Britland Edge Hill

About Britland Edge Hill

Tucked away on the Derbyshire-Yorkshire border, this gritstone-capped moorland offers a quiet, peaty alternative to the busier Pennine Way. Rising above the Longdendale Valley, the summit provides clear views across to the massive Holme Moss transmitter and the dark, rounded mass of nearby Black Hill.

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Did You Know?

• •The name likely originates from the Old English 'Bretta-land', meaning 'land of the Britons', suggesting this area may have been an enclave of Cumbric-speaking Celts after the surrounding lowlands were settled by Anglo-Saxons.
• •The hill sits on a major hydrological divide; rainfall on the western slopes drains into the Longdendale reservoirs and eventually the Irish Sea, while eastern runoff feeds the River Holme heading toward the North Sea.
• •It marks the historic boundary between the West Riding of Yorkshire and Derbyshire, a wild stretch of moorland that remained largely inaccessible to most until the construction of the Woodhead Pass.
• •The summit offers an unobstructed perspective of the 228-metre Holme Moss masts to the northeast, one of the most powerful and highest television transmitters in the UK.
• •The summit is less of a defined peak and more of a suggestion amidst a sea of peat hags; on a misty day, the most reliable way to know you’ve arrived is when the ground stops going up and simply becomes more difficult to walk across.