It is one of the laws of Homo vehiculus, the wheel-dependent subspecies of our kind, that if you find a roadless patch in Britain you can have the place to yourself. Almost. We were happy to share the whole day on Bleaklow – a name that speaks volumes by itself – with five others. And two of them were at some other, undetermined gritstone edge, on a far horizon.
Our hearts, however, were for the Barrow Stones, the monolith group below Bleaklow Hill and surely the most beautiful in an area not short of such monuments. They’re about an hour’s slow grind across the moors that were traditionally shooting terrain. Despite the map indicating shooters’ butts and a cabin, we heard the distant sounds of a single red grouse during the entire visit, suggesting that both the bird and its followers could fade away in a near future.
