News from the National Trust Booking now open for Ecton Copper Mine Tours and Foxhole Cave 2018. We know that members were disappointed to miss out on this opportunity last year. If you are still keen to book a tour inside the former copper mine, which added substantially to the wealth of the Dukes of Devonshire especially the Crescent, bookings are now being taken by the Estate Office. Call 01335 350503 Foxhole Cave 2 hour tour available 23rd June £6. Involves squeezing through tight spaces and some crawling.
Tribute to Fran Dean Sadly we recently lost our dear friend and colleague Fran Dean. She died very suddenly which left all of us who knew and worked with her devasted. She was a friend to everyone at Poole’s Cavern and was aptly nicked named the ‘HUB’. She kept everything going and was there to help each of us with work or just to listen if we needed it. Fran was part of the team for ten years. As well as keeping the accounts in order she organised the membership, keeping meticulous records. She cared about all of us who worked with her. Many of our customers became her friends over the years; including the dogs. A truly lovely person, we will miss her buzzing around the building, hearing her laughter. She had a great sense of humour, we will always hold happy memories of her. Paula Pickering
We would really enjoy reading your articles and seeing your photos about Buxton in our newsletter Copy deadline for our next issue is June 25th 2018 Editor Alyson Phillips newsletter@buxtoncivicassociation.org.uk BCA1967
Buxton Civic Association Newsletter
General Manger Alan Walker Communications Simon Fussell
Chair Mike Monaghan Secretary Martin Wragg
Corporate Affairs Jonathan Davey Planning Andy Banks Woodlands Peter Phillipson
The Quarrying Legacy of Buxton Page 4
Community & Membership Mike Wilde Helen Haywood Newsletter Alyson Phillips
Places & Spaces Alan Roberts
Octagon Update Page 8
t 01298 26978 e communications@buxtoncivicassociation.org.uk
www. buxtoncivicassociation.org.uk
Music & Film in the Cave Page 3
Treasurer Brian Shawcross
Heritage Adam Bench Buxton Civic Association Poole’s Cavern Visitor Centre Green Lane Buxton SK17 9DH
A Visit to Buxton in the 1820s Page 2
Board Members
Environment Andy Banks
Registered Charity No. in England & Wales 258163
Summer 2018
What’s Inside
Management Team
Archives Brian Lawrence
Issue 39
Lismore Fields Page 6 Amazing New Cave Lighting Page 9
News from the Editor
A Visit to Buxton in the 1820s
BCA shows its commitment to where we live by the care taken with Poole’s Cavern, the Visitor Centre and café and our woods. Your membership shows that you share this commitment towards our environment and we use your contribution for day to day maintenance and to action new projects that are outlined in this latest Newsletter. You have unrestricted parking and free entry to Poole’s Cavern included in your membership so come soon and experience the new lighting. Then afterwards enjoy your 10% discount in the café. The Newsletter will alert you to the campaigns and concerns in the town – currently especially regarding the town centre, Pavilion Gardens and Serpentine. There is also an opportunity to learn more about our rich natural and historical inheritance through the articles contributed by members. The pressure to build is always with us. BCA keeps its nine woods as an asset for the town and your valuable donation and time given in volunteering is caring in action. Big thanks are due to all the contributors to the Newsletter, especially Bob Bohme for the ‘new look’. Bob became a volunteer because he wanted to thank BCA for the Country Park, a great asset and a perfect place to walk with his dog, Ralph. Alyson Phillips Editor
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Where have all the Swifts gone? and why BCA is needed more than ever When we came to Buxton some 17 years ago one of the joys was to walk into town in an evening in late May, early June and see and hear the swifts tearing around the Square and the Opera House. There must have been upwards of 50 of them and their calls were so evocative of early summer.
Reasons for joining BCA We Care Where We Live Here in Buxton we are so fortunate to have the Country Park. So many people choose a walk up to Solomon’s Temple or to Corbar Cross as a favourite place to ‘be’; a place to care about and to feel affection for.
Notes from the Chairman
Swifts are one of our more amazing birds. Apart from the brief breeding period they are always aloft. The fledglings, leaving their nests on one of Buxton’s older buildings, will never touch down for three years making two trips to and from Africa in that time.
