Back to Stanage Edge
A landscape photography blog by Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire based landscape photographer Rob Thorley Photography.
It’s the first week of February, and I’m back at Stanage Edge. For anyone following along on the socials you’ll know this was my second visit in quick succession.
I’ve driven past Stanage Edge many times, but never photographed the location before, and until a week, or so ago I’d never got out of the car either. The first time I visited it was brutal out there as storm Jocelyn rolled through. Whilst I did venture out to have a look for the millstones I left my camera gear in the car boot, and just went with my mobile phone. There was no way on the first visit that any photography would happen as I was battered by the wind and struggled to even stand up. Today though the weather forecast was very different.
I was aware that this part of Stanage Edge was probably more suited to evening, rather than day time photography. Today though was more of a recce. The benefit of doing this in winter is that the bracken has died back making the millstones easier to locate. As for being here during the day time, it was simply to get my bearings and file away some compositions for future reference.
Whilst the weather forecast was much improved it hadn’t inspired me to get out of bed for sunrise, so I didn’t arrive at Stanage Edge until mid morning. I parked up at Dennis Knoll car park as the millstones I wanted to photograph were at this end of the escarpment. There are parking charges at this car park, but since my first visit and seeing the price of the charges I’d decided to invest in an annual Peak District parking pass. When I was doing some digging on Peak District parking in general I came to the conclusion that it’s a minefield. It seems that there are a number of organisations that manage car park within the national park, and there is no single pass that allows you to park on all of them. Still, the one from the national park organisation itself seemed to be decent value, and has a fair number of locations I want to visit, so I’ve gone with that one for starters.
The path up to the millstones from Dennis Knoll car park is pretty straight forward. You basically follow it and veer off left at any of the points where you can veer off left. If you stay on the path it’ll take you up to a gap in the escarpment and the top level.
Stanage Edge millstones looking back towards Dennis Knoll car park.
The millstones I was here to photograph today were at the base of the escarpment, so after about five minutes I took one of the paths to the left and started the gradual climb to the foot of the escarpment.
Once again I had the challenge of shooting back into the sun, but as per my recent outing to The Roaches I just took my time, and made good use of my filters.
I spent around three hours working my way along the base of the escarpment. A very nice few hours out. I plan on going back to Stanage Edge soon as I’d like to explore the other end of the escarpment, and to get up top. It looks like it’s a location that had a lot of potential and will take a lot more visits to completely explore.
You can view more images from Stanage Edge, and my gallery of other Peak District locations.
