The Peak of Derbyshire: its scenery and antiquities. ... With illustrations by A. Dawson and H. Railton

Preface

This volume is intended, not only to be a useful companion for tourists in the Peak of Derbyshire, but to be of service also to those who are interested in the history and topography of that district. It is in no sense a route-book, though it contains many indications concerning roads. The obj'ect of the author has been in short to describe the physical characteristics and scenery of the Peak, and to record the historical circumstances and legendary stories that give interest to many of its localities. With that view, he has adopted the system of describing the country by its rivers and watersheds, though here and there it has been found well to depart from that arrangement. The first district treated is the valley of the Derwent, including the high lands that flank its course and are watered by its tributaries.

This chief waterway having been followed from its source to its issue from the Peak, the Wye and the Dove are severally traced upward to their springs, with mention of the interesting places that lie within their watersheds, and, similarly, the courses of the Goyt and the Etherow, which are less known to tourists, are somewhat briefly described. A comprehensive index at the end of the volume will make reference to any part of it easy. In regard to the natural beauties of the Peak, the author Preface VI has striven to avoid the exuberance of description which tends to exaggerate, as well as the opposite extreme of baldness, which would be inappropriate indeed to the present subject. It may be observed that the scenery of the Peak appeals to different travellers in widely different ways, and, for this reason, there may be some who will not agree with every description here given.

Mr. J. M. B. Baddeley, for example — whose Thorough Guide, an excellent road-book, has greatly helped the author in his wanderings, and, in some particulars, in this book — is one of those who find few charms in the Peak save in the scenery of its Dales. Mr. Louis J. Jennings, on the other hand — to whose Rambles among the Hills the author is indebted in one or two places — has few pleasures except upon the moorland heights. The author stands midway between these two positions, endeavouring to note the beauties both of the hills and the dales, and not to extol one to the neglect of the other. To Lysons's Derbyshire, Dr. Cox's scholarly Notes on the Churches of Derbyshire, and recent Reports of the Historical Manu scripts Commission, he is indebted for many of his facts ; and, throughout the volume, he has expressed his obli gation to sundry other books which he has found of value.

It remains to be added that some portions of this work have appeared in the form of articles in the Portfolio. Elm Lea, Forest Hill, May, 1 89 1. CONTENTS

Chapter I

I NTROD U CTORY Definition of " The Peak " — Its Characteristic Scenery — River Systems — Geology — History — Roman Roads and Stations— The Saxons — The Norman Conquest — Later History — Churches — Ancient Buildings I— 17

Chapter II The Upper Derwent And The Ashop

Source of the Derwent — Early Tributaries — The Westend — Abbey Grange, and the Possessions of Welbeck — "Lows" — Derwent Chapel and Hall — Derwent Edge, and the View therefrom — Ashopton — Win Hill and the View — The Derwent to Mytham Bridge — Woodland Dale and the Ashop — Its Tributary, the Alport — The Roman Road to Melandra Castle — The Northern Escarpments of Kinder Scout — The Source of the Ashop 18—35

Chapter III Kinder Scout

— EDALE — HOPE Characteristics of the Kinder Scout Range — The Western Escarpments —Mill Hill— The Mermaid's Pool— Kinder Downfall— The Scout Moor— Red Brook— The " Old Smithy "—The "Three Knolls"— Kinderlow — Edale Cross — The Source of the Noe — The Dale —Crowden Clough — The Grindsbrook — Edale Moor — Hope — The Church and Saxon Cross 36—51

Chapter IV Castleton

Hope Dale and the Peak's Hole Water — Castleton — History — Peveril's Place in the Peak — The Castle Keep — Cave Dale — The Winnats — Mam Tor — Windy Knoll — Peak Cavern or Devil's Hole — The Speedwell Mine and Cavern — The " Blue John " Cavern and Spar — Odin Mine — Elden Hole 52 — Contents VIII CHAPTER v THE NOE AND DERWENT FROM HOPE TO HATHERSAGE The Roman Station of Brough — The Bradwell Brook and Village — The Cavern — Hazlebadge Hall — Hathersage — Its Church — The Family of Eyre and its Memorial Brasses — The Tradition concerning Little John — North Lees and its Chapel — Celtic remains on Hathersage Moor — Higgar Tor and the Tumuli — Carl Wark — The View from Millstone Edge 74 — 9°

