Custom · Leek · Famous
Open on the map: directions, what's there today and read-aloud →
Goodnight, sun. Hello again. Goodnight.
See it clearly
Churchyard of St Edward the Confessor in Leek town centre, near the solstice in good weather. Check weather before you go.
On midsummer evenings the sun sets behind the hill, then comes back to set again.
Around the summer solstice, from Leek, the sun can be seen to set twice. It sinks on the Cloud, a gritstone hill six miles to the north-west, then partly reappears from its steep northern slope before setting a second time. Robert Plot described it in 1686, viewed from the churchyard of St Edward the Confessor, and realised it would shift over the centuries. A 19th-century gazetteer also describes the sight from the churchyard. Wikipedia notes the shift means it is no longer visible from the churchyard, but a 1999 Manchester Astronomical Society article says trimmed trees had made it visible from the churchyard again. Some have wondered whether the churchyard was an older sacred site.