The wood engraver Thomas Bewick, famous for his beautifully-detailed studies of birds and animals and humorous scenes of country life, twice travelled from his native Newcastle upon Tyne to take the waters in Buxton. In 1826 he arrived with his daughters Jane and Isabella, and met up with his great friend John Dovaston, who later wrote down memories of their time together. Dovaston described Buxton as ‘that naked but neat little town’ – the surrounding woodlands had not yet grown up. The resourceful Jane Bewick had found ‘very good lodgings facing the fountain-corner of the superb Crescent, nearly opposite the Old Hall’, and Bewick sat by the window, sketching thumbnail caricatures of the decrepit passersby going to the spa. ‘Of mornings he walked out before the gnats and butterflies (as he called the company) began to frisk . . . I found him in a place they call the grove’ - a narrow belt of stunted larches – ‘playing with a group of curly rosy children, for whom he was drawing funny figures on a painted bench, and telling them the names of birds, insects, and plants’. They visited ‘Poole’s Hole, which on account of the chilly damp’, Bewick ‘declined to enter with me and the young ladies; while we were exploring the strange and fantastic formations of calcareous tufa . . . the Flitch of Bacon, the Saddle, and Mary Stuart’s pillar (which, it is said, she went quite round when
a prisoner at Chatsworth), I found, on our emerging, he had collected his handkerchief full of nettle-tops, which, when boiled, he ate in his soup, with very keen relish’. Despite his qualms about ‘dripping’ Poole’s Cavern, Bewick ‘expressed a busy desire to see that tremendous and far-famed cavern . . . called The Devil’s Arse i’ th’ Peak’, and their day in Castleton turned out to be the highlight of the holiday. A hired carriage took them through ‘the pretty village of Fairfield, jaunting merrily o’er the bare and smooth, but sunny mountains of Derbyshire’. ‘As we rumbled along by the curious “Dove-holes” . . . and the “Shivering Rock” of Mam Tor’, Bewick was looking out for ring ouzels on the rocky slopes – but in vain. After visiting Peak Cavern, they ‘clambered up to the castle of the renowned Peveril of the Peak, amid the weedy ruins of whose deserted halls’, they ate the dinner they had ordered to be delivered there. Then, as the girls collected fossils and wild flowers, the miracle happened. Like many wildlife film-makers of today, they suddenly saw, in the last moments of their visit, the sight they had been waiting for. A pair of ring ouzels alighted on the wall, and Bewick, ‘in ecstasy of delight . . . tenderly exclaimed “Pretty darlings! pretty darlings!”’. Diana Donald is author of The Art of Thomas Bewick (Reaktion Books, 2013)
That we may be facing the total disappearance of such a remarkable bird and many other species seems to me to be tragic. And sadly we often hardly notice the decline until it is too late. So why do we now see hardly any swifts? The reasons are multiple and not fully understood. They include loss of suitable nesting sites in old buildings, dramatic reduction in the number of insects, excessive use of pesticides in modern agriculture and more frequent droughts in southern Africa as a result of climate change.
So what has this to do with BCA? We can do little directly to ‘solve’ the problem of disappearing swifts. However, our work in preserving the extensive areas of woodland we own and manage, provides a valuable habitat for many species of birds and butterflies and is a great breeding ground for many other insects. Our efforts to preserve some of the fine old buildings in the town may also provide some nesting sites for the swifts. Importantly, our education programmes
for young people, especially through school visits and with volunteers working alongside our BCA staff, promotes understanding of habitat. Our monthly talks for members, and other talks about BCA to a wide range of local groups, all help to spread awareness of the importance of looking after our wild places. Our future plans include measures to improve the biodiversity of the woodlands. An example of this is the creation of further ‘rides’, such as the very successful one established three years ago in Grinlow. A significant increase in the number of birds and butterflies, as well as a wonderful display of wild flowers, has been the reward. We are also developing new guide books (on screen and paper) for visitors to our woods.
