Above: Goyt’s Moss Farm was a white-washed, stone-built farmhouse lying beside the Macclesfield to Buxton road. It’s been completely rebuilt (I’m not sure when) and now functions as a Peak District National Park Rangers information centre and toilets, lying beside the small car park at Derbyshire Bridge.

Gotys Moss Farm

Goyt’s Moss Farm was one of four houses lying within a quarter mile stretch of this once busy road (see below), just down from the famous Cat & Fiddle pub. There are very few traces of the other three buildings beyond some scattered dressed stones slowly disappearing beneath the moorland vegetation.

Above: This photo shows the four houses in Goyt’s Moss. I’ve circled Goyt’s Moss Farm. The old Macclesfield to Buxton road vanishes over the horizon. And the narrow lane to Goyt’s Bridge goes to the left.

The Macclesfield to Buxton road was diverted sometime around the 1930s. The old road now provides a great route for walkers across the open moorland. (See walk 11.)

Goyt’s Moss is surrounded by small coal pits which would have provided both fuel and income to the families who lived in this exposed and fairly remote moorland landscape.

My thanks to Mike for providing the census records below. I think some of them may be for Moss House, which was the next door property. I’ll update this page if things become any clearer.

Page updates

I found this photo of the ruins of Goyt’s Moss Farmhouse in the snow on the Picture the Past website (click to enlarge).

I’d guess it was taken in the mid 1930s, at the same time as all the other houses on the Errwood Estate were demolished.

Click here to view a ‘then & now’ fade which shows that I wasn’t right in thinking today’s Rangers’ cabin was built on the same spot as the farm.