Ascent - 1754feet
Time - 5hrs 5min
Route - Car Park onB6105 – Longden Trail – Birchen Bank Wood – Near Black Clough – Round Hill – Near Bleaklow Stones – Bleaklow Head – Pennine Way – Clough Edge – Longden Trail – Back to car
Map of the route
With the weather
forecast giving weather warnings all over the country, we decided that there
was no point in travelling too far from home as there wouldn’t be any views. We
decided to go and find some more of the plane wrecks in the Dark Peaks on
Bleaklow. We would be heading to the Woodhead Reservoir and starting the walk
along the Longden Trail. When we arrived in the Car Park the rain was coming
down really hard and the hills were covered in thick fog.
The start of the
walk was really gentle following the Longden Trail as we reached Birchen Bank
Wood which is full of birds and wildlife, best to get there early in the
morning as it’s a popular place. We started climbing up to Near Black Clough to
the first plane crash site on Round Hill.
As we reached the top of the clough we saw a faint path leading off of
the path we were on, cutting across the moors onto Round Hill. The path was in
the right place and heading in the right direction to take us to the plane
wreck. We took a chance following the path hoping it would take us to the plane
wreck. We were right to follow the path as it took us straight to the plane
wreck of Blackburn Botha. A good navigation point is the Holme Moss Mast which is
directly behind it.
From here I set the compass to 228 and headed in a south/westerly direction across Bleaklow Meadows towards the rocky area of Near Bleaklow Stones. It’s a hard slog through the bogs and very deep gullies eventually finding a gully heading in the direction we needed bringing some rest bite. As we neared the end of the gully we came to a flat clearing where we could see some wreckage of the 2nd crash site of Boulton Paul Defiant. After inspecting the crash site we headed to Bleaklow head where the ground flattened out and the walking became much easier. We both were really happy to reach the big Cairn where we stopped for a quick bite to eat to boost our energy levels. We didn’t stop for long as the weather had never let off since we started the walk and still had a good hours walking along the Pennine Way.
We made are way
along Clough Edge both soaking but still having a really good walk, before we knew
it, we had reached the Longden Trail where the trees were giving us some
shelter from the heavy rain. The dogs were glad to get back to the car.
A great day
finding two more plane crash sites
(GR – 110 974) Blackburn Botha W5103 7FPP
Crashed Round Hill 10/12/41
(GR – 106 970)
Boulton Paul Defiant N.3378 255 Sqdn. Crashed Near Bleaklow Stones 29/08/41
After putting the dogs into the
car we decided we had enough time left to quickly climb Wildboar Clough as we
couldn’t get any wetter than we already were.
Thanks foor writing
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