Our interests are not confined to our own land. Amongst the areas of concern covered in this Newsletter I wish to reinforce immediate concerns for these two:
Serpentine Farm We continue to give support to the wonderful Serpentine Farm initiative which is under threat from proposed new housing. We have supported the Farm from its outset and are surprised and disappointed by developments. The Farm was granted a license in 2015 by HPBC and took over a site which was formerly used by the Council as a nursery for the parks. It was in an appalling state of neglect. Hundreds of hours of voluntary work had to be put in to clear rubbish. They also unearthed a collapsed greenhouse which they have brought back into use. Its current vibrant state is a credit to volunteers who have invested enormous
amounts of time and raised significant funds to further the work. The uses to which it is now put include offering the opportunity for volunteers of all ages to develop skills in horticulture and learn about growing vegetables, fruit and herbs in the Buxton climate; activities that provide health and social well-being. The Council wish to sell the site as a whole and this is widely opposed by the community as evidenced by the two petitions against this idea. The Serpentine Walks area was a gift to Buxton by the Chatsworth Estate for us all. If developed for housing it will be lost forever as a community benefit.
Street Trees We are also in the process of developing a campaign to assist HPBC to come up with a plan which reverses the current automatic felling of problem street trees with no replacement. In 30 years, if this policy is not reversed, Buxton will have few street trees. We work alongside other groups with complementary interests such as Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, Friends of the Peak District, Buxton Town Team and others and are in regular touch with Nestle to ensure that their management of Lightwood is as sensitive to the needs of wildlife and local people as possible. BCA is playing its part in the urgently vital work of preserving and improving our local environment. We are grateful to the large and growing number of members who share our concerns and contribute to our activities. Mike Monaghan Chairman
Places and Spaces We take photos of vulnerable and at risk sites and discuss how small steps can make big changes. Old Toilet Block on Water Street: One special reward for tenacity has been the rethink by HPBC on the unused land in Water Street. This was originally a public toilet and has been left as a semi derelict space for years. When BCA’s Places and Spaces group had an artist’s impression drawn to show the area as a garden HPBC decided that the space would be needed to store a metal container while work was done on the Opera House. However, due to our persistence the Planning. Department will now be looking at their proposals.
Serpentine River Bank: It has been reported that HPBC will grass over the area where the weir has been restored in the Serpentine Walks. If you would like to see some more appropriate planting in this vulnerable area please contact the Places and Spaces group with your ideas as well as letting HPBC know about your concerns.
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News From Our Committees
For information about how to join one of these groups contact the Chair, see back cover
Woodland
Planning & Enviroment
BCA has been approached about the strip of woodland behind the railway station. This is an important wildlife corridor and BCA will be investigating how we will be involved.
Serpentine Community Farm – we continue to work with SCF and a number of meetings have been held.
Unfortunately we have had to cut back an old elm that survived Dutch elm disease in the 1970s but has succumbed to another disease. It has been cut back to its main trunk as this may allow the development of further growth. Go Ape have been working on the course over the winter and now have a new zip wire making the highest rope course in the country even more exciting. Trees planted by BCA volunteers are along the fringes of the woodland ride. Using indigenous hazel, blackthorn, dogwood and yew we continue to diversify the woodland that was mainly planted with beech over 200 years ago to screen the old lime workings. Volunteers installed 15 birdboxes and cleaned out the existing boxes in January. News Flash – They are occupied! Evidence has been seen of horses in Corbar and Gadley Woods.
Membership & Community Volunteers needed to help on membership evenings - last Thursday of each month to set up and serve refreshments. There will be a community notice board in the café for members use. We apologise for any difficulties BCA members may have had over delayed issuing of membership cards and appreciate the patience shown. We hope to have the membership database updated as soon as possible. We are planning to have stalls at the Buxton Spring Fair on 7th May and the Charities Bazaar on 28th July. Please volunteer for an hour. Civic Day Saturday 16th June There will be a stall at Turner’s Memorial from 10 am-4pm with a display to highlight the work and responsibilities of BCA. If you can join the rota please contact Simon at communication@buxtoncivicassociation.org.uk Please try to come along and support this national day when we celebrate the importance of our civic heritage and responsibilities. We would like to encourage more young active members to join the association and will be planning to work with local scout and guide groups in order to help with badges such as orienteering, photography, wildlife, forestry and the environment.