Chapter VI Eyam, And The Derwent From Hathersage To Baslow

Characteristics of the Valley — Padley Chapel and the Fitzherberts — The Highlow Brook — Celtic Remains on Abney and Eyam Moors — Eyam — Its Geology and History — The ' ' Runic " Cross — The Church — The Visitation of the Plague — Stony Middleton — Calver and Curbar — Bubnell Hall — Badow — Derwent Dale Fishing . .91 — -ill

Chapter VII Chatsworth

History — The Cavendishes — "Bess of Hardwick" — Mary, Queen ot Scots — The Building of Chatsworth House — Description — The Chapel— The Sketch Gallery — The Pictures — The State Apartments — The Library and Sculpture Gallery — The Gardens . . . 112 — 126

Chapter VIII Edensor To Matlock Bridge

Edensor— Beeley— Rowsley— Peak Tor— Stanton— Stanton Moor— The "Nine Ladies" — The Cat, Gorse, Heart and Andle Stones — Rowtor and Bradley Rocks— Birchover — Cratcliff Tor — Graned Tor or Robin Hood's Stride — Durwood Tor— Harthill Moor — Elton —Winster— Wensley— Darley— The Church and Yew— Oker H'U 127—146

Chapter IX Matlock

Matlock Bridge and Matlock Bank— History — Roman Lead Mines The Church —The High Tor— Matlock Bath— The Lover's Walks — Thermal Springs— Byron and Mary Chaworth— Petrifactions— The Rutland Cavern— The Heights of Abraham— The Romantic Rocks or Dungeon Tors— Victoria, Fluor, and Speedwell Caverns —The Cumberland Cavern— The High Tor Grotto— Willersley Castle— Wild Cat Tor— Lover's Leap .... 147—163 Contents IX

Chapter X Bonsall, Wirksworth, And The Derwent

Cromford — The Cotton Manufacture — Sir Richard Arkwright — Bonsall — Its Church and Cross — The Via Gellia — Griff Dale — Brassington Moor — Celtic Remains — Wirksworth — The Lead Mines — Courts and Customs — A Terrible Punishment — Wirksworth Church — The Black Rocks — Dethick — Anthony Babington and his Plot — Lea Hurst and Florence Nightingale 164 — 178

Chapter XI The Wye And Its Lower Tributaries

Rowsley to Fillyford Bridge— The Lathkill — Harthill Moor — Alport — The Bradford and its Glen— Youlgreave — Its Church — Fulwood's Castle — Middleton — The Upland Country Beyond — Celtic Remains — Kenslow — The Arbor Low Circle — Theories as to its Origin — Description— Other Barroivs — Monyash — Its Barmotes and Church — Characteristics of Limestone Streams — Ricklow Fern and Cales Dales — The Source of the Lathkill — Description of Lathkill Dale — Meadow Place — Over Haddon — Conksbury Bridge . . . 179 — 194

Chapter XII Haddon Hall

The Situation and Character of Haddon — Description of the Hall — The Lower Courtyard — The Chapel — The Great Hall — The Dining and Drawing Rooms — -The Upper Courtyard — The Long Gallery and State Rooms — History— The Peverils and Avenells — Richard de Vernon and his Descendants — Their Work upon Haddon Hall — Sir Henry Vemon, the Courtier — Prince Arthur — The "King of the Peak" — Dorothy Vernon — The Legend of her Elopement — John Manners and his Descendants 195 — 222

Chapter XIII Bakewell And The Wye

The Situation of Bakewell — History — The " Runic " Cross — The Church — Early Gravestones — The Vernon Monuments — Holme Hall — The Civil Wars — Hassop — Great Longstone — Ashford— Its Marbles — Old Customs — Demon or Dirnin Dale — Taddington — Its Church and Ancient Cross — Chelmorton 223 — 240

