The Stonehenge of the north?

On February 5, 2022February 4, 2024 By SteveIn Places, Prehistory2 Comments

Between Buxton and Youlgreave, high up above the Derbyshire dales, Arbor Low is the largest henge monument in the north of England. The November morning I visited was bleak and grey, with a keen wind from the west and a temperature barely above freezing. Unsurprisingly I was the only visitor when I arrived, although another car pulled up in the layby shortly after. I walked up the farm track for several hundred metres to where an English Heritage board gave some rudimentary information. There are two related sites here: the circular henge and Gib Hill, apparently a tumulus, a field away to the west. Then I walked up to the farmyard, where a small sign asked for a modest £1 for using ‘private land’.

Many farms in the Peak District are tatty; this one looked particularly run-down. A woman was pushing a wheelbarrow full of firewood through the yard – nobody else was around. The cattle were still in the fields, so the stall block was empty. There was a sign advertising‘B & B’ by the roadside, but I couldn’t imagine anyone choosing to stay in such a bleak location. Presumably they earn a few pounds a week from visitors’ contributions, but there was no attempt to offer tourist fare such as teas or postcards.

Beyond the farmyard Arbor Low is a circular bank containing a ditch and inside that over 40 stones, lying flat, with a few more stones at the centre. Impressive enough, especially given the situation, with a view of several miles in every direction. There are information boards at both the henge and the Gib Hill site, although these contain little actual information, beyond the standard visual recreations of scary looking people doing weird things. Apparently there has been no excavation here for a century, and so our knowledge of these places is even vaguer than usual with the prehistoric.

The contrast with the real Stonehenge is total. On Salisbury Plain coaches full of tourists, many from abroad, arrive every hour. There are lavish facilities for visitors, and a hefty £13.90 price tag to buy the timed tickets. Hundreds of visitors wander round the circle every hour. Scores of books and dozens of TV programmes have attempted to reveal the ‘secrets of the circle’. Yet, standing on the bank around the fallen stones, with an icy wind in my hair, I felt far closer to the past, whatever it contained, than I ever had in the south.

Burdett’s map of 1767 showing The Street north of Pikehall

Something not mentioned by English Heritage is that a Roman road ran through this area just 100 metres away, south east from Buxton, and that this probably followed the line of an older ridgeway. A henge monument on the scale of Arbor Low must have attracted visitors for (presumably) seasonal festivals from all over the district, and so the proximity of the henge to the road is not mere coincidence. It can be seen that the eighteenth-century turnpike did not follow the exact route of the older road, which remained in use until the time of Burdett’s map, but which has now disappeared except as a parish boundary. Overall the route presents a classic example of a road that may be at least four thousand years old, starting as a ridgeway serving the henge and other sites nearby, then being re-engineered by the Romans, and more recently re-routed as a turnpike road.

A life on the road

On January 22, 2022February 4, 2024 By SteveIn Road usersLeave a comment

Tramps" — illustration for "The Uncommercial Traveller" by Sol Eytinge, Jr.

Tramps on the roadside in Victorian times

In contrast with the rich and powerful, whose historical journeys were often recorded, we know very little about the thousands of people in the past who made a living from being on the move. Some may have been semi-criminals, but the great majority supported themselves by providing a service; moving goods to where they were wanted. Yet the stigma attached to itinerant workers persisted; they were often seen as a threat to the settled householder or shopkeeper. For some, such as the drovers, it could be a profitable business, while others had no choice but to beg from village to village, relying on the kindness of strangers.

Well into the twentieth century tramps were a familiar sight on our roads, with George Orwell providing an unusual glimpse of their lives in his Down and Out in Paris and London. Written in the 1930s, he describes the grim conditions in the ‘Spike’, where workhouse-style accommodation was provided by the local authorities. Today, of course, the volume of traffic on the roads makes old-style tramping impractical, so that the destitute sleep rough in cities, where there is more food, money and shelter.

Gypsies and Caravan (Photos Prints Framed Posters Puzzles Cards Gifts Canvas...) #20031226 — *A gypsy family in the 1930s*

Gypsies, travellers or Roma are one marginal group that has attracted much interest and been heavily romanticised by writers such as George Borrow, while surviving into modern times. But others have been made redundant by the increase in personal mobility – we forget how isolated a Derbyshire village would have been up to the 1950s. Drovers were one of the most respected trades, responsible for the well-being of herds of valuable animals and their safe delivery to market. They would avoid turnpikes and use their own routes, with an overnight halt in an inn with grazing attached. Today it is difficult to trace droving roads, though place names such as Bullbridge may provide clues.

