Hayfield and Lantern Pike

Hayfield was busy. It had cotton mills, papermaking mills and calico printing and dye factories. Hayfield had times of trouble. Floods washed away three bridges in the town, even swept away some bodies from their churchyard graves. And in 1830 it resounded to the marching feet of a thousand protesting mill workers, demanding a higher wage. As was always the case in such times, the men were beaten back by soldiers and charged with civil disorder. Their industry went into a slow decline that would last a century, and Hayfield returned to its countryside ways.

The Sett Valley Trail and Lantern Pike

The first part of the walk to little Lantern Pike follows the Sett Valley Trail, the trackbed of a railway that until 1970 linked Manchester and New Mills with Hayfield. At its peak the steam train would have brought thousands of people from Manchester. Today it’s a pleasant tree-lined track, working its way through the valley between the hills of Lantern Pike and Chinley Churn.

Lantern Pike is the middle of three ridges peeping through the trees, and by the time you get to Birch Vale you’re ready to tackle it. You ascend on a shady path through woods, then a country lane with wild flowers, and finally on heather and grass slopes to the rocky-crested summit. Lantern Pike’s name comes from the beacon tower that once stood on its summit. It had to be demolished in 1907 after falling into a dangerous state of disrepair. Having descended to the busy Glossop road, the route then climbs up across Middle Moor where it enters a new landscape – one of expansive heather fields. Soon you’re on the skyline looking down on the Kinder and the valley. This seems to be complemented to perfection by the shapely and ever-so-green peaks of Mount Famine and South Head.

Into modern Hayfield

You come down to Hayfield on the Snake Path, an old traders’ route linking the Sett and Woodland valleys which dates back to 1897. A fine street of stonebuilt cottages, with window boxes overflowing with flowers, takes you to the centre. It’s all so very peaceful…now.

Follow the old railway trackbed signed ‘The Sett Valley Trail and Pennine Bridleway’ from the car park in Hayfield. This heads west down the valley and above the River Sett to meet a minor road close to the A6015 New Mills road at Birch Vale.

Turn right along the road, then right again along a rising cobbled track behind the cottages of The Crescent into the shade of the woods. Beyond a gate, the track meets a tarred farm lane at a hairpin bend. Turn left, uphill, to reach a country lane. A surfaced lane, staggered to the right across it, climbs further up the hillside. Keep going past the entrance to Higher Cliff Farm to a gate at the edge of the National Trust’s Lantern Pike.

Leave the bridleway here and turn left along a grassy wall-lined path, climbing heather and bracken slopes to the rock-fringed ridge. Turn right and climb to Lantern Pike’s summit, which is topped by a view indicator.

The path continues northwards from the top of Lantern Pike, descending to the northern boundary of the National Trust estate, where it rejoins the track you left earlier. Beyond a gate, keep ahead on the main path which then curves left across a pasture to a five-way footpath signpost near Blackshaw Farm.

Go through a gate, turn left along a walled farm lane past Bullshaw Farm, then right at a junction to follow a track in front of Matley Moor Farm. Where the track curves right, leave it and take a rough grassy track on the left. Go over the stile at its end and continue northwards, uphill on a grooved path following the line of the wall. The path ultimately joins a semi-surfaced track from Knarrs.

Continue downhill on the track and at the end turn right and walk along the road to reach the A624. Cross this with care and go over the stile at the far side. Turn immediately right, following a faint, rutted track with a wall on the right-hand side. This eventually joins another track before crossing the little valley of Hollingworth Clough on a footbridge before climbing up the heather slopes of Middle Moor.

Near a white shooting cabin, turn right on the stony Snake Path. Leave the moor through a gate and curve left to descend across a succession of grazing pastures. A contained track finally leads down to Kinder Road.

Turn right to the village. At a fork near the bottom, keep left and immediately left again down a broad passage to come out beside The Royal Hotel. Go right to the street and left past St Matthew’s Church, then swing right beside it to the main road. Cross back to the car park.