Leygatehead Moor

The view direction given may be out by 90°. I have gone with what I typed into my phone's notebook, though it could be SouthEast - geographing would be a lot easier if 'w' and 'e' weren't right next to each other on the keyboard I often think! Sitting amongst lots of pretty purple heather, the hill itself is fairly unremarkable apart from the trig pillar; it's more of a bump on a plateau shared with Burnt Hill, which is due South, before the land slowly rises again to the East. Its name is pretty good though, and nobody seems to have a clue where it comes from. If there was a hut here once - which is surely the most logical explanation - should it not have been called 'Harry's Hut'? The answer will no doubt be in an old book somewhere. The trig point's height is 441 metres. All four sight-holes at the base are still there, which is fairly unusual, but on the other hand the bit in the middle of the top mounting plate has been concreted over.

It is described as such on both the latest OS map and the very first OS map, surveyed back in the 1880s. Whilst certainly rather ramshackle, the bigger main building on the left is nevertheless ageing very well if it is coming up to 150 - I dare say some alterations must have been made in the intervening years. However, the mysterious square building on the right (there are no windows, just a padlocked door) definitely looks pretty new; intriguingly though, there was a building of the exact same size, on the exact same spot, on that very first map. What function it serves is unclear. It is far too big to be a toilet, and I would be surprised if that much space was/is needed to chop up the shot birds and animals. Despite there being countless online articles mentioning the shooting cabin, and it being a prominent landmark, there is nothing at all concerning its history, ownership, or current use.

There has been a lot of talk about reservoirs falling to worryingly low water levels this summer - whilst it does look quite low here initially, comparisons with other pictures on this site show that the water is probably only slightly below its average height. The reservoir was completed in 1911 and officially opened in 1912. A very informative information board, put in place to mark the reservoir's centenary just West of the camera location, states that it was built in order to meet the increasing water demands of Stockport, an expanding mill town to the West. Although the old filter-house directly below the reservoir has now been superseded by newer technology, substantial amounts of water are still piped to the new treatment facilities, providing some of Stockport's drinking water as well as most of a number of nearby villages' supplies, including Hayfield, a short distance downstream. As is traditional when trying to get people to visualise vast volumes of water, Olympic-sized swimming pools are wheeled out (Kinder Reservoir could fill 916 according to the information board). An Olympic pool measures exactly 50 metres by 25 metres, and they are generally three metres deep (deeper are preferred, in order to reduce turbulence which in turn reduces the speed of the Olympians, though two metres may be grudgingly accepted by the authorities if budgets are stretched). Considering that England has only seven such pools, the Republic of Ireland three, Scotland two, and Wales and Northern Ireland one apiece, it always seems a bit odd that this is the go-to comparison. While I realise that there are a lot of narrower 50 metre pools around too, it is still surely the case that most people never see one on a regular basis, if at all. Why not just use the standard 25 metres long pool, that most people will have got their swimming badges in, to give a more familiar yardstick? This would also increase the number about sixfold, making it sound far more impressive.

The path goes through the start of the River Ashop and then follows the infant river to the Snake Pass

On the watershed between William Clough and Ashop Clough

Looking back at the Kinder plateau.

Heading back downhill to the road.

The Snake Pass is in the middle distance and River Ashop to the left of the ridge on the right. Taken aboard an inbound flight to Manchester from Innsbruck. I am obliged to fellow Geographer Thomas Nugent with his extensive knowledge of aerial photography for helping to locate the landscape in question.

The path from Harry Hut Trigpoint leads to Mill Hill, then Kinder.

On the A624, closed for some time - now private housing.

Heading uphill towards Hayfield on the A624.

Off the A624.

Heading south west towards Hayfield.