*Probable west-east drove road near Minninglow*

Pedlars (or travellers or hawkers) supplied the needs of isolated farms and cottages, in particular catering for women who could rarely visit a market town yet needed lightweight items such as sewing materials. They carried their goods in a pack, today commemorated in the name of the Hathersage pub, the Scotsman’s Pack. They must have been welcome visitors, but it is now hard to imagine how difficult their lives would have been, outdoors in all weathers and with the burden of the pack. Another significant group were the badgers or higglers, who bought goods such as eggs and butter from farmers and resold them at market. In theory they needed a licence to operate, so that for example in 1748 179 licences were issued at the Derbyshire Quarter Sessions, although many people may have operated unlicensed. As few, if any of these thousands of itinerant workers left a written record, tracing their lives is frustratingly difficult, but clearly their work was vital for the rural economy of the pre-motor age.

Stagecoach

On January 12, 2022February 4, 2024 By SteveIn Road users, Roadside featuresLeave a comment

The romantic image of the stagecoach, as seen on hundreds of Christmas cards, portrays the coach’s arrival at a snowy inn, horns being blown to warn the landlord to make ready for the hungry passengers. But the real experience must have been less glamorous: unheated and crowded. Travel by stagecoach became quicker and somewhat more comfortable during the later eighteenth century, thanks to better turnpike roads and steel springs. However, it was always expensive and never popular, many men and some women preferring to ride their own (or hired) horses. Hogarth’s print satirises the discomforts of being squeezed into a small compartment for a long day’s journey, while those travelling ‘outside’ (at cheaper rates) were always in danger of falling off. But by the early nineteenth century the trip from Derby to London could be done in one long day, saving the expense of hotels enroute.

Peacock Hotel, Four Lane Ends, Oakerthorpe, near Alfreton, c 1950?s — *The Peacock, Oakerthorpe in the 1950s*

Stagecoaches were so-called as they had to travel in stages, changing horses every 10-12 miles. Pulling such a heavy load (at least half a dozen passengers, the coachman and the coach) horses needed to be rested after that distance. Consequently coaching inns were built in most towns served by stagecoach routes, but also at strategic points along the roads. They can often be identified by an arch to allow the coach to enter the yard behind, as at the Red Lion in Wirksworth. The Peacock at Oakerthorpe (now called Pestos at the Peacock) was sited at the junction of two important turnpikes: Nottingham – Newhaven and Derby – Chesterfield. The name ‘Peacock’ suggests a connection with the Duke of Rutland, whose family symbol this is. Another coaching inn financed by a great Derbyshire landowner was the Newhaven Hotel, built by the Duke of Devonshire at the junction of the Nottingham turnpike with the Derby – Buxton route.

The growth of travel by stagecoach led to the development of a huge ‘horse economy’, requiring not only coachmen but ostlers, farriers, chambermaids, cooks and other indoor staff. The larger inns would have stabled at least 100 horses. This all went into decline after 1840, as the railways spread over the country and provided much cheaper and more comfortable travel, although in the more remote parts of Derbyshire stage coaches continued in use to the 1880s.

The secrets of Shuckstone

On January 5, 2022February 4, 2024 By SteveIn People, Places, Roadside features, Walks and walkersLeave a comment

*The cross base, with dandelions, looking east*

Starting from Whatstandwell Bridge, if you follow the track from the hamlet of Robin Hood up through the quarry and wood to Wakebridge, and then on past Wakebridge Farm up to the top of the hill, the route finally levels off and you come to Shuckstone Fields, behind Holly Grange Farm and above Lea. This large field contains the intersection of five footpaths, and Shuckstone Cross must have marked this point. Today only the base remains, and the markings on this are illegible, but according to local historian George Wrigglesworth the four sides were marked C (for Crich) A (possibly Ashover) M (Mansfield or Matlock) and W (Wirksworth). In the late eighteenth century a pot containing Roman coins was dug up here, presumably buried by someone wanting a clear marker for their savings. Not far away is a ‘Holy Well’ of three compartments, which could have offered refreshment for travellers.