Chapter XIV Monsal Dale And The Wye Thence To Buxton

The " Dales " of Wye— Monsal Dale— The " Arcady of Derbyshire"— The View Point — Cressbrook Dale — Litton — Miller's Dale — Tideswell — Its Church — Wheston and its Wayside Cross — Monk's Dale — Wormhill — The " Water Swallows" — Geological Features — Chee Dale and Tor — Great Rocks Dale, Deep Dale and Woo Dale — Pig Tor — Cunning Dale — Ashwood Dale — The "Lovers' Leap" — Wye Dale Fishing 241 — Contents X CHAPTER xv BUXTON The Sources of the Wye— The Situation of Buxton— Its Waters— Their Qualities and Therapeutic Value — History — The Roman Station — St. Anne's Well and Chapel — Mary, Queen of Scots — Visits of Burleigh and Leicester— The Hall— Buxton in the Seventeenth Century — The Building of the Crescent — The Modern Town — Fairfield — Corbar Woods — Grinlow — Solomon's Temple— Poole's Hole — Axe Edge — Flash — Lud's Church and the Castle Cliffs — The Highest Hostel in England— The Duke's Drive . . . 258—277

Chapter XVI Ashbourne And The Tributaries Of The Dove

Ashbourne and its Memories — Walton and Cotton — Prince Charlie — Johnson and Boswell — The Church — "The Pride of the Peak" — Monuments of the Cockaynes and others — Banks and the Effigy of Penelope Boothby — Characteristics of the River Dove — Its Tributaries — The Henmoor Brook — Kniveton Hognaston and Kirk Ireton — Carsington — Brassington— Norman Churches — Brassington Rocks — Ballidon, Parwich and Alsop-en-le-Dale — The Ancient Church and Cross of Bradbourne — The River Shoo — Tissington — An Ideal Village — Its Church — Weil-Dressing — Fenny Bentley — An Extraordinary Monument 278 — 297

Chapter XVII The Dove

The Associations of the Dale — The Approach — Mappleton and Thorpe — Thorpe Cloud — Dove Dale— Its Characteristics — The "Twelve Apostles " — Tissington Spires — " Dove Dale Church" — " Reynard's Cave" — The Straits — The "Lion's Face" — Pickering Tor — Dove Holes— Mill Dale— The " Compleat Anglers "—Lode Mill— Cold Eaton Bridge— Narrow Dale— Beresford Dale— Charles Cotton— The Fishing House— Hartington — Glutton Dale— The Source of the Dove — Note on Dove Fishing 298 — 314

Chapter XVIII The Goyt And The Etherow

The Sources of the Goyt— Whaley Bridge— Roosdyche— Chapel-en-le- Frith— Its Forest Chapel— Scottish Prisoners— Old Mansions — The Peak Forest— Peak Forest Village— "St. Charles, the King and Martyr " — A Second Gretna Green— New Mills — The Sett River— Hayfield The Flanks of Kinder Scout— Mellor— The Etherow and Longden Dale — Charlesworth — Glossop — Melandra Castle — Upper Longden Dale — Conclusion 315 — 330 Index 331—340 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE HADDON HALL, EAST FRONT Frontispiece MAM TOR 46 PEVERIL CASTLE AND THE APPROACH TO THE CAVES 66 CHATSVVORTH II4 THE ITALIAN GARDEN, CHATSWORTH 1 24 HIGH TOR, MATLOCK 152 HADDON FROM THE RIVER 196 THE UPPER COURT-YARD, HADDON I98 THE DRAWING-ROOM, HADDON HALL 200 THE EAGLE TOWER, HADDON HALL 202 BANQUETING HALL, HADDON HALL 206 THE CHAPEL, HADDON HALL .' . 208 THE NORTH FRONT, HADDON HALL 212 BOWMEN'S GALLERY, HADDON HALL 2l8 THE POSTERN, HADDON HALL 220 ASHFORD 232 miller's DALE 246 THE WYE NEAR CHEE TOR 252 THORPE CLOUD 304 ILAM ROCK, DOVE DALE 308 The device on the cover is from the Cross at Bakewell.