A detailed report has been submitted to HPBC on both the Foxlow Farm Housing HPBC 2017/0590and Burlow Road Developments HPBC 2017/0613 (2 SITES). The group works closely with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and the Buxton Group. We commented on the archaeology, site conditions, nature conservation and biodiversity. Our other comments included energy conservation, sustainable transport and housing design. Please look on HPBC website ‘public response’ for more comments. Leek Road Development HPBC 2017/0511. We are watching this small development as it relates to the old lime houses in this field which have been listed. DWT have been contacted about wild flowers that thrive on lime spoil. The Station Road Development. HPK/2018/0120 - McCarthy and Stone HPK/2018/0125 - NHS. The planning documents for the redevelopment are on HPBC website where you can leave comments. Final date for comments is 10.05.18. Buxton Neighbourhood Development Plan (BNPD) Members from BCA planning group have attended two meetings about the development of a plan that will advise changes in this town for the next 50 years. The Local Planning Authority may designate an organisation or body as a neighbourhood forum. Interested people were invited to a meeting, organised by Buxton Town Team. Members of BCA Planning Committee attended as well as individuals and people from all the groups in town who are promoting a positive future for our neighbourhood. If you would like more information, especially about the next meeting, please contact buxtonndp@gmail.com
Corporate Affairs Nestle: Committee members met with the new head of Nestle who has shown interest in environmental matters especially expressing interest in projects at Lightwood and supporting restoration of the Market Street Fountain on Buxton Market Place. Paul Hare from HPBC is also supporting us with this project. Serpentine Farm: Support has been given to the Serpentine Farm Project through articles quoting Mike Monaghan (chair) to the Buxton Advertiser and Buxton Pure Magazine. BCA will also write to the Duke of Devonshire in support of the continued use of this land as a community resource. Please see letters in the press for more details. The Serpentine Walks were left to the people of Buxton, in perpetuity, as a last gift by 7th Duke just before he died. It is important that we keep this protest in the public arena and remain very wary about infringements to the Pavilion Gardens which were saved by our persistence 50 years ago. Plastic recycling: BCA policy is to provide free tap water to anyone who comes in to the visitor centre from jugs and glasses in the café. Our take away coffee cups are biodegradable. We are working with Buxton Town Team to get a water supply at Turner’s Memorial.
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Buxton Festival | Poole’s Cavern | July 18-21 An extraordinary, atmospheric new work - Experiential Dance Company The show features a three-man cast - Joseph Delaney, Luke Rigg, Alex Rowland, all of whom trained as contemporary dancers. Live music, written and performed by Hayley Youell and filmed footage created by Rachel Johnson, takes place entirely underground at coalmines, caves, and tunnels around the country giving the audience an up-close-and-personal, intense experience like no other. In July the show will perform at Poole’s Cavern as part of the Buxton Festival: Poole’s Cavern is a two-million-year-old natural limestone cave on the edge of Buxton in the Peak District, Derbyshire.
to the subsequent weeks when they managed to make contact with the outside world.
Rachel Johnson (Artistic Director): “I was keen to find underground locations that aren’t in the middle of nowhere; in fact, Poole’s Cavern is actually in the middle of housing and very central – you don’t have to hike up a mountain to get there!”
www.buxtonfestival.co.uk
“I was so inspired, I had to use some of that detail to create the show. My research across many mining – and of course ex-mining communities across the UK also fed into the creative process, I’ve discovered stories of camaraderie and an extraordinary sense of fun which the miners needed to get them through.”
TRAPPED is a homage to the true story of 33 miners who were trapped miles underground for 69 days in 2010 when the San Jose copper goldmine in northern Chile collapsed on top of them. A massive international rescue operation was watched on TV by millions of people around the world who held their breath as, one by one, the miners were winched to safety. Against all odds, all the miners were rescued and all of them survived their terrifying ordeal. “Along with the rest of the world I watched the rescue on TV and then read the book ‘Deep Down Dark’ by the Pulitzer prize winning journalist Hector Tobar. It captures this unique drama so vividly; from the conflicts and the emotions that enveloped the men during their first fortnight underground, when death by starvation loomed,
Rachel Johnson Artistic Director
Hayley Youell Singer and Composer
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News From the Cavern
Try Eating Out!
Cave Science Centre
We have new picnic tables so that we can all enjoy the fresh air when we stop off at the café for a great breakfast, a quick lunchtime snack or just a coffee and a chat.
