Pots and Pans is actually the name of the large rock (stone) that sits at the top of Aldermans Hill overlooking Uppermill. It gets its unusual name from a series of basins or large indentations on the top of it, worn into the millstone grit over millions of years by the Saddleworth weather.
Pots and Pans is also known locally as the ‘Druids stone’ with the pots and pans-shaped bowls in the top rumoured to have been used to catch the blood from human sacrifices. Legend also has it that water collected from these bowls can cure eye diseases.
Though the geologists don’t agree, the boulders and rocks you’ll see littering the hills above Uppermill and Greenfield are actually the remnants of a mighty battle between two Saddleworth giants called Alphin and Alder.
The giants lived across from each other on the two hills that mark the entrance to the Upper Tame Valley – Aldermans Hill and Alphin Pike. Sadly their friendship dissolved over their rivalry for the love of a beautiful water nymph called Rimon who lived in Chew Brook down in the valley below.
Rimon took a fancy to Alphin, and as is the way with giant/water nymph love triangles – a fierce fight ensued that saw the two giants casting enormous boulders at each other across the valley from their respective hillside homes.
Alphin lost, (he is buried near Giants Rock on Greenfield Moor), and Rimon, distraught, threw herself to her death from the top of the hill. The Pots and Pans Stone is one of the reminders of that ferocious battle.