Wonders of the Peak

Buxton Museum & Art Gallery

Geology

Lovers Leap

by

Lover’s Leap © Trevor Harris via Geograph (CC BY SA 2.0)

This is a fine place to view the lower portion of Dovedale. Opposite, rising out of the ash woods, you can just make out the rock pinnacles known as the Twelve Apostles.

Pinnacles like these are made of harder bands of limestone that were left were behind after the erosion of the last Ice Age. Over the centuries since then, they have been further shaped into craggy towers by water gradually dissolving the rock or repeatedly freezing in cracks until the rock weakens and crumbles away.

Steps up to Lover’s Leap © Matt Fascione via Geograph (CC BY SA 2.0)

Lover’s Leap gets its name from a girl who attempted suicide from this high point, but was saved by her billowing skirts! The steps up to the high point were said to be built by Italian prisoners of war during World War Two.

[Read more…] about Lovers Leap

Reynard’s Cave

by

Pause where you can see the natural arch of Reynard’s Cave. To find out how it formed we need to travel back to the end of the last Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago, when glacial meltwater swelled the Dove into a powerful torrent. Icy waters cut down through fissures and faults in the rock like a knife through butter. The vertical crags and pinnacles we can see from here are harder bands of limestone that the water could not cut through, but just how did these natural caves and arches form?

Reynard’s Cave © Beth via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

 

Limestone has many joints and cracks. When acidic rainwater trickles into these joints, it dissolves and widens them into underground drainage systems, including tunnels, caves and caverns. As the river cut down through the limestone it intercepted some of these secret tunnels and caves, opening them up for the first time. Reynard’s Cave is the remnant of just such an old cavern, exposed as the Dove cut down through the limestone.

[Read more…] about Reynard’s Cave

Winnats Pass: A Tropical and Haunting Road

by

‘Vale of the Winnets, Derbyshire’, T. Allom, c. 1830. [DERSR: 41551]
Look up the hill, you can see the winding and narrow road of Winnats Pass. This deep route runs between the two towering pinnacles of limestone on either side. The wind swirls and it’s no wonder that there is the legend of the pass being haunted by murdered two lovers.

When you head through Winnats Pass, it is difficult to imagine that this once would have been at the bottom of a tropical ocean. There are fossilised sea creatures in the limestone rocks which date back to 350 million years ago when this would have been a coral reef, the deep ravine forming when a large underground cave system collapsed. This cave system was created after melting glaciers wore away at the rock, allowing streams of water between the cracks as the limestone dissolved. These deepened the cracks and fissures, opening them up to create large caverns with thin roofs. When these collapsed, they formed steep sided valleys like the one here at Winnats Pass.

[Read more…] about Winnats Pass: A Tropical and Haunting Road

Elias Hall

by

This patch of churchyard at St. Edmunds, Castleton, is home to the grave of Elias Hall (1764 – 1853). Can you find the headstone nearby?

In Memory of Elias Hall, the geologist, who died on the 30th day of December 1853 aged 89 years. Born of parents in humble life and having a large family to provide for, yet he devoted himself to the study of geology for 70 years with powers of originality and industry rarely surpassed. To mark the last resting place of one who had worked so long and so hard for the public, a few of his friends and admirers living at a distance have placed this stone

Elias was born in Castleton. His marriage record names him as a “Petrifaction Worker” in Derby. Later he was variously described as fossilist, mineralist, geologist or surveyor in Castleton. He lived in a cottage in Cross Street, now the Greystones shop. Elias produced detailed geological models and strata maps, such as the one below, which is over 2m long when fully unfolded!

Strata map of England, Elias Hall c.1830 (Buxton Museum: DERSB : 2012.32)

[Read more…] about Elias Hall

Blue John Windows

by

You’re standing outside Treak Cliff Cavern, one of only two places in the world where Blue John is mined. (the other is Blue John Cavern, also nearby). Blue John is a variety of a mineral called fluorspar, composed of calcium fluoride (CaF2). Fluorspar comes in a range of colours, but Blue John is characterised by bluish purple with white or yellow banding. Its colour and translucency have made it popular for creating ornaments or jewellery – but these qualities have also been exploited to create decorative ‘windows’, akin to stained glass.

Blue John window by John Tym, late 1800s. DERSR : 0109

The window above was made by Castleton-born John Tym. It is made in three pieces, each containing thin slices of Blue John glued onto glass. It was commissioned in the late 1800s for Birchfield Lodge, Hope, where it remained until 1983. It is now reframed in a light box and on display at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.

[Read more…] about Blue John Windows