Fiddlers Green 1850 
Fiddlers Green 2017
Many public houses on the old roads across the Peak District National Park have now long gone. Their remains can still be found if you know where and what to look for and have a bit of patience. The pubs were often associated with coach travel, packhorse routes, and as such were built near the roads and tracks, with large areas around for holding livestock. Stabling was provided for the horses and food and accommodation for the travellers.
The reason why the pubs gained their names is something of a debate and more often than not folklore. The Isle of Skye pub, which sat on the Isle of Skye road, the road getting its name from the pub and not vice versa, had nothing to do with travel to the Scottish Island and more to do with locals tales. It was said that workmen repairing the pub were sick and tired of the rain, nothing much changes you see in that area, and one of them remarked that he would be glad when they left as there is “a t’oil in’t sky” and from that it became the Isle of Skye. This may or may not be true.
One pub that made it on to the map was the Plough and Harrow on the Woodhead Road near Langsett. Originally the pub was sited in Langsett, or rather the sign was, the building it was attached to is now the Wagon and Horses. A local squire enclosed the land around Gallows Moss in 1812 and where the Woodhead road summits near to the new road across Gallows Moor he decided to build a new pub to catch the passing coach and packhorse trade.
This upset the owners of the Inn at Salterbrook, not more than a mile down the road towards Woodhead. At the opening of the new pub a fiddler from Woodhead village was employed to entertain the guests. The owners of Salterbrook ridiculed the new pub by telling everyone it was frequented by fiddlers and the name stuck.
The Plough and Harrow was prosperous for a while, then the arrival of the rail line across the Woodhead drew traffic away from the road and the building along with the Salterbrook fell in to decline. Today all that can be seen is some low stone walls and bits of rubble. The road across Gallows Moor replaced the old road that ran past Lady Cross and is now known as the A628 Woodhead Road which crosses Gallows Moss.
PB Walk 26 Dunford Bridge to Ramsden Clough
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