through Thurlstone to sweep clear of the northern fringe of Penistone. It was thundering and stained chocolate brown by the moor peat of its birthplace but few habitations in these former mill villages are threatened with flood waters because the builders of yesteryear knew where to erect houses that would be safe from the flood. The wonder house that is the former Thurlstone vicarage certainly isnt likely to be inundated because it stands high above the Don. Its the work of the remarkable Manchester architect Edgar Wood, a stone house with towering proportions and characteristic touches of Art Nouveau built in 1906.

Our journey continued through the dull, green landscape and up through Penistone, turning our backs on the Don valley and its tempestuous river-child. As we climbed back towards Hartcliff the view widened again. Far away to the black pencil line of Holme Moss transmission mast with its top in the sodden cloud rolls in the west, and the wood-dotted hilltops towards Huddersfield and out towards an invisible York.

Down in Langsett again we said farewell to Pat and her family, who will be leaving their popular Bank View caf and shop within the month after so many years of hospitality to hordes of cyclists and ramblers here beside the busy Woodhead highway. They will enjoy the new life in Thorpe Hesley but this Pennine village will never be quite the same again.

19th February 2008

Rainbows decorated the northern sky as I looked from Allman Well Hill on that high ridge separating Ewden Dale and the Porter Valley in what is some of South Yorkshires best countryside. Up here close to 1,000 feet we had a grandstand view over Stocksbridge town towards the rolling, green hills that wrap around Penistone and the upper Don Valley. Showers drifted across, punctuated by those glimpses of rainbow slashes. Just to the west of our position is the prehistoric burial site called Walders Low, a small conical uprising topped with stones where a chieftain is said to lie at rest. A little further west again is Bolsterstone, windswept village famous for its male voice choir and remnants of a medieval castle. Across the stone-walled pastures to the north is the upper fringe of Stocksbridge, a sprawling hillside settlement based on the giant steelworks in the Porter Valley below. It grew from the endeavours of Samuel Fox who developed the construction of the collapsible umbrella frame and from which came the steelworks that still operates in the narrow confines of this valley.

Heads Lane keeps to the very crest of the slope down to reservoir-dotted Ewden Dale and in a mile we stood beside the trig. pillar on top of The Height. This open hilltop gives impressively broad vistas to every point of the compass; on this day the best prospects were to the north and there, coming and going between the slanting shower-drifts, stood the pencil-like sentinel of Emley Moor transmission tower. As we went further along the old plantation of oak and larch gave us some protection from the updraft from Ewden, little wonder they have developed such stunted, contorted forms, attractive like giant bonsai in their old age, taunted by every wind that blows. The showers eased off but there were still one or two rainbows adorning the sky over Emley way, tell-tales to the whereabouts of the last downpours.

1st April 2008

The gale had roared all night; around stony corners and through the naked trees at the edge of the moor. With the risen sun the wind was still gusting mightily. This is the sort of country that John Clare might have had in mind for his month of March, where the shepherd sees the wild journey of the cheerless sky. And cheerless it certainly was as I climbed the flank of Hartcliff. On the way up I met a pair of half-legged hunter types backed up to a great mass of scrambling briars that was so effective in turning the tempest over their heads that not a hair of their manes or tails seemed to stir. They knew a thing or two about the best spots for sheltering on a day like this!

These were the sort of horses that owners were in danger of losing had they ventured into Sheffield with a cart during the Great War. Though its over ninety years ago my friend Stephen Sampson clearly remembers hearing family conversations at the time. A team of men would look for sound horses on market days a Government purchasing officer, a reputed horse dealer and a vet. (Stephens father) and any suitable animal was confiscated to be sent to work at the Western Front. The hapless owners of such animals had no redress and had to accept a basic, official payment then make their way home as best they could. Towards the end of the war many farmers were struggling to continue operations with only aged, broken-winded horses, most never saw their former strong and healthy steeds returned from battle.

On the summit of Hartcliff the wind blew even stronger but the sky was now virtually free of cloud and visibility was excellent. Down the slope north-eastwards towards Penistone the handsome, gabled cottages that make Cubley Garden Village shone brightly. They remind us of the work of Sir Herbert Baker (1921 22), creations for the workers at the nearby steel works here at the edge of the high moors.

12th June 2007

It seems intolerable that we are soon to pass the longest day. The freedom of bright early dawns and sunlight well towards midnight imparts a feeling that we have all the time in the world. It certainly seems a sin to waste this apparently endless daylight behind closed doors so it is that I find myself high on a gritstone crag above this noblest of south Pennine valleys long past cocoa time whenever theres an opportunity.