Alport Castles from Birchen Clough

We arrived at the layby at Birchen Clough on the Snake Pass Road to find surprisingly only one car already there. This turned out to be Pete Mellors from the DCA who was planning to walk in Kinder Scout.

After a brief chat we left Pete and his partner and we headed down the road for about 200 metres then followed a footpath which was marked as heading for Lady Clough and Oyster Clough.

This brought us through some woods made up largely of coniferous trees and after reaching a wooden fence and stile, following the course of an old Roman Road. This brought us to Cowms Moor and we walked through several fields to arrive at Hayridge Farm where we joined a farm track heading North.

As we walked along the track, we saw a small bird of prey flying around and landing on the top of a telegraph pole.

Further along the track, we could see the area of a large landslip called Alport Castles on the other side of the River Alport valley, said to be the largest landslip in the UK. We soon arrived at another farm: Alport Castles Farm, and here we followed a footpath leading steeply up to the edge of the moor called Birchenlee Pasture.

Where a footbridge crossed the river, we stopped to have a snack but were soon being pestered by midges, so we moved further along the path to higher ground away from the water and then had our snack.

We moved off after the snack and were soon following the path along the edge overlooking Alport Castles. We followed this path along the edge looking down into the valley below with the meandering river until we found a convenient spot to drop down the valley side where it wasn't so steep and after finding a place to cross using boulders, we climbed up the opposite side near Over Wood Moss.

Checking the map and setting a course using the compass, we crossed the moorland with the occasional peat grough, as we headed back towards Birchin Clough using the obvious features of Fairbrook Naze and Blackden Brook on the side of Kinder Scout in the distance to keep us on the correct heading until we met the intermittent path leading to Birchin Clough, marked on the map.

We followed this path until we arrived at the very steep section leading back down to the layby where we had started.

Remains of an ancient wood from the period before the peat was laid down