Paul Lydon: A Walk around Castleton Show Caves

After leaving the car in a small layby on the Chapel-en-le-Frith road near Windy Knoll, Karen and I crossed the fields by Windy Knoll and crossed the road at the track to Rowter Farm. From there we followed a public footpath on the pastureland and after crossing a wall stile and another field we arrived at a rough track leading past an old mining area with the traces of a steam engine peeking out of the ground in the field on the other side of the track.

We turned left on the track and after reaching the junction with the Rowter Farm track, we passed through a field gate and followed another public footpath leading down towards the top of Cave Dale.

Rather than going down Cave Dale to reach Castleton, we followed another footpath leading towards the large Peak Cavern Gorge which brought us to the opposite side of Peveril Castle. We had a short hot drink break in a sheltered spot with views across to Winnats Pass and Mam Tor. It was a cold day (around 5 degrees Celsius) with a strong wind and an occasional light shower.

Next we dropped down the steep grassy slope to reach a path next to a field wall which was very slippery with patches of mud and greasy wet limestone rocks. This brought us to nearby Castleton village where we bought some snacks in a shop and sat on a bench around a tree in the market square to eat them.

After a quick look around some shops we returned along the slippery path we followed before then continued to follow it towards Winnats Pass.

Near Speedwell Cavern, we crossed the road which drops down Winnats Pass and then followed a very muddy path opposite leading to Treak Cliff Cavern.

The route followed past the show cave's buildings the climbed up and curved around the ground above Odin Mine to bring us to Blue John Cavern, another show cave.

We followed the tarmaced road to the remaining section of main road which used to lead down to Castleton below Mam Tor until in the late 70's it collapsed again as it had many times before due to the shaly ground and was finally abandoned.

It was just a short distance back from here to back to our starting point.