An article written by Roger Hargreaves in celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the Snake Pass, 23 August 2021.
In the Industrial Revolution the cotton industry, centred on Manchester, depended on Sheffield for sharp steel blades to cut the yarn and the cloth. However, the roads between the two cities – over Woodhead or Winnats Pass – were indirect and slow; on the direct route there was just a packhorse trail, Doctor’s Gate, named (we think) after a 16th-century Vicar of Glossop who went that way to visit his folks in Sheffield.
In 1818, therefore, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord of the Manor of Sheffield and Glossop, and the Duke of Devonshire, who owned the Ashop Valley in between, clubbed together to fund the Sheffield to Glossop Turnpike. They employed a Sheffield surveyor, William Fairbank, to design and build it, although when he got into difficulty they had to bring in the famous Scottish road-builder John Macadam, and his son Loudon, to finish the job. It was completed in 1821 and the first coach ran over it on August 23rd.
It wasn’t a success. It was hugely expensive, being (very unusually) a complete new-build rather than an upgrade of an existing road, and on steep, unstable slopes, prone to slippage. The trustees of the rival turnpikes were also investing heavily – in 1819 the Winnats Pass was bypassed via Mam Tor, and the new Saltersbrook Bridge was opened in 1826 – and soon there wasn’t much difference in journey times, plus the Woodhead summit was 57 metres lower and so less vulnerable to snow. Traffic was less than forecast, and it was already in financial trouble, with the Dukes pouring in yet more money, before the railway opened in 1845, killing it off as a major inter-city route after just 24 years.
After that it was little used other than by day trippers or shooting parties in coaches or wagonettes, and from the 1890s by cyclists and then pioneer motorists, who found it a challenge due to the long climbs and poor surfaces. They stopped for refreshments at the remote Snake Inn, so named from the Duke of Devonshire’s crest over the door, and eventually the road became known as the Snake Pass.
Since then it’s been widened, and some of the tightest bends, including Birchen Clough, have been removed, but it’s still plagued by regular closures due to landslips and snow; in 1985-6 it was closed for 15 weeks. Although in 1946 it became part of a cross-country trunk road, the A57 Liverpool to Skegness, it’s really only fit as a summer route for tourists, and in 1979, faced with endless repairs, the Department of Transport contemplated permanent closure, as at Mam Tor the same year.
In its heyday, though, it did a lot for Glossop. In 1821 the new town, Howardtown, was just getting going following John Wood’s purchase of Bridge End Mill in 1819, and the new road turned it, briefly, from a backwater into the 19th-century equivalent of a motorway services, with fast coaches to Sheffield and Manchester. The first major building in the new town centre was a large inn, the Norfolk Arms, equipped to serve the regular coach traffic, with a cobbled drawing-off area in front, extensive stabling behind to house the teams of replacement horses, and a big dining room serving Georgian fast food to travellers whilst the horses were being changed. The driver might have something stronger to keep him warm on Coldharbour Moor in a freezing gale.
The town also got a new, wider Woolley Bridge, and a smaller inn, the Royal Oak, which would have served the lumbering stage waggons pulled by heavy horses. Now – although it’s probably not what the two Dukes had in mind when they sank in £3.7 million in today’s money – the road is a magnet for bikers, and we have on our doorstep one of the most scenic drives in England.
Further Sources
Books
The Story of the Snake Road & Sheffield to Glossop Turnpike Trail by Howard Smith, Angie Pyatt (collaborator), Ann Beedham (collaborator). Published 2014. ISBN 0952154196 (ISBN13:9780952154198)
Archives
Sheffield Archives. FC/CPG Fairbank Collection, Sheffield and Glossop Turnpike Trust 1817-1875. 988 items. A fortunate chance has preserved in the collection a set of turnpike road records almost in its entirety. Josiah and William Fairbank were surveyors for the Sheffield and Glossop Turnpike Trust, and were followed by Marcus Smith, who afterwards bought their business, and who in this way brought the records back into the firm which helped to make them. (Catalogue Entry Accessed 20/08/2021.)
Sheffield Archives. ACM/DD/192 Duke of Norfolk’s Estate, Arundel (Arundel Castle Manuscripts), Deeds relating to Glossop Tontine Inn [Norfolk Arms, Glossop]. 1823-1849. Leases, deed of the establishment and regulation of the Tontine Inn, assignment of shares in the Glossop Tontine to the Duke of Norfolk. (Catalogue Entry Accessed 20/08/2021.)