Mam Tor

About this place

Mam Tor is a 517-metre hill near Castleton in the High Peak of Derbyshire, England, about 23 km west of Sheffield in a straight line. Its name means mother hill, because frequent landslips on its eastern face have created many mini-hills beneath it; the unstable shale layers that cause them also earn it the name Shivering Mountain. The hill is crowned by a late Bronze Age and early Iron Age hill fort and two Bronze Age barrows, and in 1636 it was named one of the Seven Wonders of the Peak. In 1979 the road on its crumbling eastern side was closed after a long battle to keep it open. At its foot and nearby are four show caves where minerals were once mined. The hill sits on the southern edge of the sandstone Dark Peak, looking over the limestone White Peak, and links the eastern end of Rushup Edge with the western end of the Great Ridge, which together separate the Hope Valley to the south from Edale to the north. The summit looks over green valleys criss-crossed by stone walls. Visitors climb to the summit on a stone-paved path, and many go on along the Great Ridge, a popular ridge walk. The top is windy and the weather changeable, so bring a jacket.