A640 road

The Marsden Moor Estate is a large expanse of moorland in the South Pennines, between the conurbations of West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester in the north of England. It is named after the adjacent town of Marsden, and is owned and administered by the National Trust to whom it was conveyed in 1955 by the Radcliffe family in lieu of death duties. The estate covers 2,429 ha (5,685 acres) of unenclosed common moorland and almost surrounds Marsden. Part of it is in the most northern section of the Peak District National Park. The landscape is made up of moorland, valleys, peaks and crags and has long been modified by man. Marsden is at the eastern gateway to the important ancient Standedge crossing of the moors and evidence of transport related archaeological remains dating from pre-Roman times have been discovered close to the great engineering structures of the canal and railway ages. The moors have been a water catchment area since the Victorian era when several reservoirs were built, along with their associated catchwaters in the Wessenden Valley. The Pennine Way and the Peak District Boundary Walk run across the moors (following the same route between Wessenden and Redbrook Reservoirs.The landscape supports large numbers of moorland birds such as the golden plover, red grouse, Eurasian curlew and twite. The estate, a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest, forms part of a Special Protection Area and is a candidate Special Area of Conservation.The estate is managed from a base in the old goods yard, adjacent to Marsden railway station, and the old goods shed has been converted into a public exhibition, entitled Welcome to Marsden, which gives an overview of the estate and its history.The moor has been affected by fires. Dozens of firefighters were required to put out a blaze in 2011. A fire in February 2019, during an unseasonal spell of warm weather, was described by West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service as one of the biggest moorland fires it had ever had to deal with.

Booth Wood Reservoir is a man-made upland reservoir that lies north of the M62 motorway and south of the A672 road near to Rishworth and Ripponden in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. The reservoir was approved for construction in 1966 and completed in 1971. It supplies water to Wakefield. The reservoir dams the Booth Dean Clough watercourse and takes water directly from the surrounding moorland. It has a plain concrete crest on the dam head which is straight and extends to a length of 1,150 feet (350 m) and a height of 157 feet (48 m).In 1995 a long dry spell in the summer created a larger than normal abstraction of water from Booth Wood creating the need to transport water into the reservoir as stocks ran very low. Road tankers carrying fresh water were despatched from Selby in North Yorkshire and Kielder Water in Northumberland to bring water for offloading at Booth Wood. At the height of the operation, 700 tankers delivered 70,000 tonnes (77,000 tons) of water a day to the reservoir which then fed other reservoirs in West Yorkshire.On 14 August 2016, the A672 road which runs along the northern edge of the reservoir was closed whilst police searched for a driver and car that had plunged off the road and into the reservoir. The driver was believed to be the only person in the car and the search operation involved helicopters and underwater divers. The search resumed the next day when a man's body was recovered.

Castleshaw is a hamlet in the Saddleworth parish of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines, 2.4 miles (3.9 km) north of Uppermill, 3 miles (4.8 km) west-southwest of Marsden, and 5.3 miles (8.5 km) east-northeast of Oldham. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Castleshaw is most notable for the Castleshaw Roman fort, the remains of an ancient castrum. There are two reservoirs, Castleshaw upper reservoir and Castleshaw lower reservoir. In 2016, United Utilities reinforced the walls on the lower reservoir but had to drop water levels by 1m.

Castleshaw Roman fort was a castellum in the Roman province of Britannia. Although there is no evidence to substantiate the claim, it has been suggested that Castleshaw Roman fort is the site of Rigodunum, a Brigantian settlement. The remains of the fort are located on Castle Hill on the eastern side of Castleshaw Valley at the foot of Standedge but overlooking the valley. The hill is on the edge of Castleshaw in Greater Manchester. The fort was constructed in c. AD 79, but fell out of use at some time during the 90s. It was replaced by a smaller fortlet, built in c. 105, around which a civilian settlement grew. It may have served as a logistical and administrative centre, although it was abandoned in the 120s. The site has been the subject of antiquarian and archaeological investigation since the 18th century, but the civilian settlement lay undiscovered until the 1990s. The fort, fortlet, and civilian settlement are all protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, recognising its importance as a "nationally important" archaeological site or historic building, and protecting it against unauthorised change.

The Standedge Tunnels () are four parallel tunnels through the Pennine hills at the Standedge crossing between Marsden in Kirklees, West Yorkshire and Diggle in Oldham, Greater Manchester in northern England. Three are railway tunnels (containing the Huddersfield line) and the other is a canal tunnel. Before boundary changes in 1974, both ends of the tunnels were in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The canal tunnel on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal was authorised by an Act of Parliament on 4 April 1794. Construction of a 5,451-yard (4,984 m) tunnel began months later. Within two years, cost-saving measures pushed back its completion date and progress was slowed by water levels much greater than had been expected. It proved difficult to secure skilled help, some tenders went unanswered and Benjamin Outram withdrew from the venture. In 1807, Thomas Telford drew up a new plan for its completion. In 1811, the tunnel opened. It is the longest and oldest of the four Standedge tunnels and is the longest, highest, and deepest canal tunnel in the United Kingdom. Having been closed to all traffic in 1943, the canal tunnel was re-opened in May 2001. The first, single-track railway tunnel, built for the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) on its line between Huddersfield and Manchester, was completed in 1848. It proved to have insufficient capacity and a second, parallel, single-track tunnel was opened in 1871. The LNWR opened a third, double-track tunnel in 1894. Only the double-track tunnel is currently used for rail traffic; the other two are intact but disused. All four tunnels are linked by cross-tunnels or adits at strategic intervals which allowed the railway tunnels to be built without construction shafts and allowed waste material to be removed by boat. The Standedge Tunnel Visitor Centre, at the Marsden end, is a base for boat trips into the tunnel and has an exhibition depicting the different crossings.