It is proposed that BCA and the British Cave Research Association will jointly commit to the establishment of a British Cave Monitoring Centre at Poole’s Cavern. The BCRA is a registered charity whose objective is to promote the study of caves. The establishment of a monitoring site would enable the collection of long term data from site to be used as part of cave related science projects. If this monitoring centre is established here it will be the only such site in Britain and will become the focus for cave science. In particular the intention will be to promote cave science among young researchers and produce a valuable resource for our show cave, educating visitors about the unique environment found inside caves.
Record Visitor Numbers 2017 saw a record number of visitors, 54,000 in the cave. We have had a very good start to the year with increased numbers of visitors in January and February. The trend continues after one of our busiest summers ever last year - especially August.
Amazing New Cave Lighting
Grinlow Quarry BCA Archive
The Quarrying Legacy of Buxton A Talk to BCA Members by Viv Russell Tarmac is an example of a company that takes its responsibility both for the environment and the local community seriously. Requests for help from BCA for our paths have been generously answered by Tarmac. We welcomed Viv Russell, Director of Lime and Powders at Tarmac, to talk to us for our Members’ Night in November. Processed lime is integral to our modern lifestyle and is used in everything, from water treatment to the manufacture of plastic, glass and pharmaceuticals. Tarmac is the biggest producer of lime based products in the UK. Viv concentrated his talk on the importance of the people and communities that are, and will always be, involved in the lime business likening the early days of quarrying to ‘Game of Thrones’. By 1891 there were thirteen firms with seventeen quarries and over 4
100 kilns. The technology that was devised to transport Buxton lime throughout an industrialising nation was evident with the brightest engineers of the day improving kilns, creating canals and a tramway system that would even include the Anderton boat lift. Lime products were needed in Runcorn and across to Liverpool as the Lever Brothers set up their factory at Port Sunlight. The railway network had a huge impact on the movement of lime and that tradition continues with 50 to 60 train loads of lime being transported near Buxton each week. Rail is the most sustainable way to move stone. The 1879 Hoffman Kiln at Harpur Hill was a statement on the landscape when it was constructed and its remains a responsibility for Tarmac today. The kiln was demolished in 1951 but the lime tips remain as testament that treated lime returns to rock. Here in the river valley the deposited lime has
reacted with carbon dioxide and the clearing up of the ‘blue lagoon’ remains a challenge to this industry. 1939-45 meant massive expansion on all sites with lime at the root of all steel making and this period has been recorded by the war artist Graham Sutherland. Women are seen back at the quarry face, drilling, blasting and pushing tubs as they would have over 300 years earlier lime burning on our own Grin Low. ICI were always looking for reserves of Buxton lime because of its quality and in 1976 the Old Moor Enquiry started because the quarry lies within the National Park boundary. Looking on a map it is clear why the Peak District National Park boundary is as it is and that Buxton is encircled by working, mothballed and non-working quarries. For Buxton it will always be a symbiotic relationship. Now, rather than working out a relationship with
The new lighting system is installed and has certainly enhanced the visitor experience. Remember all BCA members can visit as many times as they like as part of their membership. The sophisticated lighting is perfect for the expert eye as well as a fantastic introduction to the wonders of this spectacular cave. The pathway is clearly visible and yet the lighting here does not detract from the formations that will always be the stars of the show. Now, with these stunning white lights, the ‘Flitch of Bacon’ is shown in splendid isolation in the darkness. The guides are assisted by a sychronised light display. Formations show to match their descriptions, and makes the experience even more informative and enjoyable. The best is definitely saved ‘til last – (nicknamed The Swan, The Brain or The Cauliflower) it is breath-taking and has never looked better! With only twelve steps it is very accessible and, for an underground tour, always very airy.
Community Cafe It has been great to see so many regular groups using the café over the winter. We hope to make you feel even more welcome with new tables and chairs arriving soon. BCA members get a discount and loyalty cards are also available.
New Sculptures Meet our impressive new Stone Age sculpture, accurately portraying an early inhabitant of the cave, ready to spear lunch in the shape of a deer. We hope that it adds to the understanding of the human history of the cavern as a home for the earliest humans, as well as a place to see spectacular formations.
Poole’s Cavern has already had a number of projects undertaken by undergraduate and postgraduate students and the universities are keen for students to work here rather than in wilder caves where ‘risk assessment’ and supervision can be more difficult. Professor John Gunn of BCRA, who has been monitoring Poole’s Cavern for BCA for many years, intends his data on temperature and carbon dioxide to become part of the monitoring centre.
