Kinder Scout, Brown Knoll, South Head and Mount Famine | 8 Miles

February 8, 2025 CIRCULAR WALKS, MEDIUM WALKS 4-9 MILES, PEAK DISTRICT WALKS

This hike explores the moorland to the south-west of the Kinder Scout Nature Reserve. It visits the trig points at Kinder Low and Brown Knoll as well as the 4 Ethels of Kinder Scout, Brown Knoll, South Head and Mount Famine. Not bad for a walk under 8 miles!

A stone slabbed path on the moors, leading to a white trig point

Another lovely day for a walk on the moors! We always seem to get the weather…

The Ethels are a collection of hills over 400m in the Peak District forming a hiking challenge created by CPRE celebrating the life and work of Ethel Haythornwaite. Here’s a list of the Ethels and walks to visit them. There’s also a few trig point bagging challenges you could join in with. There’s now 87 Peak District trig points (the one at Chinley Churn has been removed by the landowner) or if you didn’t fancy spending time looking up the landowners details (or trespassing) to visit the trigs you might like the Accessible Trig Points List which has 63 trigs you can visit.

Another day, another misty walk for us! This is a lovely walk in the summer when the weather is good!

We started our walk from the layby near the Peep O’Day Farm, built in 1841. Over the front arched door there is a large glass eye which catches the morning sun, hence the name. We crossed the road and headed up the track, passing a quarry.

The track leads to an open area – the footpath has a Peak and Northern Footpaths sign (green sign) showing the way. It heads along a fenced off field edge before crossing a field, heading through a gate. We followed the track down the hill before turning right at the fork. It heads steeply down to a stile crossing a stream, and then into another field and heading downhill to another stream with a wooden bridge over.

Crossing the bridge, we turned right onto the farm track and followed this past the fields until we reached the National Trust sign for the Kinder Estate. We took the path with the Bridleway to Glossop small green sign on, and followed this until we reached a wall. Passing through the gate we turned right and started to climb steeply up Kinderlow End. At the summit is a bronze age burial cairn (fenced off). We skirted round the cairn and followed the stone slabbed path a short distance before it ran out, before heading to the Kinder Low trig point.

The creators of the Ethels have changed their requirements for bagging Kinder Scout, and now a visit to the Kinder Low trig point will suffice. This is only 3m or so lower than the actual summit (located approximately 500m away in open moorland) so a lot of people count this as the summit of Kinder Scout.

From here we set off south, following the Pennine Way down to Edale Rocks. The path heads down past Swines Back before reaching a crossroads. We turned right over the stile but then continued straight on along the stone slabs. The route continues for just over half a mile before we reached a stile. We hopped over the stile and followed the path a short distance to the Brown Knoll trig point before retracing our steps to rejoin the original path.

After around a mile and a quarter the fields are crossed by a sandy coloured track. We crossed the track and started the steep climb up to the summit of South Head, marked by a stone cairn.

Lovely views from South Head!

From the top of South Head there are lovely views (on a clear day) over the surrounding area.

We continued down the west side of South Head to rejoin the track briefly before heading up Mount Famine. The route climbs up to the top of the hill and continues across the plateau before descending steeply through some fields before reaching a stile. Over the stile, the path rejoins the trail from earlier, and we returned to the car by retracing our steps.

This is a great walk, probably best saved for a clear day if you want to enjoy the amazing views from Mount Famine over to Kinder Scout. There are also some very muddy parts between Brown Knoll and South Head!

Kinder Scout, Brown Knoll, South Head and Mount Famine Walk Details: