The route of this walk follows what was once known as the Coffin Road. This is because coffins from Edale were once carried along the Great Ridge Path all the way down to Hope Church. So be glad you don't have to carry a coffin with you... Mam Tor means 'mother hill' and is so-called because landslides have created a series of smaller hills below it. The shifting shale also lends the landmark its alternative name of 'The Shivering Mountain'. The hill lies between the gritstone edges of the Dark Peak and the limestone plateaux of the White Peak, with the rocks here approximately 320 million years old. As incredible as it seems, the site was once inhabited (between about 1200 and 400  BC) and there are the remains of two hill forts – one dating from the late bronze age, the other from the iron age. There is also evidence that more than a hundred timber round houses were once built close to the summit and there are some bronze age burial mounds. As Julian Cope in The Modern Antiquarian, writes: 'How did people live on Mam Tor? It seems impossible as a home, so they must have had no choice whatsoever'.