Minninglow (or Minning Low) is a hill in 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 ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

, located within the White Peak area at grid reference . Within the clump of trees crowning the hill are a

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

chambered tomb A chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interred than a simple grave. Built from rock or sometimes wood, the chambers could ...

and two

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

bowl barrow A bowl barrow is a type of burial mound or tumulus. A barrow is a mound of earth used to cover a tomb. The bowl barrow gets its name from its resemblance to an upturned bowl. Related terms include ''cairn circle'', ''cairn ring'', ''howe'', ''ker ...

s. The chambered tomb (Derbyshire's largest) and barrows are a Scheduled Monument. The chambered tomb comprises an oval cairn of surviving to a height of and containing two complete chambers made of limestone slabs, and at least three other incomplete chambers. The tomb was excavated by

Thomas Bateman Thomas Bateman (8 November 1821 (baptised) – 28 August 1861) was an English antiquary and barrow-digger. Biography Thomas Bateman was born in Rowsley, Derbyshire, England, the son of the amateur archaeologist William Bateman. After the deat ...

in 1843 and 1851 and was described by

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

as "one of the most impressive of Derbyshire's surviving prehistoric burials". The barrow is considered to be a multi-period site, the oldest chamber dating from the Early Neolithic period but with other finds indicating use in the Late Neolithic or early Bronze Age, and also the Roman period. The two bowl barrows, also excavated by Bateman, date from the Bronze Age and also show signs of Roman disturbance. Although it is within of the High Peak Trail between Parwich and

Longcliffe Longcliffe is a crossroads hamlet in the English county of Derbyshire. It lies on the B5056 road where it is crossed by the Brassington-Elton road. The Midshires Way long-distance footpath and the Peak District Boundary Walk skirt the same route ...

, there is no public right of way to the site. Since 31 January 2007, however, concessionary access has been granted by the landowner, allowing the public to walk to and explore the site. The concessionary path from the High Peak Trail is signposted with a wooden sign similar to a public footpath sign and there are wooden markers on the route to the barrow. Minninglow - High Peak Trail - geograph

About one kilometre northwest of Minninglow hill is the massive Minninglow Embankment on the former Cromford and High Peak Railway, the trackbed of which now forms the High Peak Trail. This Grade-II-listed structure, constructed from local limestone and earth in the 1820s, is a pre-Victorian example of civil engineering on the grand scale. There is access from the car park and picnic site about further along the High Peak Trail at grid reference .

References

External links

Photos and commentary relating to the Neolithic site
at The Modern Antiquarian.com Mountains and hills of the Peak District {{derbyshire-geo-stub