Shining Tor & Goyt Valley

The upper Goyt Valley pairs two dark reservoirs - Errwood and Fernilee - with the long moorland ridge of Shining Tor, the highest point in Cheshire, giving you both water and wild moor in one spot on the western fringe of the Peak. Park at the Errwood Reservoir car parks and you look straight down the water; walk up onto the open-access ridge and Shining Tor's flagged summit opens huge views over the Cheshire plain to the Welsh hills. Two ownership notes matter. The reservoirs and their immediate land belong to United Utilities, who prohibit drone take-off and landing on water-company ground, and the conifer blocks are Forestry England (permit needed). The moorland ridge itself is CRoW open-access land, so the clean legal play is to walk up and TOAL from the open moor above the treeline, framing the reservoirs from height rather than launching at the shore. It's exposed up there - wind funnels over the col at Pym Chair - so pick a calm day and watch battery temperature. Airspace is quiet Class G. Autumn brings larch gold around the Errwood Hall rhododendron ruins.