Distance: 3.3 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: hard
Get the route via: Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
Peak District walk from Edale to Castleton via Hollins Cross on the Great Ridge and the Odin Mine beneath Mam Tor begins from Edale Railway Station.
The Story
The Walk
Getting Back
A Mine Named for Odin
Odin Mine is a cleft nestled beneath Mam Tor at the western end of the Peak District’s Great Ridge.
Less than a mile from Castleton is known for definite, thanks to court records that the site was being mined for lead in 1280, but it is thought that the site was being worked at least one thousand years prior to that.
For the ancient Romans who are thought to be the first to work the Odin Mine’s lead seams, the metal was a wonder material. Durable, flexible and easy to mould they used it for all manner of purposes, not least making water pipes. Like the one time wonder materials of later ages this was undoubtedly seriously detrimental to their health. Though lead continued to be used as a water pipe material into the 20th Century.
Research conducted a few years ago into the metals content of glacial ice in the Swiss Alps indicates that levels of airborne lead pollution of European in the 12th and 13th Centuries were comparable to during the Industrial Revolution, something which points to the sheer scale of the mining and refining operation that was being undertaken in Derbyshire during that period. This is perhaps the reason why the carving came to be in the church, recognition from the community that their living depended upon the risks taken by the miners and other workers toiling to produce usable lead.
During the 15th and 16th Centuries demand only increased, as new uses were found for the metal in the forms of musket shot, and as a long lasting yet flexible means to fix in place panes of the increasingly commonplace window glass.
While there is no archeological evidence to prove exactly when working at Odin Mine began (age old miner’s chibbles into limestone looking much alike regardless of which civilisational era made them), it is widely thought that after Britain left the Roman Empire first Germanic, and later Viking, settlers in the area mined the seam. The spelling of the mine’s name “Oden” in records prior to the Victorian era are considered strong evidence it was worked in the early middle ages and named after the German/Norse god of war.
This makes the Odin Mine the likeliest candidate for Derbyshire’s oldest known mine. Though being Roman it is youthful compared to the copper workings at Ecton Hill in the Staffordshire Peak District which mined more or less continuously from the Bronze Age 3,500 years ago until the 1890s. No wonder it is known as the “Hollow Hill”.
After the medieval period it is thought that the Odin Mine may not have been worked, or was worked only intermittently, until the late 17th Century. After 1665, and throughout the 18th Century, the mine reached its productive zenith. During this time between 100 and 800 tonnes of ore were extracted each year.
By Georgian times mining the exposed seam in the Odin cleft had been left far behind. A mine 500 metres deep had been cut into Mam Tor. When especially good seams were being worked over 40 people were employed there.
Barytes and other waste from the mine was used in the 1800s to construct the Manchester to Sheffield Turnpike which later became the A625. This road was a key route until the 1970s when landslips on Mam Tor placed it beyond economic repair. Today it’s buckled surface, part slid down the hill, remains visible just beyond Odin Mine.
During the 19th Century Odin Mine continued to be worked. A new sough was constructed to drain it, and equipment like a crushing wheel for starting to process the ore, which remains visible on site to this day, were installed.
However, from the late 1840s onwards production became more intermittent, with lead mining at Odin Mine ceasing entirely in 1869. The site continued to be mined for fluorspar and barite until 1909 since which the mine has ceased to be used.
The mine’s historic significance led to the original cleft and the later spoil tips from the 18th and 19th Century workings alike, being named a national monument. Today the large former Odin Mine site sits within the Castleton Site of Special Scientific Interest and is owned and managed by the National Trust. Spoil heaps aside the well worn crushing wheel installed in 1823 remains, lying on the ground, the first serious piece of mining heritage visitor’s encounter, prior to reaching the former course of the A625 and the Odin Mine cleft itself.
The Walk
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.
This walk from Edale to Castleton via Hollins Cross and the Odin Mine begins from Edale Railway Station.
If travelling from the direction of Sheffield exit the station. If travelling from the direction of Manchester exit the station and turn right to walk through the pedestrian tunnel towards the westbound platform.
Once beside The Penny Pot Cafe turn left, then right to reach the main road running along the southern edge of Edale.
At the junction turn right following the road downhill into a wooded dell.
Soon you reach a bridleway waymarked, tarmac, drive to your left. Turn left here and begin walking along the driveway which runs steadily uphill towards the Great Ridge.
Keep following the driveway past a farm.
Then through a wooded dell where the drive curves around sharply to left.
Beyond the dell look out for a sturdy wooden footgate out onto open hillside to the left. Pass through this gate and immediately on the other side there is a gravel covered track to the left Through a further gate. Head to the left down this track.
Continue straight along this path, which is well worn and has great views down the Vale of Edale for quite some distance.
Presently you come to a relatively steep section, where the path curves to the left. It was quite muddy when I walked the route in late December.
This takes you all the way up to Hollins Cross, which is reached through a gate onto the Great Ridge path. Hollins Cross is the lowest part of the Great Ridge.
Here cross the Great Ridge path and head through a gate on the far side.
Once through the gate turn right and begin descending a steep, but well made, path down the hill. The slope of Mam Tor looms in front of you.
Continue to descend until you reach a patch of woodland. Here head through a gate into the trees and then carry on straight along the path as it runs downhill through the wood.
At the bottom you come out beside an old farmhouse.
Here turn right and begin walking along its driveway past a semi-ruined old metal roofed shed.
Soon you pass another old farm complex.
Immediately past this building turn left, making for a gateway out onto an open field.
Once in the field head to the right making for a gateway on the far side.
This leads into the spoil heaps from 18th and 19th Century lead mining which surround the Odin Mine site.
Once through the gate follow the path straight ahead picking your way across the heath like foliage which has covered the old spoil tips.
Presently after some distance you leave the spoil tippings and emerge on flatter ground beside some woodland.
Here to the left there is a well made, recently refurbished track to Castleton. To reach the former A625 and the old Odin Mine cleft. Turn right here.
Follow the path past the old crushing wheel from 1823 and then across a stream.
On the far side of the stream follow the path up and through a gate onto the old road.
Once on the old road turn right and approach the old Odin Mine cleft which is through a gate on your left.
Having visited the cleft, retrace your steps back to the path towards Castleton.
Descend the path.
Presently you emerge beside a farmhouse, whose drive you cross heading through a gate on the far side.
follow the path along the edge of a field beside a stream called the Odin Sitch. You pass through an old fashioned stone stile into another field which you also cross.
Presently you reach a gate and stile to the right, leading into a field on the other side of the Odin Sitch. On the far side turn left and keep walking straight ahead along the side of the field towards Castleton.
Soon you reach a wooden gate into a further field which you walk through now approaching Castleton.
Walking beside the stream, passing through a series of gates you approach the village which is overseen by the ruins of Peveril Castle.
On the edge of the village the path curves right towards the first cluster of houses on Castleton’s northwestern edge.
Soon you come to a snicket on the other side of a gate which leads to the main road through Castleton.
Once on the pavement along the main road turn left to walk into the heart of the village.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
Castleton village bus station is served by buses to destinations across the Peak District and Sheffield throughout the day. Sheffield bound buses call at Hope Railway Station, the nearest station which has hourly trains to Sheffield and Manchester, the Manchester trains call at Edale. Rail services to the rest of the country can be caught from Manchester and Sheffield. Hope Station is easily walkable in no more than half an hour from Castleton.