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Mam Tor “The Shivering Mountain”

This is Mam Tor or the ‘Mother Mountain’, which dominates the landscape at the head of the Hope Valley.

Here there is evidence of early settlement dating back to the Bronze Age 1000 –700 BC and where remains of an Iron Age hill fort with defensive ditch and embankment can still be seen.  Ancient tribes lived on the hilltops at this time as the climate was warmer and their position could be more easily defended.   Excavation of the site has revealed evidence of a timber palisaded enclosure within which were several hundred circular hut sites which have created a ‘pitted’ effect around the western side of the hill.

Whilst the ‘Mother Mountain’ represents a place of strength and refuge in the valley there is also a darker side to her nature for the ‘Mother Mountain’ shivers and it is then that she becomes a great force of change in this valley.

The mountain shivers because of the different sorts of rocks it is made up of.  Gritstone and shale rocks were formed millions of years ago when huge rivers flowed down into what was a tropical sea in this area here.  As the rivers flowed into the sea they dumped huge quantities of debris.  There was mud and sand and rocks and boulders and its all these materials that have gone to make up the layers of Mam Tor that you see behind me now.

The layering of gritstone and shale has produced a mountain that is very unstable and is extremely liable to subsidence.  When it rains, water percolates down through the layers and washes through the crumbly shale rocks causing the very structure of the mountain to collapse and giving rise to landslips.  It is for this reason that periodically Mam Tor ‘shivers’ and ‘bears fruit’ giving rise to numerous landslips that are dotted around the hillside.

In recent years the force of change that has once more swept through the valley has dramatically changed the lives of the people who live here.