Chapter I Introductory

Definition of "The Peak" — Its Characteristic Scenery — River Systems — Geology — History — Roman Roads and Stations — The Saxons — The Norman Conquest — Later History — ■ Churches — Ancient Buildings. THE " Peak of Derbyshire " is a term which, to many, does not carry with it a very definite signification, for although most of the favourite resorts of tourists are known to lie within Peakland, few have inquired as to the boundaries of that district. Some authorities, like the Ordnance Surveyors, have named, as " The Peak," that high table-land in the north-western portion of the county which extends from Kinder Scout on the west to Ashop and Edale Moors on the east, while writers of guide-books have allowed themselves at times a pleasant latitude in describing such places as Hardwick Hall, Bolsover Castle, and Winfield Manor, and even other favourite resorts, like Ham Hall, the valley of the Manifold, and Thor's Cave, in the neighbouring county of Stafford.

B Desirable as it may be, from some points of view, thus to widen the field by overstepping territorial limits, the scope of a writer becomes thereby ill defined, and conse quently his work is apt to be not wholly satisfactory. Peakland, as described in this book, will therefore be limited almost entirely to the region of the High Peak Hundred of Derbyshire, and the Wapentake of Wirks worth, to which the name Low Peak Hundred has sometimes been given. The district thus defined in cludes the high moors at the northern end of the county, with the whole of the Peak Forest, the valleys of the Wye and the upper Derwent, as well as the eastern bank of the Dove in its upper course — that river separating the counties of Stafford and Derby — the favourite resorts of Castleton, Buxton, Bakewell, Chatsworth, Haddon, Matlock, and Ashbourne, and nearly the whole of that river scenery for which Derbyshire is everywhere celebrated.

Its boundaries are conterminous with those of the county on the west, north, and north-east, where it is separated from Staffordshire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire. On the east, from a point near Ringing Low, and some three miles from Hathersage, it is divided from the Hundred of Scarsdale by a line which follows the high lands of East Moor, and the moors of Beeley, Darley, and Tansley ; and, on the south-east and south, it is separated from the Hundreds of Appletree, and of Morleston and Litchurch, by a line which, having crossed the Derwent, proceeds south-westward to near Ireton Wood, and then turning to the west, includes Kirk Ireton, Hognaston, Kniveton, and Ashbourne, near Introductory 3 which last-named place it joins the western boundary of Peakland at the river Dove. The important market-town of Bakewell has been styled the " capital of the Peak," and its large parish occupies a considerable portion of the High Peak Hundred.

The other parishes in that division are those of Glossop, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Castleton, Hope, Hathersage, Tideswell, Eyam, and Edensor. It also includes parts of those of Youlgreave and Darley, which extend into the Wapentake of Wirksworth. That Wapentake comprises, in addition, the parishes of Hartington, Fenny Bentley, Thorpe, Mappleton, Brad bourne, Wirksworth, Matlock, Bonsall, Kirk Ireton, Kniveton, and parts of that of Ashbourne, as well as the township of Tansley in the parish of Crich. The chief waterway of the Peak is the river Derwent, which, by its upper tributaries, the Westend, the Ashop, and the Noe, having drained the eastern watershed of the great moors of the north, flows almost due southward through a wooded and pastoral valley to Baslow, Chats worth, and Rowsley, where it receives the Wye, and thence through Darley Dale to the great Tor and cliffs of Matlock, beyond which it pursues its way to Derb}* and its confluence with the Trent.