The term ‘cross’ can be misleading: the crosses found in country churchyards, as at Eyam, had a cross shape and were often preaching crosses, while a cross as at Shuckstone was simply a stone shaft held in a square base which acted as a waymark or signpost. This marker would have been clearly visible at this high point (nearly 900 feet), which was moorland until a couple of hundred years ago: the 1791 map shows that the area was the southern tip of East Moor, an expanse of rough pasture which stretched from here north towards Chatsworth and then Sheffield.

The Cross may have also been a boundary marker, since the same map (Burdett’s) also shows that the track up from the Derwent runs along the old wapentake boundary, with the wapentakes of Wirksworth to the west and Morleyston to the east. According to Kenneth Cameron, (The Place-names of Derbyshire Part 2) the name ‘Shuckstone’ is fairly recent, and older records, going back to the Domesday Book, refer to this spot as ‘Shuckthorn’ or similar, meaning the Devil’s thorn tree. This is certainly a location well worth visiting, but probably not on a dark night.

The lost fords of the Derwent – 2

On December 29, 2021February 4, 2024 By SteveIn Places, Rivers and bridges1 Comment

Savepenny Lane looking towards Duffield on the opposite bank

The road layout south of Belper has changed hugely in the past 230 years. Before the Strutts built Milford bridge in about 1790 there were no bridges between Belper bridge and Duffield bridge. Milford was only a hamlet, and its name was originally ‘Muleford’, but with the growth of industry a better all-weather crossing was needed, as well as the construction of the impressive weir. Downstream the Derwent was forded at a point near the current railway station, as shown on Burdett’s map of 1791, and then near the church Duffield bridge is thought to have been built as early as the thirteenth century. In the eighteenth century this crossing was part of the Derby-Chesterfield-Sheffield turnpike route, and so would have been quite busy.

*Burdett’s map showing river crossings near Duffield*

The Duffield ford must have been more convenient for villagers, especially those going to Makeney or Belper, as well as for drovers moving cattle. In the eighteeenth century and earlier Makeney was a more important settlement than Milford, and it lay on the route of the Portway, which is thought to have crossed the Derwent nearby. The Holly Bush Inn claims to be one of the oldest in the county, and may have served long-distance travellers as well as locals. It may be significant that a holly bush is one of the earliest inn signs, as in the saying ‘A good wine needs no bush’.

The route from Makeney to Duffield via the ford was once known as Savepenny Lane, since it allowed users to avoid paying the toll which the Strutts charged on their new bridge. However, this route was blocked by the Strutts; deepening the river at that point and blocking the lane on the west bank. The curious result is that today the lane still exists on the east bank, and in fact has recently been confirmed as a BOAT (byway open to all traffic), although it is a cul de sac. An ideal stroll, perhaps, before moving on to a lunchtime pint at the Holly Bush?

The Darley Mystery

On December 21, 2021February 4, 2024 By SteveIn Places, PrehistoryLeave a comment

Darley Churchtown is a small part of the large village of Darley Dale. Today it is easily by-passed as it lies off the A6, although it was on the line of the old Matlock-Bakewell turnpike. It has several curiosities, all centred on the church of St Helen’s. The most obvious is right outside the church porch: a huge yew tree, over thirty feet in circumference, and claimed to be anything up to 2,000 years old (see: The Sacred Yew, Chetan and Brueton). Even if this early date is taken with a pinch of salt, it may well have been growing before the Conquest, and would pre-date the existing church (which has a Norman font). It is certainly the largest of all the Derbyshire yews; other notable examples grow at Allestree and Doveridge.

If you walk from the churchyard heading south, then take a field path to the right you find yourself walking along a reed-fringed dike, heading for the cricket ground at Darley Bridge. This winding path is still a parish boundary, which suggests it may be the old course of the Derwent, which has since shifted more to the west. This would mean that the church site was virtually an island, with the river running right beside it: even with the Derwent in its present course the church has often been flooded. Yet this is not the only church in this valley built on flood-prone sites: Duffield is another. Could this be an example of the belief that island sites were sacred places? An alternative possibility is that in the early church the river was used for baptism.

