At 1400 feet above sea level, Higger Tor is the most prominent of all the crags on Hathersage Moor and is shown dead centre on the horizon in this panorama. The tiny bump which can be seen sticking up from Higger Tor is a striking rock formation known as "The Hole in the Slabs" - a natural opening in a pile of gritstone boulders.
The ancient Iron Age hill fort known as Carl Wark is shown here in the middle ground just to the right of Higger Tor. This 2 acre rectangular enclosure is protected on 3 sides by natural slopes, and on the western side by artificial fortification of earth and stone. It's thought that the stronghold may originally have been encircled completely by ramparts. Although some archaeologists date Carl Wark at late Iron Age, others maintain that it is Romano-British, or even post-Roman (Dark Age) in origin.
John Leyland said in "The Peak of Derbyshire" (1891) that several small tumuli or burial mounds were opened at Cark Wark in 1826, but "...nothing was disclosed save deposits of burnt bones, without urns or implements of any kind, the interment may by assumed to have belonged to a very remote age...".