The Wye flows in a south-easterly direction from the hills above Buxton, through Ashwood Dale, Chee Dale, and Millers and Monsal Dales — which it is enough here to name — to Ashford and Bakewell, and then, having passed the cele brated mansion of Haddon, receives the waters of the Lathkill and the Bradford, and falls into the Derwent B at Rowsley. The Dove influences the scenery of the Peak much less than either the Derwent or the Wye, for its delightful valley is somewhat in the nature of a cleft, and its lateral watershed is therefore small. In addition to these rivers, the Goyt and the Etherow on the western and northern border, receiving certain small tributaries, drain westward into the Mersey. The chief elevations of the High Peak, as given by the Ordnance Surveyors, are Kinder Low (2,083 feet), Edale Moor and Bleaklow Head (2,061 feet), Fairbrook Naze (2,049 feet), Kinder Scout (2,041 feet), Madwoman's Stones, Ashop Moor (1,870 feet), and Axe Edge (1,807 feet)- The scenery of the Peak of Derbyshire is that which generally characterizes the millstone-grit and limestone formations.

That of the grit is stern, sombre, and wild, with a certain grandeur of which the other is often destitute. The valleys are comparatively wide, and are generally wooded on their slopes, and the hills are crested with level terraces or edges of the rock, broken up into huge masses, and dark and much weather-worn, as in the millstone-grit scenery of Yorkshire. From the slopes below they have the aspect of bastions, and one may well fancy that some Titanic defenders ol old hurled down upon their assailants the broken blocks which are now to be seen in the valleys. The limestone hills, on the other hand, are rounder in their outline, and do not attain the same altitude. Their steep, or per pendicular escarpments of rock, are generally at the base of the slopes, frowning upon the rivers, and sometimes weathered to singular shapes ; and their Introductory 5 broken surfaces have assumed a pleasing colour, for they have given root to mosses and ferns, and are often overhung with greenery.

Yet, in the scenery both of the millstone-grit and the limestone, we have the same great uplands, rolling and undulating in open fields, or heath-clad moorlands, almost destitute of trees, through which the streams, coming down from their gathering grounds in the hills, have carried on by erosion the work that convulsion often began, leaving us lovely valleys, where these precipitous rocks curb the course of the water, or dominate it from the hills, and where the rivers, with many deeps and shallow's, pursue their devious ways over stony beds, overhung by the wood lands. Just as it is delightful to drop down from the bare height of Rumbalds Moor into the winding valley of the Yorkshire Wharfe, so, in many places in Derby shire, are we enchanted, having traversed the lonely uplands, to reach some view point which commands a meeting, it may be, of the valleys, or to descend by a steep path into the dale.

On the other hand, many who have traced the course of a river, find a delight in ascending to the tops of the hills, where there is a sense of expanse, of breezy freedom, which the valley did not afford. The distinguishing merit of the Derbyshire Dales is their variety of characteristic scenery, for now the river pursues a rock-bound way, or flows between um brageous slopes, or amid fantastic pinnacles and weather worn escarpments of limestone, or it may be, again, beneath cliffs of millstone-grit capping a limestone base, but always its course is through some attractive scene. The stratification of the Peak is palæozoic, or primary, and its formations are the carboniferous limestone, beds of shale and toadstone, and the millstone grit, which give such character to its scenery. The limestone series, which is probably some 1500 feet in thickness, covers almost the whole area of the district south of Buxton, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Hope, and Hather sage, and the convulsions which it has suffered may be traced in the rifts and chasms of the valleys, where also in places, as, for example, near Matlock, the consider able dip of the stratification is exposed.

The fantastic weathering of the limestone in Dove Dale, and, in a less degree, elsewhere in the Derbyshire valleys, has added wonderful picturesqueness to the scenery. Great rents in this formation are exposed, and can be investigated in the strange and wonderful caverns of Buxton, Matlock and Castleton. That these rifts are extensive in other parts of the Peak seems probable. We know at any rate of the subterranean waterways through which, in many places in the district — in the neighbourhood of Eyam, for instance — streams pursue their course, having disappeared from the surface through what are locally termed "swallows," and found a sunken bed from which they emerge lower down. The limestone is largely quarried for building purposes, and a fine black variety is worked at Ashford, while the encrinitic layers are cut •and polished as the well-known " Derbyshire Marble."

