THE DALES
Perhaps the most startling view in all Peakland is that from “Headstone Edge”—as oldfashioned countrymen call the place—at the curve of Monsal Dale. There, after leaving the dusty road and crossing a few yards of grassy waste, one looks down into the great valley, where the Wye runs tranquilly between broken-edged meadows, with abrupt hills on either side. A viaduct crosses the stream; to the left is a smooth lake with gleaming surface. A narrow path descends and runs alongside the bank until the Ashford road is reached.
The uplands above Monsal Dale are dull and uninspiring. No hedgerows are to be seen; the fields are surrounded by walls of loosely built limestone that fall in gaps during every rough storm. A considerable portion of the small farmer’s time must be devoted to their repair. The stone is of a greyish white, and in winter is embellished with orange lichen. The scattered trees that have attained a shrivelled maturity are almost invariably lopsided. Thorns are the most common; sometimes one finds thereon puny flowers long after the passing of mid-summer.
Here and there are broken chimneys and sheds of deserted lead mines; those familiar with the country find these not unpicturesque. The masonry still retains its startling whiteness, and neither fern nor moss grows in the interstices. From the distance they resemble castle ruins, and, where the machinery and rotting beams remain, recall to mind Browning’s poem of “Childe Rolande to the Dark Tower Came”. Young folk are fascinated by the precincts of these mines—there are dwarf plantations, deep holes full of discoloured water, and mounds of yellow and white debris, on which bloom in summer wild pansies, golden, pale blue, and richest purple.
Centuries ago this district was the haunt of wolves. Camden writes that in his time “there is no danger of them in these places, though formerly infested by them, for the taking of which some persons held lands here at Wormhill, from whence the persons were called Wolve-hunt, as is manifest from the Records of the Tower”. It is easy enough to picture the red deer being pursued across the waste, and climbing for safety to the rocks that overhang the swiftly flowing Wye.
Despite its railway, Monsal Dale is the Arcady of Peakland, a happy restful place where one never wearies of looking upon the tender green meadows and the clear, winding stream. The cottages seem as though they must be inhabited by a people apart who have little in common with to-day. It is a fitting background for pastorals, dainty and mirth-provoking as Gay’s Shepherd’s Week. When evening falls, the valley takes on an aspect of some grandeur; the hills grow steeper, the trees become stouter of bole and denser of foliage; there is no sound save the comfortable lapping of the stream. At times a hollow rumble sounds in the far distance, increases and increases, and the lighted train flies across the viaduct, and, passing the little station, disappears in the farther tunnel. But for this connection with modern life Monsal Dale would belong altogether to the distant past.
Beyond the Ashford road stretches a weird little ravine known as Demon’s Dale; a dark and narrow place where one would scarce care to go o’ nights. It has a fantastically unreal appearance; it might be a robber’s haunt in some oldfashioned melodrama.
Cressbrook Dale opens to the right, near a cotton mill which is less unpicturesque than most of its kind. This valley is scarce known to the ordinary tourist, and yet there is no denying its peculiar beauty. Not far from the mill stand some melancholy cottages which a shrewd local wit christened “Bury-me-wick”. At the farther end, near Wardlow Mires, where was the last instance of gibbeting in England, rises a curious rock, in shape not unlike a cottage loaf, which bears the name of “Peter’s Stone”, probably given in the days when the High Peak was a Catholic country.