A Walk Along Curbar Edge

The view south along Curbar Edge

When joining the Sheffield U3A Geology Group, I was interested to see what kind of terrain the members would be expected to willingly explore, especially since - reflecting the nature of U3A - everyone would have been a minimum of 10 years older, and probably much less mobile than me.

All prepared for the walk ahead

During my trips to the Burbage Valley, Peveril Castle and Cave Dale a few weeks earlier, I had become aware of my own physical condition and ability to negotiate steep and unstable slopes, having not done this for very many years.

In Haworth, the exploration of the Woodhouse Flags took just over 3 hours, with a distance of 4km. Although much of the walking was along paths, various diversions included a quarry face, where the weathered shale at its base was quite slippery, and there is other uneven and boggy ground.

It seemed that most of the group were much more used to this kind of activity than me and, apart from the occasional slip, were well prepared for the terrain encountered when learning more about geology - including the need to take along the necessary outdoor clothes.

The remains of a stone circle

The next trip was a walk along Curbar Edge, in November - a distance of 8km - which reminded me that waterproof trousers were essential, as we were lashed with rain on the first leg of our walk on what was already a windy day.

The principal aim of this trip was to have a close up look at some of the archaeology that is also a feature of the moorland in the Peak District National Park - various cairns, a cist, a stone circle and discarded millstones and other evidence of quarrying in the past.

There was another opportunity to explore more exposures of Chatsworth Grit - as I had surveyed at Carl Wark and Higger Tor – but the weather finally got so bad that we had to cut the day short before we had a chance to see various other places that been highlighted on the route.

The geology around Curbar Edge

Although I had visited various quarries and other exposures along the gritstone edges before, I had never taken a long walk along the top of any of them and, although disrupted by the rain, I saw enough points of interest to make me want to return again on a calm and sunny day.

Tors and various contorted beds and other sedimentary structures

The Chatsworth Grit here is typically very coarse grained, with abundant pebble beds composed mainly of vein quartz, and the large scale sedimentary structures are clearly exposed – including examples of slumping and the development of finer grained flaggy beds that I had not seen before.

Zooming in to Higger Tor and Carl Wark

Even on a very gloomy day, the large scale geological structures and geomorphology can be still seen in the skylines and the views along the edge; cloughs, stacks and large fallen blocks pass into thick deposits of head, which cover the lower slopes of this part of the Upper Derwent Valley.

Erosion of the Chatsworth Grit at Curbar Edge

On the return journey, the path had turned into a series of small streams that were cutting into the sandy surface and, in places, these cascaded over the edge. By the time we all got back to the starting point, everyone seemed to be as wet as me and, although the sun then started to shine, we all decided that we had experienced enough of the English weather for one day.

A glimpse of sunshine at the end of a very wet and windy day