Saddleworth Moor

Saddleworth Moor
Saddleworth Moor towards the Wessenden Valley
Elevation
Location	Northern England
Range	South Pennines
Coordinates	53°32′36″N 1°57′21″W / 53.54333°N 1.95583°W / 53.54333; -1.95583Coordinates: 53°32′36″N 1°57′21″W / 53.54333°N 1.95583°W / 53.54333; -1.95583
Easiest route	Pennine Way

Saddleworth Moor is an area of the South Pennines in northern England. It is a sparsely populated moorland and millstone grit divided between the metropolitan boroughs of Oldham and Kirklees, in Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire respectively.

Deep valleys cut into the landscape of Saddleworth Moor, traversed by A roads between the Greater Manchester Urban Area and the West Yorkshire Urban Area.

The moor became infamous as the burial site of a number of the victims of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. As a result, the crimes were dubbed the Moors murders. The original search of the moors uncovered the bodies of two children in October 1965 (a first victim had been found at the couple's house in nearby Hattersley) and in 1986 the pair confessed to two more murders, and were able to locate one of the bodies, but the body of the final victim—Keith Bennett, who disappeared in June 1964 at the age of 12—has yet to be uncovered.^[1]

The Pennine Way arrives from the Wessenden valley to the north and crosses the moor on its ascent to Black Hill on Holme Moss to the south.

The A635 road, known locally as the Isle of Skye road, passes across the moor. It takes its name from a public house which was sited at Wessenden Head before it was demolished after a fire.

References

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