The Roaches (from the

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

''les roches'' – the rocks) is a prominent rocky ridge above

Leek A leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of ''Allium ampeloprasum'', the broadleaf wild leek (synonym (taxonomy), syn. ''Allium porrum''). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of Leaf sheath, leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a "s ...

and Tittesworth Reservoir in the

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...

Peak District The Peak District is an Highland, upland area in central-northern England, at the southern end of the Pennines. Mostly in Derbyshire, it extends into Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. It is subdivi ...

of England. The ridge with its rock formations rises steeply to . Along with Ramshaw Rocks and Hen Cloud, from Old English ''Henge Clud'', meaning "steep rock", they form a

gritstone Gritstone or grit is a hard, coarse-grained, siliceous sandstone. This term is especially applied to such sandstones that are quarried for building material. British gritstone was used for millstones to mill flour, to grind wood into pulp for ...

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. Due to the similarity, the term '' scarp'' may mistakenly be incorrectly used inte ...

, which is popular with

hiker A hike is a long, vigorous walking, walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Long hikes as part of a religious pilgrimage have existed for a much longer tim ...

rock climber Rock climbing is a climbing sports discipline that involves ascending routes consisting of natural rock in an outdoor environment, or on artificial resin climbing walls in a mostly indoor environment. Routes are documented in guidebooks, and ...

s and freerunners. It is often very busy especially at weekends. The Roaches Estate was purchased by the

Peak District National Park Peak or The Peak may refer to: Basic meanings Geology * Mountain peak ** Pyramidal peak, a mountaintop that has been sculpted by erosion to form a point Mathematics * Peak hour or rush hour, in traffic congestion * Peak (geometry), an (''n''-3)-d ...

Authority in the 1980s to safeguard the area from adverse development. From May 2013

Staffordshire Wildlife Trust The Staffordshire Wildlife Trust (SWT) is a wildlife trust covering the county of Staffordshire, England. Organisation and activities It is one of 46 Wildlife Trusts; each is a registered charity and is a member of the Royal Society of Wildlife ...

took on the management of the Roaches Estate. In clear conditions, it is possible to see much of

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

and views stretching as far as

Snowdon Snowdon (), or (), is a mountain in Snowdonia in North Wales. It has an elevation of above sea level, which makes it both the highest mountain in Wales and the highest in the British Isles south of the Scottish Highlands. Snowdon i ...

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

and Winter Hill in

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

. The Roaches are the most prominent part of a curving ridge which extends for several miles from Hen Cloud in the south to Back Forest and Hangingstone in the northwest. At the top there is a small pool called Doxey Pool that is, according to legend, inhabited by a water spirit. Nearby are the broad hills of

Gun A gun is a device that Propulsion, propels a projectile using pressure or explosive force. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns or water cannon, cannons), or gas (e.g. light-gas gun). So ...

and

Morridge Morridge is a geographical feature, a few mile east of Leek, in Staffordshire, England. It is in the local government district of Staffordshire Moorlands. It is a long ridge of high moorland. The northern end, Morridge Top, is about a mile south ...

Geology

The Roaches, Hen Cloud and Ramshaw Rocks are formed from a thick bed of coarse

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

') of

Namurian The Namurian is a stage in the regional stratigraphy of northwest Europe, with an age between roughly 331 and 319 Ma (million years ago). It is a subdivision of the Carboniferous system or period, as well as the regional Silesian series. The Na ...

age, a subdivision of the NW European

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...

system from ca 315 to 326.4 Ma, which occurs widely across the Peak District and takes its name, the

Roaches Grit {{no footnotes, date=July 2010 Roaches Grit is a coarse sandstone which outcrops widely throughout the western part of the Peak District of northern England and gives rise to several significant landscape features in the area. Its counterpart in the ...

