Adventure along the abandoned Old Mam Tor road
Located in the High Peak of Derbyshire, England, Old Mam Tor is the name of an abandoned road in 1979, after years of landslips. What's left of the road is still there, however impassible by cars.
The first road through Mam Tor -the Shivering Mountain-, was called A625 ("The New Road") and was running from Manchester to Sheffield. Built in 1819, using spoil from the nearby Odin mine, was set at an easier gradient than the earlier Winnats Pass route and crossed the Mam Tor landslide.
Located near Castleton, at the western end of the Hope Valley, the frequent landslips gave Mam Tor its name of Shivering Mountain. The former road crossed the main body of the landslide twice. Due to the local geology the road began to subside almost as soon as it was built. Because of numerous landslides, the road saw constant repairs and reconstruction the following 160 years. In 1977, the road was restricted to single-lane traffic. The costs of repair eventually led to the road being abandoned in 1979 and permanently closed to traffic.
The road, locally known as Broken Road or The Shattered Road, was totally paved. It was 3.21km (2.0 miles) long, with steep parts, hitting a 10% of maximum gradient through some of the ramps. and was bypassed by the Winnats Pass new road. The strip of tarmac that once weaved its way through the valley and up the mountain is now just a buckled ribbon of broken tarmac. What's left of the road is still there, however impassible by cars, blocked by a wooden gate.
Pic: Tom Heyes