Phillips says that the interstratified shale and grit, or flagstone, series, above the limestone, is about 500 feet in thickness. It gives rise to landslips, and forms the Introductory 7 slipping base of the millstone-grit at Mam Tor, which has caused that elevation to be called the " Shivering Mountain." The superincumbent millstone-grit occupies the area north of the line we mentioned from Hathersage, by Hope and Castleton, to Buxton, which last-named place stands well at the point where the limestone emerges. The varied character of the limestone scenery is re placed in the northern hills of the Peak by the severe character of the grit formation, and by the straight lines, or edges, which are a distinctive feature of it. The grit is found also in several places south of the boundary line we have indicated, as along the valley of the Derwent and at the Black Rocks near Cromford ; and the whole stratification may be well observed at Eyam, which itself stands upon the mountain limestone, while some what north of it, the shale beds rise abruptly, capped by the later millstone-grit.

Just beyond our boundary, at Crich Hill, is one of the most remarkable instances of disrupted stratification in England, where a huge mass of limestone has been forced up by volcanic action right through the superincumbent grit. The carboniferous limestone of the Peak is in places rich in fossil remains, very many species of coelenterata, annulosa, mollusca, and vertebrata having been found. It appears from excavations made some years ago at the quarry of Windy Knoll, near the top of the Win nats Pass at Castleton, as well as elsewhere, in caves and river gravels, that the remains of the ancient fauna include the bones and teeth of the mammoth, rhinoceros, grizzly-bear, wolf, bison (in great numbers), rein deer, roe-deer, and some of the rodentia. For such matters Mello's Handbook to the Geology of Derbyshire, and Pennington's Barrows and Bone Caves of Derbyshire, are useful books.

The consideration of the mineral resources of the Peak, brings us very naturally to the history of the district (which should be slightly sketched here), for the lead, which is found abundantly all over the limestone area, and especially in the neighbourhood of Castleton, Matlock, and Wirksworth, was worked at a very early period, and made Derbyshire an important centre in Roman times. Long, however, before the coming of the Romans, the Britons had probably discovered the mineral resources of the Peak — Pliny, indeed, tells us that in Britain lead was dug up in plenty in the very upper crust of the ground — as well as the strength of its fastnesses against attack, for monuments which we ascribe to them crowd the hills of Derbyshire. What was the exact relation of the Druids to the singular blocks and isolated stones which are found upon the moors will never be known, but we shall have occasion later to refer to many remarkable examples of them upon Stanton Moor and elsewhere, as well as to the considerable stone circle at Arbor Low or Arbelows, some four miles from Hartington, that named the Nine Ladies upon Stanton Moor, and one upon Eyam Moor, the defensive position of Carl Wark near Hathersage, and many tumuli and other relics of early occupation.

Mr. Bateman's Vestiges of the Antiquities of Derbyshire Introductory 9 and Ten Years' Diggings throw much light upon these works. The evidences of Roman occupation in the Peak, though not numerous, are considerable. The very im portant British way named the Ryknield Street, entering the county at Egginton, led north-eastward to Derventio (Little Chester, near Derby) on its way to Chesterfield, which is generally believed to have been the Lutudarum of the Romans, thus keeping some miles to the eastward of the Peak boundary. But, from Derventio — pro ceeding probably as far as Darleyslade in the line of the great iter to Ad Trivonam (Branston) — an im portant Roman hill-road led north-westward to Buxton, which was probably the Aquis of the Ravennas, and thence to Mancunium (Manchester). There are yet distinct traces of this way on Brassington Moor, and to the north of the village of Hartington in the neighbourhood of the high-road from Derby to Buxton, which in places coincides with its route.