Another oddity can be found by walking from St Helen’s in the opposite direction, along the track north towards Rowsley. Just past the school is Abbey House, a substantial Victorian building. The Ordnance Survey map from 1896 marks ‘Remains of Abbey’ at this point, yet according to historians there never was an abbey at Darley Dale. Confusingly, the local abbeys were at Darley, just north of Derby, and at Dale near Ockbrook. So what was the origin of the idea of a Darley Dale abbey? Curiously, the exact site of Derby’s Darley Abbey has never been identified, though it is presumed to have been on the site of Darley Park. That abbey was linked to St Helen’s Priory in the town, which has the same dedication as is found at Darley Churchtown. Perhaps the safest assumption would be to say that the religious site at Darley appears to be very ancient, quite possibly Saxon, that it could have been a semi-artificial island, and may well pre-date the abbey at Derby.

The lost fords of the Derwent – 1

On December 14, 2021February 4, 2024 By SteveIn Places, Rivers and bridges1 Comment

*Railway bridge on Ladygate leading to Old Matlock*

River crossings have always been critical points on the road network, and originally these would have been fords, passable for riders in normal conditions, and possibly having stepping stones for those on foot. From medieval times onwards fords on the Derwent were mainly replaced by stone bridges, though their location is still remembered by the place names Bamford, Grindleford, Cromford, Homesford and Milford (from north to south). The original name for Matlock appears to have been Mestesforde (i.e. in the Domesday Book), and many historians have assumed that this ford was near the site of the current bridge. But the nucleus of old Matlock is actually at Starkholmes, not near Crown Island, and so it has been argued that the ford was near the point where Ladygate Lane now crosses the river on a footbridge.

The westward route would have climbed up the hill, past the nineteenth century St John’s Chapel (built over a perpetual spring), and up to Bonsall, near where it linked up with Salters’ Way. The more modern route of Salters’ Lane, leading to Matlock Bridge, developed after this bridge was constructed, although the date of the original bridge is not clear. The access to the bridge on the east side was easy, but because this land (i.e. Hall Leys) flooded regularly (and still does) development may have continued around St Giles for some time.

*The site of Homesford from Sanderson’s 1835 map*

A few miles downstream, the Homesford Cottage pub (still advertised as selling Kimberley Ales) has become a guest house, and the name Homesford is not found on the OS map. Yet Sanderson’s map from 1835 shows a road from Upper Holloway running down past Lea Hurst (Florence Nightingale’s home) and over Gregory Tunnel on the Cromford Canal. The name ‘Derwent Steps’ by the river suggests a well-established set of stepping stones, with presumably a ford beside for carts and livestock. Today the Derwent can still be crossed here on a footbridge, suggesting that this was an ancient route, but there is no sign of any steps in the currently fast-flowing, turbulent river!.

A walk on the Portway

On December 8, 2021February 4, 2024 By SteveIn Prehistory, Walks and walkersLeave a comment

This walk, which can stand alone or be incorporated into a longer route, gives a taste of one of Derbyshire’s oldest roads, and incorporates many features of historic (or even prehistoric) travel. Starting behind the Miners’ Standard pub above Winster (car parking generally possible opposite) , the track runs north between stone walls. Today the track is labelled as part of the Limestone Way, although Islington Lane, an older name, is a reminder of the miners’ settlement here in the boom days of lead mining. This old road was replaced by the Ashbourne turnpike, now the B5056, which zig zags down the slope to allow carriages an easier incline.

*Looking towards Cratcliffe Rocks from the end of Dudwood Lane*

After about a mile you cross the Elton road and continue on Dudwood Lane, downhill on what is now a tarmac surface. On the right is the site of the Portaway lead mine, once a substantial producer, which provides clear evidence for the route of the old road. At the bottom of the hill you bypass the cattle grid and start climbing towards Cratcliffe Rocks, with the twin peaks of Robin Hood’s Stride on the left. These rock outcrops must have provided clear landmarks for medieval travellers, and the path runs between them. Evidence has been found at the top of the Rocks of prehistoric habitation, probably to provide shelter for travellers: the summit certainly provides excellent views of the route. Another feature is the medieval hermit’s cave, found in the woods below, which is discussed in a previous blog (Hermits and their Hermitages, 6th August).