Standedge () is a moorland escarpment in the Pennine Hills of northern England between Marsden, West Yorkshire and Diggle, Greater Manchester. Standedge has been a major moorland crossing point since Roman times and possibly earlier. From east to west, Standedge is crossed by five generations of road crossing, the earliest a Roman road from York to Chester and the latest the A62 road. The Huddersfield Narrow Canal and the railway line from Leeds to Manchester pass underground in the Standedge Tunnels. The Pennine Way long-distance footpath passes through Standedge in a north–south direction along the Pennines. Much of Standedge is in the National Trust's Marsden Moor Estate. Administratively, Standedge is split between Kirklees and Oldham.

Stott Hall Farm is a farm located between the eastbound and westbound carriageways of the M62 motorway in Calderdale, England. It is the only farm in the UK situated in the middle of a motorway and was built in the 18th century on Moss Moor. It lies south of Booth Wood Reservoir where the carriageways are separated between junctions 22 and 23. The road divides for much of its length between the Windy Hill and Deanhead cuttings because of the surrounding geography but a myth persists that it was split because the owners Ken and Beth Wild refused to sell.Sally Boazman, BBC Radio 2's traffic reporter and CB radio users nicknamed it the Little House on the Prairie. It is separated from the motorway by crash barriers and a fence to keep livestock in and prevent out-of-control vehicles crashing onto the property. It is one of the ten best-known sights on the motorway network. It was the subject of a BBC Radio 4 documentary, a Yorkshire Television documentary and a short film.

Deanhead Reservoir is a reservoir near Scammonden, in the metropolitan district of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England. It is named after Dean Head, a village that was mostly submerged during construction of the dam. Construction started in 1838 and it opened a year later, almost 140 years before Scammonden Reservoir (its downstream neighbour) was opened in 1971. Water flowing out of Deanhead forms Black Burne Brook which now feeds into Scammonden Water. Deanhead reservoir was originally constructed to supply water to the factories in the Blackburn Valley that was downstream of the reservoir. During the 1995 drought, the outlines of foundations of buildings in the village were visible. Deanhead also is the name of a Pennine pass to the south of the reservoir, which carries the A640 from Huddersfield to Denshaw, following the course of a Roman road.

Baitings Reservoir is a large water supply reservoir operated by Yorkshire Water close to Ripponden in the West Yorkshire Pennines, England. It lies in the valley of the River Ryburn and is the higher of two reservoirs built to supply Wakefield with water and was completed in 1956. The lower reservoir is Ryburn Reservoir.

Diggle railway station was a station that served the village of Diggle on the Huddersfield Line to the north of Uppermill. Immediately to the west of the Standedge tunnels, it was opened in 1849 along with the first rail tunnel and closed to passenger traffic in 1968. In its heyday, the station had platforms serving all four lines but little trace remains of it today—all of the buildings and much of platforms having been demolished (although the nearby signal box remains operational). On 5 July 1923, an express passenger train, hauled by Ex-LNWR Whale Experiment Class 4-6-0 No. 1406 George Findlay, was in a rear-end collision with a freight train. Four people were killed.Local residents have periodically campaigned for the station to be reopened. This has often been connected to proposals to fully reopen the Standedge Tunnels.In 2012, a renewed effort was launched by a local Liberal Democrat parish councillor. This was unsuccessful, as Transport for Greater Manchester concluded that much of the cited passenger demand would actually be abstracted from the existing station at nearby Greenfield.

Ryburn Reservoir is a supply reservoir operated by Yorkshire Water close to Ripponden in the Yorkshire Pennines, England. It lies in the valley of the River Ryburn and is the lower of two reservoirs built in the valley to supply Wakefield with water and was completed in 1933. The upper reservoir is Baitings Reservoir.Ryburn reservoir is the earlier of the two reservoirs. It lies just south of the A58 road and its concrete dam is situated in a deep part of the valley. Being surrounded by woods, it is a popular area for walkers just outside the settlements of Ripponden and Rishworth.

Denshaw is a village in the civil parish of Saddleworth in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies by the source of the River Tame, high amongst the Pennines above the village of Delph, 4.6 miles (7.4 km) northeast of Oldham,3.3 miles (5.3 km) north-northwest of Uppermill and Shaw and Crompton. It has a population of around 500.Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Denshaw and its surroundings have provided archaeological evidence of Stone and Bronze Age activity in the area. The name Denshaw is of Old Norse derivation, and the oldest part of the village is an ancient hamlet.Built up around the junction of five major roads, until the 20th century, Denshaw consisted mainly of smallholdings and a few public houses such as the Junction Inn, originally built as a coaching house for travellers. Denshaw is noted for its annual Whit Friday brass band contest.