, from this location. The nearby Five Clouds are formed from a thinner bed of similar sandstone known as the Five Clouds Sandstone. These sandstones originated as

delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

sands dropped by major rivers draining a mountainous landmass to the north. The sandstone beds of both The Roaches and Hen Cloud dip moderately steeply to the east into the north–south-aligned

syncline In structural geology, a syncline is a fold with younger layers closer to the center of the structure, whereas an anticline is the inverse of a syncline. A synclinorium (plural synclinoriums or synclinoria) is a large syncline with superimposed ...

known as the Goyt Trough. The same beds at Ramshaw Rocks dip steeply to the northwest into the syncline. The southern end of the Roaches is defined by the presence of an east–west fault that runs through the

col A col is the lowest point on a mountain ridge between two peaks; a mountain pass or saddle. COL, CoL or col may also refer to: Computers * Caldera OpenLinux, a defunct Linux distribution * , an HTML element specifying a column * A collision sig ...

separating the Roaches from Hen Cloud.

Wildlife

In the 1930s five Australian Bennett's wallabies were released into the wild from a private collection. The colony survived into the 21st century but may now be extinct. In 2008, a pair of

peregrine falcon The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known simply as the peregrine, is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan bird of prey (raptor) in the family (biology), family Falconidae renowned for its speed. A large, Corvus (genus), cro ...

s successfully bred on the Roaches, causing climbing on part of the rock face to be suspended for a period. Since then, the resident pair of peregrine falcons has had further successful hatchings, although there have also been cases of theft of eggs and young birds at the site.

Doxey Pool

Doxey Pool (sometimes spelt ''Docksey'') is a small pond, measuring about , by the top path of The Roaches at grid reference . Legend has it that this pool is inhabited by a mermaid called

Jenny Greenteeth Jenny Greenteeth a.k.a. Wicked Jenny, Ginny Greenteeth and Grinteeth is a figure in English folklore. A river- hag, similar to Peg Powler and derived from the grindylow, she would pull children or the elderly into the water and drown them. T ...

known as the blue nymph. The legend says that she fell in the pool on a foggy day whilst walking along the top of the Roaches, and ever since has been enticing unsuspecting victims down to the pool to a watery grave.

The Winking Man

The Winking Man rock formation (also known as the Winking Eye) is one of the buttresses at Ramshaw Rocks east of The Roaches. It can be seen from the Leek–Buxton road ( A53) about 5 miles outside Leek. A slender rib of rock jutting out from the buttress is pierced by a natural hole. The silhouette of the rib against the sky looks like a face sticking out of the hillside, and to the traveller driving past in a car towards Buxton the 'eye' appears to wink, as another pinnacle of rock passes behind the face as a consequence of

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different sightline, lines of sight and is measured by the angle or half-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to perspective (graphica ...

. A public house near Ramshaw Rocks at Upper Hulme takes its name from the Winking Man rock.

Don Whillans Memorial Hut

The Roaches is the site of the

Don Whillans Donald Desbrow Whillans (18May 19334August 1985) was an English rock climber and mountaineer. He climbed with Joe Brown and Chris Bonington on many new routes, and was considered the technical equal of both. Early life Born and brought up in ...

Memorial Hut, also known as the Rockhall Cottage. This Grade II listed building may have been a shooting box, and is built in

cottage orné dates back to a movement of "rustic" stylised cottages of the late 18th and early 19th centuries during the Romantic movement, when some sought to discover a more natural way of living as opposed to the formality of the preceding Baroque and Neo ...

style.

References

External links

The Roaches website

– from a website about the town of

Leek, Staffordshire Leek is a market town and civil parish in Staffordshire, England, on the River Churnet north east of Stoke-on-Trent. It is an ancient borough and was granted its royal charter in 1214. It is the administrative centre for the Staffordshire ...

and the

Staffordshire Moorlands Staffordshire Moorlands is a local government district in Staffordshire, England. Its council is based in Leek, the district's largest town. The district also contains the towns of Biddulph and Cheadle, along with a large rural area containing ...

Another page about the Roaches
– from a different website about the Peak District
Computer-generated summit panorama
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roaches Hills of Staffordshire Mountains and hills of the Peak District Staffordshire Moorlands Leek, Staffordshire Climbing areas of England