Wonders of the Peak

Buxton Museum & Art Gallery

Folklore

Thor’s Cave

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You should be standing on the Manifold Way, in front of Thor’s Cave.  Above you, the cave entrance is visible from its commanding location around 80 metres above the valley floor. The cave is a natural cavern formed from the dissolution of the soluble limestone that makes up the White Peak. The cave is a popular attraction and was served by a station on the Leek Manifold Light Railway between 1904 and 1934. The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery’s Local History collection includes postcards of the cave from 1910 to 1920.

The name of the cave is somewhat of an enigma. Although it evokes links with the Norse god Thor or his Anglo-Saxon equivalent, Thunor, there is no evidence to support this etymology. Nevertheless, the cave was in use in Anglo-Saxon times with Early Medieval artefacts uncovered there. The origin of the name possibly lies in the word ‘tor’ from the Old Welsh word for a high rock or tower (ultimately from the Latin turris).

Postcard of Thor’s Cave, Manifold Valley, 1910-1920s

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Lud’s Church exit

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Before we leave the magic of Lud’s Church completely behind, we ought to consider how such an extraordinary feature came to be. Of course, there is a folk tale involving the Devil making a giant gash in the earth with his finger nail.  More logically, can you find any signs of erosion, by water for instance?

This in no way looks like one of those small, water eroded cloughs. In fact, there is no sign at all that a stream has ever run in or out of here. For the record, Lud’s Church is around 17 metres deep and 100 metres long. The sides may be jagged, but they are straight drops of gritstone, draped with cushions of soft moss. There is not much of an eroded look about them.

Think back to the wider picture, though. The River Dane managed to find a passage through the hard gritstone wall of the Roaches somehow. There must have been a weakness. In fact the gritstone of this whole area is traversed by numerous ‘faults’ – cracks inside the rock. These run northwest to southeast, just as Lud’s Church does.

Where the bed of gritstone dips to the north, into what is known as the ‘Goyt Syncline’, a large mass of it simply cracked away. The rock slipped downhill a few metres, breaking along one of these fault lines. This sudden movement under the force of gravity opened up the chasm as we see it today.

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Inside Lud’s Church

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Spend a few minutes simply taking in the atmosphere of this incredible place; the mossy walls, the clumps of fern, the absence of direct sunlight. There are hidden niches and side-aisles too, so have a good explore.

It is not hard to imagine that it must have been a centre for pagan worship long before the arrival of Christianity. There are even signs that modern day pagans revere the chasm, from the little offerings you may spot here and there. It is a deeply hidden place.

Lud’s Church is sometimes cited as the inspiration for The Greene Chapel in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Read the poem however and the mysterious chapel turns out to be a grassy burial mound well north of the Mersey. It is true, though, that the anonymous author hailed from this region and many evocative local place names, such as Wildboarclough, find echoes in the poem.

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Soaring Pinnacles and Secret Caves

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A riverside walk in the Peak District

Dovedale is a glorious medley of soaring limestone pinnacles, secret caves and natural arches, making it one of the most popular destinations in the Peak District.

Through its heart burbles the crystal-clear waters of the River Dove, dubbed “the princess of rivers.”

On this walk we’ll find out what makes the river so regal, how this rocky wonderland was created, and how it became an inspiration for Romantic poets and painters.

From the car park, turn right and walk up the road past the water company’s flow meter. Stop by the first bridge and look up at the hills on either side.

Please note, this walk has two options for its return route:
1. the flatter option is to retrace your steps back down Dovedale (total distance = 6 miles)
2. the higher level option is a circular route back around Ilam Tops and Bunster Hill
See Stop 6 for full details. (Total distance = 6.5 miles) 

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The Bawdstone

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The Bawdstone stands between Hen Cloud and The Roaches. It is one of many stones around the Peak District that have magical powers, and its curative properties can be compared with those of the Pots and Pans on Saddleworth Moor. Sick people used to crawl under the Bawdstone to be cured; the narrow gap would push the Devil off their backs. Indeed, you might be cured of your ills merely by touching the stone. It was once whitewashed on Beltane (1st May), and until well into the 20th century it was the site of a regular pilgrimage from Leek.

Some people have supposed this stone to be the remains of a Neolithic tomb (a ‘dolmen’). Others suppose it to have been an altar, since the morpheme ‘Bawd’ might be derived from the Welsh for ‘table’. A ley line is alleged to pass through it, and at sunrise on the Spring Equinox it is aligned with the Serpent Stone on Ramshaw Rocks.

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Fairy Holes and Pots and Pans, Saddleworth

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The Fairy Holes comprise a complex of gritstone caves near the summit of Alderman’s Hill to the north-west of Dovestone Reservoir. According to legend, a dog pursued a fox into the cavern one Whitsun morning long ago, and neither fox nor dog was ever seen again.

The Pots and Pans rock formation is nearby, but a little further from Greenfield. Pots and Pans sports a long, irregular hole, in which diseased persons could be put so that the spirit of the rock might cure them; compare this with the legend of the Bawdstone on Staffordshire Moorlands. There are also ‘basins’ cut into the rocks, either artificially or naturally, and the water that collects in those basis will cure sore eyes. This superstition could be ancient.

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