Now the track runs beside Robin Hood’s Stride, one of the many Derbyshire features named after this hero. Its striking profile with the rocky pinnacles also gave it the name ‘Mock Beggar’s Hall’. However, the most interesting features of this area are found on the other side of the path, on Harthill Moor, where the stone circle suggests a Neolithic dating. Known as Nine Stone Close, there are actually only four uprights, and there is a suggestion that they may have been re-erected quite recently. Less obvious is an example of cup-and-ring marking on a boulder, a Bronze Age feature not fully understood by archaeologists, but possibly associated with long-distance trackways.

From here the walk can extended on the Limestone Way to Youlgreave, or even to Bakewell via Alport, but the simplest option is to head back towards the Miners’ Standard, where a good lunch and a decent pint can usually be found!

The style of stiles

On November 30, 2021February 4, 2024 By SteveIn Roadside features, Walks and walkersLeave a comment

Since the nineteenth century stiles have been a familiar feature of the rural landscape, providing a bucolic focus for pictures of simple country folk or lovers’ trysts. Before the enclosure of moors and commons stiles weren’t needed, but with the arrival of hedges and dry stone walls access was needed for pedestrians. ‘Stile’ comes from the old German word ‘stigel’ which means to climb or go over.

Squeeze stiles are a distinctive feature of the Derbyshire landscape. They are simple to pass through, but clearly are only effective if too narrow for sheep to slip between, and so can prove quite tricky for the overweight! They have the advantage of clearly marking the route of a path, so that when entering a field you can normally see the next stile ahead, and aim for that. Very occasionally the stile stones are dated, as in the example below at Lea, which suggests that this area was enclosed about 1780.

Other types of stile are with wooden steps, or stone steps let into a wall. Both can be more difficult for walkers if not well-maintained, and an upright wooden post should be provided for hand support. Dogs can also find stiles tricky, so the ideal model has a dog gate which can be raised when needed. But today there is a move to replace stiles with gates, more convenient for elderly walkers but also requiring more maintenance – and easily left open.

Beyond their practical function, stiles can be seen as fossilised markers of footpaths, possibly 250 years old in many cases, but indicating routes that were in existence before the enclosures and which had to be preserved subsequently. In places the paths they serve could be medieval, and may once have been a long-distance road, now merely a Sunday ramble.

Lea Road: A sorry, soggy story

On November 17, 2021February 4, 2024 By SteveIn Places1 Comment

*Gateposts in Bow Wood show that this was more than a path*

The tendency of Derbyshire roads, over time, has been a shift from high-level routes to more convenient ways in the valleys, with gentler gradients. A good example is the road from Cromford Bridge to Lea Bridge, which in medieval times ran past the site of Cromford Station and then turned uphill at Wood End, away from the Derwent, and ran past Castletop farm and through Bow Wood and down to the Lea Brook. This route can still be followed on foot, taking the path just past the railway bridge, up through the wood, and then joining the old track beyond the house.

However, when the Cromford Bridge and Langley Mill Turnpike Trust was established, an easier route was selected, following the river up to what is now High Peak Junction, and then turning north east to Lea Bridge, at that time quite an industrial complex. This new road went on to Holloway, Crich, Bull Bridge and Codnor Gate (where until recently the turnpike was commemorated by the Gate pub).

The road had a tendency to flood in very wet weather, especially near the Cromford railway bridge, but remained a useful route for over two hundred years. But following heavy rain in November 2019, the river had undercut the bank and part of the road collapsed in January 2020, causing the council to close the road the next day.

In the nearly two years since the road closure the residents of Lea Bridge and Holloway have had no direct access to Cromford or Matlock, and so have had to make lengthy detours on narrow lanes, such as the route over Riber hill. What they find most annoying is the lack of any sense of urgency in re-opening this critical route. Derbyshire County Council and their contractors, Eurovia, have produced a variety of excuses for the prolonged closure, claiming that there have been further landslips. Yet on a a warm dry autumnal day like today no-one is working on the site, while the road, for some reason, is even closed to walkers and cyclists.

Given that the old turnpike road was engineered by men with wheelbarrows and picks, it seems incredible that today, with modern equipment, we are incapable of repairing a few hundred yards of road in less than two years.

The Old Roads of Derbyshire

Author: Steve