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This month I feature one of the most beautiful and sweeping views in the Peak District and Derbyshire, Surprise View.
There are many spectacular vantage points in the Peak Park but many of them involve varying degrees of walking, sometimes quite strenuous. In contrast Surprise View is situated on the main road between Sheffield and Hathersage, the A625.
The view is best approached when driving west towards Hathersage and Castleton. The scenery approaching from the east is also impressive.
The road passes the Fox House Inn, which is close to the Longshaw Estate, owned by the National Trust.
The road then descends to a bend with views to Carl Wark and Higger Tor and past a curious rock feature named Toad’s Mouth.
Continuing on, it crosses moorland with another well-known rock feature named Owler Tor to the left and the slopes of Hathersage Moor which rise to the right.
As the road starts to meet Millstone Edge, a dramatic disused quarry and favourite of rocks climbers, it turns to the right and reveals Surprise View. There is a car park just before the turning and the best way to fully appreciate this sweeping vista is to leave the car and walk the short distance to Surprise View.
From the viewpoint, situated above Lawrencefield Quarry, the Hope Valley opens out. In the centre the village of Hathersage can be seen, to the left the high ground of Offerton Moor and in the far distance Mam Tor and The Great Ridge – consisting of Back Tor and Lose Hill.
In the morning the sun illuminates the valley from the east but one of the best times to see the view is at sunset when the sun sets behind the Great Ridge. I have opened this article with a double pager of a particularly spectacular sunset taken in July.
Surprise View sits atop a disused quarry, as there are many in the Peak District, and this is named Lawrencefield after the nearby moor. However, it is also known as Bole Hill and was the site of one of largest quarries in what we now know as the Peak District.
The scars in the landscape caused by the quarrying are now softened as the area has been colonised by silver birch trees and nature now flourishes here.
However, the quarry had been used for over 600 years for the production of Millstones, Grindstones and Crushing Stones. It became a site of large-scale quarrying at the beginning of the 20th Century when work began on the Derwent Valley Reservoirs and Dams.
At its peak, it employed almost 500 workers and 1.25 million tons of Gritstone was quarried here in order to build the Howden and Derwent Dams.
The quarry became disused towards the middle of the 20th century and the area was gifted to the National Trust in 1947.
Over the past 60 years it has become an area attracting rock climbers and there are over 200 routes on the sheer rock faces with many buttresses and as ever a few with some great names. They include buttresses named ‘All the King’s Men’, ‘Gingerbread Slab’, ‘The Pool Wall’ and ‘Stonemason’s Buttress’.
No doubt many readers will have been to or driven past Surprise View, for those who haven’t or who are maybe reading this from further afield it is worth placing this wonderful vista on your Peak District ‘To Do’ list.
Instagram: gary.wallis.landscapes
Surprise View Photo: Gary WallisSnow
The Hope Valley in winter conditions from Surprise View.
One of the quarry faces illuminated by the setting sun. The thick blanket of Silver Birch Trees that has softened the quarry can clearly be seen in this image.
Another striking sunset from Surprise View looking from the top of the quarry.
The Hope Valley in winter raiment.
Mam Tor through a telephoto lens from Surprise View.
Beautiful Foxgloves wild flowers spring from between the quarried rocks below Lawrencefield.
Climbing one of the many routes on the quarry.
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