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EARLY HISTORY
Microliths or small flints show evidence of Mesolithic hunters and gatherers living in the Peak District from around 8,000 BC. Bronze Age farmers were the first to farm the high gritstone moorlands - from around 3000 BC.
Roman occupation of the Peak District was probably due to lead mining activity in the area. Melandra is the name given to the Roman fort at Glossop - occupied until at least 370 AD and probably until the Romans left Britain. The road from Melandra over the moors via Woodlands Valley, Alport Bridge, Hope Cross and Hope to the fort of Navio at Brough, has been known as Doctors Gate for at least 350 years and parts of it can still be traced today. The mound called Torside Castle is said to be the ancient burial ground of Roman soldiers and many myths surround this area of moorland.
Royal Forest
Described as a ‘waste’ in the Domesday Book and given to William Peveril by William the Conqueror, Longdendale became part of the Royal Forest of the Peak in the 12th century. The forest was inhabited by wild boar, red deer, wolves, bears and wild bulls - though only the King and his noblemen were allowed to hunt them. Later, the land was farmed by monks and most of the remaining woodland cleared for sheep grazing.
For many centuries farming was the main use of the land in Longdendale. The better quality lowland provided grazing for beef and dairy cattle while the moorland provided rough grazing for sheep.
From the middle ages, salt was brought from Northwich, Middlewich and Nantwich on pack horses up through Longdendale to Salter’s Brook, where one track went on to Sheffield and the other headed north to Wakefield. The name Salter’s Brook reflects this important trade.
Packhorse bridges were just wide enough for horses to pass in single file, with parapets low enough to avoid the swinging baskets. The 18th century Lady Shaw Bridge has been restored. The salt trade increased when the new turnpike road from Cheshire to Yorkshire was authorised in 1731.
The Railway
The railway through Longdendale, started in 1839 and completed in 1845, provided the first rail link between Manchester and Sheffield. The building of the 3-mile long Woodhead Tunnel to carry the line (the first opened in 1845 and a second in 1852) caused much misery and loss of life among the 1,500 ‘navvies’ (workers hired to build the tunnels). When completed though, it brought prosperity and employment to the area with heavy coal traffic between the pits of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire and the industries of Lancashire. Stations at Hadfield, Crowden and Woodhead handled passenger and goods traffic.
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Above: The Woodhead Tunnel during the steam age
Right: Woodhead Chapel where navvies are buried |
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WATER POWER
Power for the textile mills in the valley was provided by the swiftly-flowing water of the River Etherow in the 18th and 19th centuries. Cotton was processed at Vale House Mill, Paradise Mill, Bottoms Lodge Mill and Torside Mill (later a paper mill) with a bleach works at Crowden. At one time there were 112 cotton mills in the Longdendale area - 56 of them around Glossop. Three of the mills were later covered by the waters of the reservoirs.
ELECTRIC POWER
Electricity is carried between Cheshire and Yorkshire through the Longdendale Valley. The pylons provide a ‘futuristic’ element in the traditional green landscape.
To preserve part of the moorland landscape, the line is routed through a disused Woodhead railway tunnel. Before the cable could be laid, nine inches of soot had to be removed from the walls of the tunnel, the tunnel had to be reinforced, the brickwork repointed and air shafts blocked. An oil-insulated lead-sheathed cable now transmits 400,000 volts of electricity through the rail tunnel.
| RESERVOIRS By 1841 the population of Manchester had grown to 235,507. People were just starting to link the spread of disease with polluted water supplies and there was an urgent need for pure water for the people of Manchester. In 1844 John Frederic La Trobe Bateman was appointed to design and construct a series of reservoirs to provide water from the Pennines for Manchester. Work began on the reservoirs in 1848 and these were completed as follows: Arnfield and Hollingworth - 1854, Rhodeswood - 1855, Torside - 1864, Vale House - 1869, Bottoms and Woodhead - 1877. Construction started on Woodhead dam in 1848 but instability in the underlying rock caused the embankment to leak badly and it had to be abandoned. A second embankment was started in 1862 and was one of the first to use a concrete filled cut-off trench instead of puddle clay. The dam was finally completed in 1877. When the whole reservoir supply scheme was finally completed in 1884, it was a great achievement as the reservoirs were the longest chain in the world at that time. Hollingworth reservoir was abandoned in 1987 and has been incorporated in the Swallows Wood Nature Reserve.
Treatment works built at Arnfield and Godley in the 1960s, meant a lessening of restrictions on activities around the reservoirs. There is now a greater emphasis on encouraging traditional farming in the valley. Today the Longdendale reservoirs are North West Water’s fifth largest resource, supplying some 102 megalitres of water each day to the eastern part of Manchester. The reservoirs also provide an attractive feature in the landscape. The water gathering ground covers around 7,800 hectares, taking advantage of the heavy rainfall around Longdendale (around 1333 mm annually). |
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