Читать книгу The Pennine Way - the Path, the People, the Journey онлайн

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The building has long since gone, compulsorily purchased and demolished in the 1950s by a water company for fear that their nearby reservoir water would be polluted; but the pub lives on in the local name for the A635 (the Isle of Skye road), as well as in the name of the annual Four Inns race, for which it is the starting point. This long-running team competition is held around Easter and involves a 45-mile non-stop walking/running route over the rough moors of the Dark Peak, linking four pubs: the Isle of Skye (site of), the Snake Pass Inn, the Old Nags Head at Edale, and the Cat and Fiddle on the moors to the far west. Of course, two of these pubs are on the Pennine Way, and the Snake Pass Inn just off it. The winning teams often take as little as six or seven hours, while others walk through the night and stumble in after 20-plus hours.

At Standedge, more a location than an actual settlement, the route crosses the A62 Huddersfield–Oldham road. In the early years of the Pennine Way, Peter’s Transport Café was a fixture of the hilltop car park, a refreshment stop for lorry drivers and commercial traffic in a pre-M62 era when the trans-Pennine road was much busier. Judging by the accounts of Pennine Way walkers at the time, the café was also a welcome sight for walkers at this remote location; but alas, it burnt down in 1970 and, like the Isle of Skye Hotel, has been consigned to the stuff of memories.