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

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At Blackstone Edge, the modern A58 linking Littleborough and Ripponden is also eclipsed by more historic thoroughfares. For a short distance, the Pennine Way drops downhill on a line of neat dark setts, the smooth grey stones standing out vividly against the grassy Pennine hillside. It was originally a packhorse track that was widened to become a turnpike, although some have claimed that its origins go all the way back to the Romans. It’s certainly a location that has been well documented by travel writers over the centuries, many of whom seemed to find it particularly daunting. As far back as 1696, Celia Fiennes reported that the 1500ft-high hilltop was ‘noted all over England for a dismal high precipice’. Daniel Defoe crossed the Pennines in 1724, referring to them as ‘the Andes of England’, which is perhaps stretching it a bit. He described a tortuous journey in a blizzard over the moors from Rochdale to Halifax, where the wind blew so strong he could hardly open his eyes and snow obliterated the track. Perhaps most oddly of all, it was in mid August.