Memorials of old Derbyshire

by Unknown

By John Ward, F.S.A.

In prehistoric remains, Derbyshire is singularly favoured, and for two reasons. In the first place, nearly every class of these remains is represented, notably the following: cave-remains, burial-mounds, circles, camps, villages and other habitation sites, and the doubtful rocking-stones and other curious blocks and masses of rock which have been regarded as rock-idols or as otherwise associated with prehistoric man. In the second place, three of these classes—the first three of the above enumeration—are both numerous and important, scarcely surpassed by the corresponding remains of any other county in Great Britain. Moreover, these various remains have received the careful attention of a succession of antiquaries during the last century-and-a-half, and a large number of them have been more or less systematically explored, with the result that their literature is extensive and important. Derbyshire, indeed, has played a prominent part in the elucidation of the prehistoric archæology of our country.

Before entering upon the subject of this article, the distribution of these remains in the county demands a few words. They are most numerous in the mountainous region which lies north of Ashbourne and Wirksworth, and west of Tansley, Darley, and East Moors. They are rarely met with in the more gently undulating country to the east and south. Why this should be is not altogether clear. It is probable that the valleys and the low-lying lands generally, which are now the most populated, were in prehistoric times too swampy for habitation; but this does not explain the general absence of prehistoric remains from the higher tracts of the lowlands of Derbyshire. It has been suggested that the primitive inhabitants clung to the more mountainous regions because of the ease with which they could be defended against the marauding incursions of other tribes. It is more likely, however, that agriculture is mainly responsible for the uneven distribution. The fertile higher tracts of the lowlands have long been under cultivation, whereas many of the Peak uplands still remain in the primal state of nature, and many more of them have only been wrested from that state within the last two centuries. One of the earlier effects of the enclosing of the wastes in the eighteenth century and earlier decades of the following century, was the removal of the large stones of ancient monuments for gate-posts, and the despoiling of stone tumuli for the construction of field-walls and roads. Even on the moors it is rare that these remains have escaped partial demolition for the sake of their materials. If the havoc wrought during two centuries in the sparsely inhabited Peak country has been so great, it is not surprising that few prehistoric remains are to be seen where the land has been for a much longer time under cultivation. Probably the relative abundance or scarcity of stone is also to some extent accountable for the distribution. In the Peak, where stone is plentiful and rock-fragments strew the ground, cairns or stone tumuli abound; but in the south, where clays, marls, and glacial deposits abound, and stone is only obtained by quarrying, the few remaining tumuli are of earth. Earthwork, if left alone, is wonderfully enduring, but is highly susceptible of being levelled, and so obliterated, by the plough. The plough cuts through it as easily as through the natural soil; whereas in the Peak may often be seen the stony bases of cairns, covered with brambles, and avoided by the ploughman.

It is scarcely necessary to say that cairns, barrows, or tumuli, are, archæologically, the names applied to ancient burial-mounds. How the earliest races of men disposed of their dead we do not know; but we know that the earliest stages of civilization were everywhere characterized by a marked consideration for the dead, and this represents the strongest and perhaps ultimate difference between man and beast. When Neolithic man first appeared in our island, he already had an elaborate system of sepulture, and the megalithic chambers he raised are the greatest monuments of his age, and are among the most notable remains of prehistoric times. The Pyramids of Egypt are but barrows on a colossal scale, and constructed with all the engineering skill and refinement of a higher stage of culture than obtained in the west of Europe, and they will probably outlast all the other works of the ancient Egyptians.

It is not difficult to understand why burial under mounds should have preceded burial in the ground. In primitive times, before man possessed metal tools, it was easier to collect stones from the waste or to scrape sand or soil from the surface, wherewith to make a heap, than to dig a hole. Hence it is that in the tumuli of the Neolithic Age, and many of those of the following Bronze Age, interments are found upon or above the old ground level; while in others of the latter age, and many subsequent tumuli, they are found in shallow or deep excavations, over which the mounds were raised. To the early Christians the tumuli savoured of paganism, and soon ceased to be raised, but we have a reminiscence of the ancient mode of burial in our word “tomb.” In our country, as in the west of Europe generally, they range from Neolithic times to the establishment of Christianity, and the study of their contents better enables us to bridge the long interval with the successive advances made by man than does that of any other class of contemporary remains. In Derbyshire this is eminently the case, and perhaps no other English county can furnish so continuous a series of ancient interments.

In this county, as also in the contiguous parts of Staffordshire, a barrow is popularly known as a “low,” from the Anglo-Saxon hlaew, a small hill, heap, or mound, a word which is a frequent component in the place-names, as in Wardlow, Blakelow, etc. The conspicuous barrows at these and many other places so named, leave little room for doubt that they are accountable for the names, and that when absent the names may be regarded as evidence for their former existence. Whether the evidence in the case of hills, so many of the names of which in the Peak end in low, is of the same value is not so clear, as the hill itself may have been regarded as a “low” on a large scale. But it is well known that Neolithic and Bronze man had a decided penchant for burying his dead on the tops and brows of hills, as the pimple-like profile of many a barrow in such situations in the Peak amply proves. It may well have been, then, that the name by which a “low” on a hill was known has become transferred to the hill itself. It is impossible to estimate the number of these ancient burial-mounds in Derbyshire. The experienced eye will often detect on the moors the slight rise on the surface which may represent one, unmarked on the Ordnance Survey, and unrecognised as of possible archæological interest. The large number of low names, where no traces of these mounds are now to be seen, indicates that many have disappeared, as also does the occasional chance discovery of a cist or a cinerary urn where nothing on the surface indicated an interment. The number of prehistoric burial places (the Roman and post-Roman do not come within the scope of this article) which have been discovered in the county and described is little short of 300.

Fig. 1.—Plan and Section of Chambered Tumulus, Five Wells, Derbyshire.

The first impression that the literature of these remains gives rise to is their great diversity, a diversity which the reader will not unnaturally associate with differences of age or of race, or of both combined; but he will soon find their classification a difficult task. Very few of those which have been explored were in a reasonably perfect condition to begin with, and then the explorations have often been insufficient, and the descriptions vague and inexact. In spite of these drawbacks, however, the Derbyshire barrows are susceptible of satisfactory classification into three main divisions: (1) a small number containing megalithic chambers, and with general consent assigned to the Neolithic Age; (2) a large and varied number which belong to the Bronze Age; and (3) a few which are of later age, some of which certainly synchronize with the Roman occupation. These groups, it should be mentioned, merge into one another by transitional characters, and there is a residue which, from insufficient data, cannot be assigned to any particular class.