Winnats Pass

Winnats Pass carries the road west out of Castleton in a series of tight bends between limestone walls that rise steeply on both sides, with a maximum gradient over 28 per cent. The pass and the land either side of it belong to the National Trust, which manages it alongside Mam Tor and Odin Mine. It has been the only road out of the village in this direction since 1979, when the alternative route across the eastern face of Mam Tor was abandoned to landslip damage, and the drive through it is a destination in its own right rather than just a way of getting somewhere else.

The gorge cuts through rock laid down around 340 million years ago as a reef at the edge of a shallow tropical sea, built up from lime-secreting algae and shelled creatures rather than coral in the modern sense. Exactly how the gorge itself formed is debated: the old idea of a collapsed cavern roof has fallen out of favour among geologists, and the current explanation is that meltwater following a natural weakness in the reef limestone cut the gorge directly, with no cave ever needing to collapse.

There is no large dedicated car park at the top of the pass, and pulling in safely along the road takes care given the gradient and the bends, but even a slow drive through gives a clear sense of the scale of the place. Seeing the gorge does not require leaving the car at all. It suits anyone wanting Peak District scenery on a day too short or too wet for a hill, and anyone driving between Castleton and Chapel-en-le-Frith who would rather the drive counted for something. It does not suit anyone hoping to stop and photograph at will, since there is nowhere safe to leave a car on the gradient, nor anyone nervous of steep narrow roads with oncoming traffic. Walk Cave Dale instead, which meets the pass at its foot and gives a longer look at the same limestone on 2.5km of path.