Longdendale Tales

It’s said that the River Etherow is born where Far Small Clough and Salter’s Brook adjoin in a three way meet. Clare Savory ventures beyond the Woodhead Tunnels to find the river’s supposed source. With her copy of ‘The Living Mountain’ by Nan Shepherd tucked under her arm, she invites you to listen closer to the water - in our first of four soundscapes in the series. Visit LongdendaleTales.co.uk...

In the first of four storytelling episodes, actress Cordelia Howard reads Thomas Barlow’s tale of an unforgettable visit to the Longdendale valley via train…on a soggy June day in 1867. Remembered by his peers as ‘the bard of Longdendale’, Barlow was a calico printer working for Edmund Potter in Dinting, a prominent member of the Co-operative societies and the first working-class magistrate of Glo...

From coffee shop to church, weavers cottages to an old turnpike road; a mooch about Tintwistle via Bottoms Reservoir with (almost) local Billy Wardle turns out to be a fruitful jaunt. Our thanks to Beth the cleaner at Tintwistle United Reformed Church for her surprise cameo appearance! Visit LongdendaleTales.co.uk for more information about our digital map and 28 part walking podcast series. This...

Mention the word 'traffic' in Glossop, Hadfield or Tintwistle and you’ll likely have your wrist slapped. These days the Woodhead Pass is a busy pass through route for lorries, bikers and cars alike. But, according to Roger Hargreaves from Glossop Heritage Trust, Longdendale has always been popular with travellers.  From the turnpikes to the salt path, to the railways and beyond, Clare Savory...

99 years ago Ethel Haythornthwaite founded what has now become the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s Peak District and South Yorkshire branch. Yet, unlike the Kinder Mass Trespass, very little is known about her and the role she played in protecting green areas - like Longdendale - from development back in the 1900s. Today Clare Savory walks along Bottoms Reservoir with Cassa Townsend, engagemen...

Engine sheds, barn owls to hydro power… Enjoy a walk from the Longdendale Environmental Centre to the Z shaped path where Valehouse dam meets Rhodeswood Reservoir, on the side of the Woodhead Pass. Clare Savory walks with Matt Ross, Communities & Young People Ranger, Peak District National Park Authority to discuss what the park’s role is, and how much people walking the valley really understa...

When Clare Savory moved from Manchester to Hadfield just before lockdown little did she know her new back garden would become an outdoor classroom offering hours of entertainment. Frankly, curiosity should be her middle name. She brings to a close a 6 month pilot project researching the people’s stories, music and poetry of the Longdendale area with 28 visualised walking podcasts and a digital int...