Doctor's Gate and Shelf Brook. Photo: Jonathan Clitheroe CC-BY-SA-2.0

A girl was stretchered from a Peak District hillside after falling and injuring her herself.

The 12-year-old was with a group of Scouts from Market Harborough, Leicestershire, when she suffered what rescuers described as a serious leg injury while on the Doctor’s Gate path on the southern slopes of Bleaklow.

Glossop Mountain Rescue Team was alerted at 2.30pm on Saturday and went to the scene, near the footbridge over Shelf Brook, east of Glossop.

A spokesperson for the team said: “Very heavy rain made the going difficult. The Team arrived on scene and placed the injured girl in a casualty tent for treatment.”

A doctor from Edale Mountain Rescue Team also joined the Glossop members in treating the girl, who was with the group on a hiking visit to the area.

She was given first aid then stretchered to the Glossop team’s Land Rover which took her to a waiting ambulance.

She was then taken to Tameside Hospital, Ashton-under-Lyne, for further treatment.

Nineteen members of Glossop MRT took part in the rescue, their second of the week.

Doctor’s Gate, which is denoted on Ordnance Survey maps as a Roman Road, links Glossop with the summit of the Snake Pass.

The National Trust says there are two theories on its origins. One is that it is indeed part of an ancient trackway built by the Romans to link the forts of Ardotalia in Glossop with Navio at Brough in the Hope Valley.

Another theory is that during the mediaeval period Doctor John Talbot who became vicar of Glossop in 1491 had the trackway built to link the Talbot family seat in Sheffield to Glossop, hence the name Doctor’s Gate – gate in this case the Middle English word meaning path or way.