href="#fb3_img_img_a2687053-cd11-50a2-8b96-c5dc0b915685.jpg" alt="Image"/> Walk northeast from Fox House Inn for 400 metres along the A6187. Where the road bends right carry on left along the broad track of Houndkirk Road. Cross a track leading to Parson House Outdoor Pursuit Centre, go through the gate and proceed along Houndkirk Road.
Houndkirk Road was created in 1758 as a turnpike (toll) road from Sheffield to Tideswell and on to Buxton. The road has two milestones giving the distances to Tideswell and Buxton. Milestones became commonplace after 1709 and law by 1758, when local magistrates instructed that distance markers be placed every mile.
Carry on along the track until a public footpath intersects the track by a walled enclosure on the right with Houndkirk Moor on your right.
It was on Houndkirk Moor in the Second World War that a decoy town was established to lure German bombers away from the Sheffield steelworks. One of six that ringed Sheffield, the area would be set alight during bombing raids to draw attention away from the steelworks. Look carefully at the ground for the remnants of the town.
Shortly after, the track crosses Thieves Bridge spanning Redcar Brook and is crossed by a second track. Walk left up the new track, passing through a farm gate with Lady Canning’s Plantation on your right. The route comes to a steel gate leading onto a road. Cross the road to the footpath directly opposite and continue over open moorland. Follow the footpath to just before a wall running almost east to west and turn left between two small hillocks to arrive at a stone stile crossing a wall at the far side of a farm gate. Cross the stile and go down the walled lane to a farm gate. Go through the gate and bear left between farm buildings to pick up the farm track leading to the road. At the road, go left to cross a ladder stile and walk along a permissive path, keeping a wall close on the left. Go through the right hand gate and up the field by the left hand wall to go through two wooden gates onto Rud Hill.
Cross the moor following the waymarked concessionary footpath, paying close attention to the small marker posts. After a wooden stile the ground can be very boggy on this moor, so gaiters are advisable. The path drops down to a stile then a footbridge. Turn left onto the bridge and follow the path to a wooden squeeze stile leading onto a stone track.
The track is Long Causeway, a packhorse route that connected Sheffield and Hathersage and probably followed the Roman Batham Gate road for part of its course. The route was paved with stone, some of which can be seen as the Causeway rises up to Stanedge Pole.
Turn left and walk up Long Causeway passing through a gate and then along stone setts to reach Stanedge Pole.
The new Stanedge Pole
Stanedge Pole sits at the side of Long Causeway. This current pole was erected in 2016 on the anniversary of the founding of the Peak National Park, as it was then called. From the pole's establishment in the 16th century its main use was as a boundary marker for the border between Derbyshire and Yorkshire and the ecclesiastical boundary of Canterbury and York. Dates and initials on the gritstone around the pole denote the date a new pole was installed and the surveyor responsible. One quirk is the spelling on Ordnance Survey maps, which differs from the spelling of the gritstone edge that is nearby. Erroneously the metal casting holding the pole in place denotes Stanage Pole and not the correct Stanedge Pole.
From Stanedge Pole continue along Long Causeway walking over rutted stones set a cart width apart until you reach a waymark post and stone-flagged path leading left towards the gritstone edge. Follow this path to a stile on the left which, if crossed, would deposit you onto Stanage Edge. Go along the footpath passing Stanage Plantation and progressing to Robin Hood’s Cave.
The caves on Stanage Edge
Stanage is the modern shortening of Stane Edge or Stone Edge. It is probably the most popular climbing crag in the country; the whole of Stanage Edge has over 1700 routes, most vertical in nature, making it a Mecca for generations of climbers. Robin Hood’s Cave, a natural rock feature is a must to go and see. After a bit of twisting and turning to gain entrance you are presented with a wonderful balcony from which to view the valley below.
Follow the footpath until you reach the triangulation pillar where the path turns left and starts its descent from the edge to the road ahead. At the road turn left and cross Upper Burbage Bridge, after which you should cross the road and enter the valley by the gate in front of the information board.
Take the wide footpath that runs below Burbage Rocks and follow this down through the valley, with Higger Tor and Carl Wark looming above on your right. Burbage Rocks will be full of climbers, having many easier routes than Stanage Edge.
The footpath was constructed as a shooting track for the Duke of Rutland to gain access to the grouse moors from his shooting lodge at Longshaw. The establishment of the shooting estate closed off ancient roads across the moors and a remnant can be seen towards the end of the track, to the right in the valley below: a lonely packhorse bridge sits astride Burbage Brook (the stream near the fortification), below Carl Wark settlement.
Along the drive you will find large boulders at the side of the track with strange indentations. These were the result of rifle practice in the Second World War.
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