The distance from Derventio to Buxton is more than thirty miles, and it is impossible to doubt that an intermediate station existed upon the iter. In fact, a camp has been found, of Roman character, at Lombard's Green, near Parwich, the name of which has been interpreted as Parvus vicus, but this place, though it is midway between the two stations, lies some two miles or more westward of the apparent course of the road. The Parwich camp, there fore, where an urn and Roman coins have been found, may have been either an outpost, or a station upon some vicinal way. North-westward of Buxton the road to Mancunium leaves the Peak district at or near Whaley Bridge, in the vicinity of which, at Roosdyche, may still be seen the remains of a Roman chariot-course or Rhedagua. A second Roman road, now known by the name of Batham Gate, coming from the direction of Congleton, passed through the station at Buxton, and proceeded north-eastward by Small Dale and near the village of Peak Forest, and then by Tideswell and Bradwell Moors and the Bradwell Brook, to the Roman camp at Brough in the parish of Hope — whence it was doubtless con tinued north-eastward in the direction of Danum (Don caster) for an ancient causeway has been traced from the Derwent valley leading to Hallam Moors.

The Roman name of Brough, which was occupied by a cohort, not improbably of the Frisian legion, has not been ascertained. Another important road, leaving Mancunium with the great ninth iter of Antonine (which passed through that station on its line from Chester to York), turned south-eastward, at a point called Doctor's Lane Head, through the Roman camp of Melandra Castle in the Parish of Glossop, where also was a cohort of Frisians, and thence led through the hills to Brough. Between Melandra Castle and the Brough camp, this road is known by the name of Doctor's Gate, and can be traced plainly in the neighbourhood of the Shelf Brook. It then crossed the hills, and followed the valley between Alport Moor, and Featherbed Moss, Glossop Moor, turned slightly eastward through the Ashop Valley Introductory 11 beneath Hey Ridge, crossed the hills by the slope of Blackley Hey into Noe Dale, and descended thus to Brough, which it entered on its north-western side.

The military character of this road, which led through the heart of the fastnesses of the Peak, and had a great strategic value, is clearly evidenced by the fact that, of the Frisian legion, a strong force was stationed at Man cunium, a cohort at Melandra, and another cohort, probably, as we have said, also of the Frisians, at Brough, the road thus being held by posts at regular intervals. It is permissible to surmise that this way was continued south-eastward in the direction of Abney Moor to Eyam, where Wood, in his history of that place, says a Rhedagua, or chariot-course, existed some years ago, and where coins of Probus, Gallienus, and Victorinus have been found, perhaps to a post there, or near Stony Middleton, where also coins have been discovered. We may suppose, then, that the road passed the neighbour hood of the ancient town of Bakewell, with the baths of which there is good reason to believe the Romans were acquainted, and it should be noted that, between Bake well and Haddon, was discovered that altar, now pre served in the porch of Haddon Hall, which Ositius Caecilianus, prefect of the first cohort of the Aquitani, dedicated to the god Mars.

It may be, indeed, that the Saxon military post at Bakewell occupied and strength ened a station which the Romans had left. We pre sume then that the road in question followed, south of Bakewell, the direction of the Derwent — many evidences of Roman occupation have been found at Oker Hill — and traversed the district of Matlock, Cromford — where there was a great " find " of coins of the Lower Empire — and Wirksworth, for we know that the Romans worked the lead-mines there in the time of Hadrian, and doubt less long before, by inscribed pigs of the metal which have been found. Finally, in regard to this way from Mancunium by Melandra Castle and Brough, it is inter esting to note that a road has been distinctly traced from the lead-mines of Wirksworth, crossing the Der went between Belper and Duffield in the direction of the station of Derventio.

The roads thus described had a double value, for they enabled the Romans to hold in check the native population, and, at the same time, to develop the mineral resources of the Peak ; but we have no reason to doubt that, in addition, there were many other smaller and non-military wrays threading the valleys, or climbing the hills of this elevated region. Certainly it seems natural to suppose that the road from Mancunium, besides its suggested extension to Derventio, threw off a branch in the direction of the present road from Stony Middleton to Chesterfield. The Rev. John Watson (Archæologia, iii.) has suggested a road also from Melandra Castle southward across the hills to Buxton. Little is known of the history of the Peak of Derby shire during the period that followed the departure of the Romans, or of its settlement by the English invaders who came by the valley of the Trent ; but we may well believe that the Britons long held out in the fastnesses of the north, and that it was not without a hard struggle Introductory 13 that the strangers secured the weird passes through the hills.