The bleak and lonely Woodhead Chapel which has a history extending over 500 years.
Nick Wild led this small group of East Cheshire Ramblers taking in a high level route above the Longdendale Valley for the outward leg and returning along the Longdendale Trail.
Setting off from Padfield on this cold winter’s morning we headed off down through the village to the southern shore of Bottoms Reservoir before crossing the dam and heading up through Tintwistle to gain Arnfield Lane.
Along this lane we turned right onto a good hill track but in doing so got caught in a brief hail and snow squall. After a short coffee stop we continued along the rim via Black Gutter to Millstone Rocks following a rather indistinct path in places with plenty of boggy sections. Later we descended on a path down to the relative shelter of Crowden for our lunch stop.
As discovered on the reconnoitre the permissive path around the eastern end of Torside Reservoir was closed but a suitable alternative was available which was followed to the isolated and lonely Woodhead Chapel which today felt very bleak.
This remote chapel has quite a long history and today lies at the end of a short cul-de-sac above the very busy A628. The building is semi abandoned and graveyard is overgrown. There has been a church on this site for 500 years and the graveyard was used to bury the navvies who died whilst building the Woodhead Tunnel. It is rumoured that the unconsecrated field behind was used to bury those navvies who were non Anglican and the same field was used to bury victims of cholera that swept the valley.
We had no alternative but to follow a very short section of the A628 before following the embankment across to link up with the Longdendale Trail which we would stay with for the easy and level walk back to the cars.
The Longdendale Trail was opened as a combined foot and cycle way in 1992. The path was formerly part of the Woodhead Railway which ran between Manchester and Sheffield which closed to rail traffic in 1981.
