Black Hill & Wessenden Moor

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Route: A635, Dean Head Moss, Dean Head, Black Hill, Issue Clough, Dean Clough, A635, Pudding Real Moss, Leyzing Clough, Wessenden Lodge, Blakely Clough, Black Moss Reservoir, White Moss, Featherbed Moss, A635

Date: 11/03/2018
From: A635

Parking: A635 Layby
Start Point: A635 Layby
Region: Peak District - Dark Peak

Route length: 10.2 miles (16.4 km)
Time taken: 04:50
Average speed: 2.1 mph
Ascent: 456m
Descent: 464m

Summits: Black Hill (582m)

Other points of interest: Wessenden Head Moor

The further north you get from Edale, the wilder and less-frequented the Peak District becomes, culminating in the huge moorland areas of Bleaklow, Wessenden and Saddleworth and the highest point in West Yorkshire, Black Hill. For travellers on the Pennine Way, this is the third main summit after Kinder Scout and Bleaklow and the highest point until you reach Fountains Fell and Pen-y-Ghent in the Yorkshire Dales.

Despite this, these moors are relatively easy to access thanks to a convenient layby along the A635, located slap bang in the middle of Wessenden Moor, giving the perfect starting point to investigate these quieter moorland areas.

The layby on Wessenden Moor

From the layby, Black Hill stands approximately 2 miles away and, though the gradient is not difficult, the rough Pennine moorland makes for traditionally slow going. A path is marked on the map though don't expect to find it.

Black Hill

Drifts of snow were still evident on the moor

We made out way up onto Dean Head Moss, a low ridge that gives a drier approach to Black Hill's summit. As the route steepens, the odd cairn appears before you reach the summit plateau, a large, flat area topped by a trig pillar.

Something resembling a path on the way to Black Hill

The occasional cairn makes an appearance

Snow on the slopes of Black Hill

Black Hill

Atop Black Hill

The summit - Solider's Lump

Wainwright wrote of Black Hill: "It is not the only fell with a summit of peat, but no other shows such a desolate and hopeless quagmire to the sky". This was a reference to the desperate state the hill used to reside in, worn of all vegetation by the acidic rains from the industrial revolution, leaving the trig pillar swimming in a peat bog.

Fortunately, Moors for the Future began conservation work on the hill in 2003, bringing back the Sphagnum Moss that is so vital to a healthy peat habitat. Today it is a triumph of landscape restoration, just compare the two photos below:

Before and after - the restoration of Black Hill

The official name of the summit is "Soldier's Lump" which is a reference to the eighteenth-century visits of the Royal Engineer surveyors who first used it as a triangulation point. An examination of the mound in 1841 revealed the timber framework for the theodolite which was used for the survey which began in 1784. The original instrument is now in the Science Museum.

We joined the Pennine Way at the summit, marked by its traditional stone blocks. The Way descends from the summit past the deep gash of Issue Clough and then along the flanks of Wessenden Head Moor. The route is unusually direct for the Pennine Way though does cross two impressive cloughs, the largest one (Dean Clough) can be tricky to cross when it's in spate.

Back on the Pennine Way

Issue Clough

Looking back to Black Hill

The Pennine Way at Black Dike

Some new boardwalks allow a dry crossing of some of the streams

Dean Clough

Dean Clough

Dean Clough

Once across the clough, the Pennine Way meets the A635 once again where we were able to indulge in the luxury of a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea from the van parked up in the layby. From here, the Pennine Way crosses the road and makes its way into the reservoir-strewn valley of Wessenden Brook.

Entering Marsden Moor

Passing the Fessenden Upper Reservoir, the Way uses the well-surfaced reservoir tracks to descend to Wessenden Lodge, located below Wessenden Reservoir (the second of a chain of reservoirs that supply water to Marsden and Huddersfield).

Framing the landscape

Landscape, framed

Pudding Real Moss above Wessenden Head

Wessenden Head Reservoir

Snow drifts left in the valley

Wessenden Reservoir

Wessenden Reservoir 

The next short section of the Pennine Way is a bit of a pain as it ignores a perfectly useable track that contours around the valley of Short Grain, instead, dropping to the valley floor and climbing back up an immensely steep slope. Luckily the steepness is short-lived and the Pennine Way emerges onto the Short Grain track once again.

Birken Bank waterfalls

Short Grain

The steep bank we'll be climbing in a moment

Blakeley Reservoir

Climbing gently, the path wends through some shallow valleys until it emerges onto open moor once again at Black Moss. Here there are two lonely reservoirs; Black Moss and Swellands Though located side-by-side, the two reservoirs actually serve two opposite sides of the moor and, subsequently, entirely different towns. The Pennine Way crosses between them, right along the watershed.

Looking back to Wessenden Reservoir

West Nab

Climbing out of Blakely Clough

Pule Hill

Black Moss Reservoir

Leaving the Pennine Way to continue north, we circled Black Moss reservoir and joined the route of the old Pennine Way - the route it took before it was diverted. We had expected the return leg to the car park to be across largely pathless moor but were pleasantly surprised to find much of the route paved. I suspect this work was done prior to the Pennine Way diversion. Either way, it makes the final stretch much easier than we anticipated.

White Moss

White Moss