Mam Tor

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Mam Tor is a 517 m (1696 ft) high peak near Castleton in the High Peak of Derbyshire, England. Its name literally translates as Heights of the Mother and it is also known as the Shivering Mountain on account of the instability of its lower shale layers. Indeed in 1979, the continual movement of the hillside forced the eventual closure of the former A625 road that originally followed a route up the southern side of the Tor.

The summit of Mam Tor is encircled by a late Bronze Age or early Iron Age hill fort. The earliest remaining features are two Bronze Age burial mounds, one just below the summit and the other on the summit itself. At a later stage over a hundred small platforms were levelled into the hill near the summit, allowing inhabited timber huts to be constructed.

At the base of the Tor are the Blue John Cavern and Treak Cliff Cavern where lead, Blue John and other minerals were once mined. To the west of the Tor lies Rushup Edge; to the east along the ridge lie Back Tor and Lose Hill. Back Tor has a steep distinctive shale face, which is occasionally climbable when hard-frozen.

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