The Roaches
The Roaches is a dramatic gritstone ridge in the north of Staffordshire forming part of the western edge of the Peak District, a series of natural rock towers, pinnacles and faces rising above the moorland below and providing some of the most impressive and characteristic landscapes of the Dark Peak. The name derives from the French word for rocks, roche, likely brought to the area by Norman settlers centuries ago, and the craggy profile of the ridge against the sky has made it one of the most recognisable and photographed locations in the Peak District. The Roaches ridge runs approximately five kilometres from Hen Cloud at its southern end through the main crag to Ramshaw Rocks and Goldsitch Moss beyond, providing a satisfying ridge walk with continuous views across the Staffordshire and Cheshire lowlands to the west and the high moorland of the Peak to the east. The varied rock architecture of the crag offers anything from easy ridge walking to technical climbing routes graded across the full spectrum of difficulty, and The Roaches has been one of the most important rock climbing venues in the Peak District since the early days of the sport in the 1890s. The gritstone from which the crag is formed was deposited during the Carboniferous period as coarse river delta sediments and subsequently shaped by the regional geological compression and later by glacial and post-glacial erosion into the dramatic forms visible today. The rock weathers into characteristic rounded holds and rough surfaces that give gritstone climbing its distinctive character, quite different from the technical precision required on the limestone of the White Peak. A story unique to The Roaches concerns the small colony of red-necked wallabies that inhabited the moorland below the crag from the 1940s until at least the early years of the twenty-first century. The animals escaped from the private collection of a resident of Swythamley Hall during the Second World War and established a feral population that survived for decades in the cold Staffordshire moorland, a thoroughly unexpected visitor in what is already a dramatic and surprising landscape.