Tag: Carsington

Harboro’ highlife?

On By SteveIn Places, PrehistoryLeave a comment

Harboro’ Rocks seen from the High Peak Trail

A couple of miles west of Wirksworth, just above the High Peak Trail, Harboro’ Rocks are a distinctive limestone outcrop rising to 379 metres. The summit offers a splendid view of Carsington Water to the south and the Via Gellia valley to the north, while providing practice pitches for climbers. The Rocks have been the subject of several archaeological digs, the latest reported in the Derbyshire Archaeological Journal (Makepeace 1990 and 2004). According to these, evidence was found of a Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age settlement: pottery fragments, domestic animal bones, a flint tool and a button. There is also a remarkable cave in which Daniel Defoe found a lead-ming family living in 1720, and which clearly could have been occupied in prehistoric times.

Cave at Harboro’

However, this picture ignores three factors. First, why should anyone settle on such a bleak and elevated spot, with no source of water? The thesis also fails to mention that the Rocks are near the junction of two important ancient routes: The Street, which was engineered by the Romans over an older ridgeway and ran from Wirksworth to Buxton, and the Portway, which headed north from Harboro’ towards Mam Tor and beyond. Finally, the name ‘Harboro” goes back to at least c. 1200 CE and may mean ‘shelter’ or ‘fortified place’, according to Cameron (1959). What must be significant is that this name crops up on two other hilltops along the Portway’s route: Arbour Hill outside Dale and another Arbour Hill in Wollaton.

Burdett’s map of 1762 showing roads west of Wirksworth and position of the Rocks (arrowed)

So my suggestion is that this was not the site of a Bronze Age ‘settlement’, but could have been a fortified campsite for travellers on these two important routes. This would account for the sparse nature of the finds from the excavations – people were travelling light. Similar to the caravanserai found in the Middle East, these campsites seem to have been spaced every six or seven miles along the Portway and would have given the travellers some security for themselves and their animals when they stopped for the night. The next, going southeast, is Alport Height, and to the north, Cratcliffe Rocks.

Inns for travellers were part of the Roman road system, but I doubt whether any were provided in such a backward area as Derbyshire. We can only guess how these campsites were organised; whether locals sold water and provisions to travellers, and how they were maintained. However, there is enough evidence to suggest that these places provided vital protection for long-distance wayfarers until the growth of towns and the development of the modern inn during the medieval period.

The Gatekeepers

On By SteveIn Road users, Roadside featuresLeave a comment
Tollhouse near Holbrook

The arrival of turnpike roads in the mid-eighteenth century created a new type of job: tollgate keeper. Because the gates had to be manned day and night, accommodation had to be provided for the keepers, although presumably there was little traffic after dark. Many of these tollhouses, such as the one above on the Derby-Chesterfield turnpike, have survived, their original function indicated by their closeness to the road.

The task of collecting tolls was often auctioned off by the turnpike trusts on an annual basis, but the tollhouses and tollgates would belong to the trusts. Providing these added to the considerable cost of developing the turnpike roads, creating debts which, in many cases, would never be repaid.

The joys of gate keeping at night are vividly suggested by Dickens in his early novel ‘The Pickwick Papers’. Pickwick and Wardle are chasing Mr Jingle’s post chaise after midnight, when they reach a tollgate:

After a lapse of five minutes, consumed in incessant knocking and shouting, an old man in his shirt and trousers emerged from the turnpike-house and opened the gate. ‘How long is it since the post-chaise went through here?’ inquired Mr Wardle.

‘How long?’

‘Ah!’

‘Why, I don’t rightly know. It worn’t a long time ago, not it worn’t a short time ago – just between the two perhaps.’

Although toll gates are not marked on Burdett’s map, some are shown on Sanderson’s 1835 map marked as TB (toll bar). In some cases they gave the name to the settlement that grew up around the gate, notably Ambergate, where the tollhouse was near to the confluence of the River Amber with the Derwent. This may also apply to Bargate near Belper and Codnor Gate on the Cromford and Langley Mill turnpike.

Tollhouse on Steep Turnpike in Matlock

Surviving tollhouses can be a concrete reminder of the route of a turnpike road, which often followed a course which seems strange to us today. The example above at the foot of Steep Turnpike, in Matlock, should be no surprise, given the name of the road (note the walled-up doorway beside the road). But the cottage below, In Hopton, is a reminder that the Oakerthorpe to Ashbourne turnpike ran through the villages of Hopton and Carsington: the road beside Carsington Water is modern. Again, note the bricked-up doorway.

Probable tollhouse at junction with the Dene, Hopton