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

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Closer to hand, though, there is a monument that dominates the view: as hilltop edifices go, Stoodley Pike is an impressive sight. Work started on a permanent memorial on this spot in 1814 to mark the defeat of Napoleon. It was promptly stopped when he escaped from the island of Elba and was completed when he was finally finished off after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Unfortunately, in 1854, the whole thing collapsed, supposedly after being weakened by an earlier lightning strike, and a more lasting, solid version was built. Someone also had a sensible afterthought and a lightning conductor was added a few years later. I’d read that it also came under threat of demolition in World War II, when there were concerns that it might be used to guide German bombers. However, it still stands today, a 120ft-high needle-shaped point partly coated in black soot. There’s an outside balcony 40ft up, which offers even better views, but to access it you have to run the gauntlet of an internal spiral staircase covered in broken glass in the near darkness. I fished out my head torch to help me find my way and soon I was leading a merry gang of ramblers and sightseers into the gloom.