For those of you who enjoy a night ride, the moors and woodlands can be spooky places when it’s pitch black. The gnarled fingers of branches jump into the tiny pool of light cast from your bars. Deep shadows hide unknown terrors, and you can never shake the feeling that there’s someone – or something – watching you from the darkness, just waiting for you to stop for a rest….

Arriving at a dark layby or car park, the waiting car or van is a welcome sanctuary, warmth and safety from the evils lurking in the murky night. Or is it….?

The Stocksbridge Bypass wends its way across the wooded valley side and over the lonely hills of the deep Little Don River valley. If you’ve ever ridden Cut Gate, you’ve no doubt been on the A616 Stocksbridge Bypass, the road which links Sheffield and Manchester over the top of the Peak District. Some say it should be renamed the A666 for the visitations of a shadowy character you may spot on the side of the road…or closer.

Startled drivers have spoken or seeing a mysterious hooded figure – “a monk” holding a lonely vigil from bridges over the road, or walking slowly along the verge. Spooky enough on its own…but those same drivers also talk of the terror of looking back in their rear view mirror only to see the hooded figure in their rear seats, joining them for a ride as they drive along.

The bypass supposedly crosses the site of former monastery farmland and tales talk of a former monk who was buried on unhallowed ground returning to his former fields. Maybe he’s looking for a new saint groupset…

Local legend also talks of voices singing in the distance, ghostly rhymes of ring-a-roses and a group of children who disappear into the ether when approached, leaving witnesses puzzled and terrified.

It is undoubtedly a strange place, the dark hillsides and lonely moors holding secrets only they can know.

So next time you’re riding Cut Gate and you get back to your car a little late, just make sure you keep your eyes on the road as you drive home, because you never know what….or who….might be sitting right behind you.

Happy Halloween.