Dotting the flanks of the Upper Tame Valley are a series of old weaving villages, each a history book divulging tales of Saddleworth’s industrial past, enthuses Neil Coates
Neil Coates is a Manchester-based writer specialising in walking and pubs.
DAY OUT: Uppermill, Greater Manchester
Picture a thin path used in centuries past by workers walking to tiny scribbling mills wedged in wooded cloughs on a steep Pennine hillside. Hunched above is secluded, tree-shrouded St Chad’s Church. Its spooky, overgrown graveyard embraces a tombstone that graphically details a brutal murder on the moors in 1832.
Enough to put shivers down your spine? Recover in a brace of characterful, logfire-warmed pubs, which bookend this memorable hillside setting high above Uppermill. This is South Pennine autumnal landscape par excellence; colourful woods, gritstone hamlets and wind-riffled moors.
Advancing from this elevated enclave, the waymarked Oldham Way threads to the imposing Pots & Pans War Memorial. Nearby, enjoy mouth-watering views into the vast glacial amphitheatre holding Dovestone Reservoir, glistening below fractured gritstone crags.
MILLS, GINNELS, CANALS
Uppermill is the largest of nine neighbouring weaving villages dappling Saddleworth’s Upper Tame Valley. Its intriguing mix of repurposed mills, transport heritage, artisanal and produce shops threads the deep valley beneath the shoulders of towering hills. Old cartways and ginnels link to canal and riverside walks between cosy teashops.
Home-in on the canalside Museum & Art Gallery, a revelation of the area’s industrial past; then amble the towpath to Brownhill Countryside Centre and café, tucked beneath the slender railway viaduct curving high over the Tame and the Hudders