Students will be assisted by Dr Andrew Smith from Lancaster University with both the cave science and academic research and Alan Walker will be the main contact for BCA. We will hope to involve other show caves and HSE as the advanced technology used to take measurements of the climate in the cave will be relevant to many interested groups.
Woodland Volunteers This group meets on the last Monday morning of each month. They work with Alan Walker in any of our woods. Please contact Alan on: 01298 26978
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Buxton News
Help find Buxton’s Favourite Tree Do you have a favourite tree in the local area? We are hoping to include your ideas and photographs in our next Newsletter. Please email articles, photos to Simon Fussell: communications@buxtoncivicassociation.org.uk or bring paper copies to Poole’s Cavern. If you are choosing a street tree be quick because we are losing them all the time!
The Octagon Great news about ‘The Reveal’ as the scaffolding is removed. This is due to take place soon and BCA will have a stall at the Charities Bazaar, back in the Octagon, on Saturday 28th July. There are exciting signs of a historic repainting of this famous building. Adam Bench, one of our directors, has worked with High Peak Borough Council researching into the original paint type and colours. Robert Rippon Duke, the Victorian architect of the Octagon, respected the work of Edward Milner on the Winter Gardens and Promenade and continued the external designs to combine his ideas with Milner’s earlier buildings of 1870. The Octagon was constructed in 1875 and the paint scheme was designed by J.D. Crace, who also created the interior of the Houses of Parliament. Highly ornate and colourful themes were the style of the time. HPBC has adapted the scheme to give a striking impression of its original glory, within the available budget. External heritage paints have been used that are specifically produced to stand up to all weathers for over twenty years. These paints are also used on oil rigs! BCA members, Alan Roberts and Alyson Phillips were invited to look at and provide comments on this research. They also had the opportunity to climb up inside the iconic roof and see the original Robert Rippon Duke wrought iron structure before the false ceiling was reinstated. HPBC is hoping to have interpretation boards with photographs showing the story of the restoration.
Buxton - Visitor Experience Is that a fact? BCA members attended a talk at Derby University organised by the Town Team. Dr Vladimir Antchek has been conducting some research about making Buxton a more tourist-friendly town. His initial research discovered that 90% of local residents are content with the visitor experience available in the town whereas 90% of visitors find that there is little to do! It will be interesting to find out more about this project as it progresses. Hopefully the research by Derby University will come up with original ideas that make Buxton a better visitor experience for all. 8
many different firms, in the lime industry’s ‘Game of Thrones’ we have the merger of giants. BLI / ICI was purchased by Anglo American and the merger of Lafarge and Tarmac means Buxton now has a relationship with multi nationals.
Dr Antchek is looking for ways to ‘sell’ the town to the visitor through 20 favourite pictures. It is interesting to think of the places we would choose and why. Ideas for an augmented reality map with an App that would highlight these places would perhaps help us all. The existing map, given out free at the TIC perhaps needs a rethink if 90% of our visitors can’t find the best places we locals enjoy in Buxton. What would your 20 favourite places be? Why not share them in our next Newsletter, and tell us why, or maybe just the one favourite place that you want to share. Email: communications@buxtoncivicassociation.org.uk
Street Trees John Anfield, a very active BCA member, has raised this as an important campaign issue. The sad loss of our street trees is causing irreplaceable changes to our local environment. Taking away the old trees needs careful consideration and we support John’s determination to raise the importance of the issue of the unnecessary loss of our older street trees. We cannot simply remove trees from pavements without a sustainable plan for the future. According to Monica Gillespie, the Arbocultural Officer at HPBC, “DCC is very resistant to any replacement tree planting in the Highway and particularly planting in existing areas of hard surfacing.” BCA is always planting new trees (see news from the Woodland Committee). This is of course an important way to replace the loss of habitat but the new trees will take centuries to replace what we have lost. Radio 4 recently serialised ‘The Wood’ by John Lewis Stempel and it provided so many quotes! “I would weep a little while felling a mature tree... More than 400 types of insects are said to depend on the oak tree… a whole ecosystem. That is why we need trees to grow old – very old.” Just one reason to keep our street trees. We will be publicising our street trees at our stall at the Buxton Spring Fair on Monday 7th May. Please come along and support this campaign. John needs support to campaign on the issue of Street Trees. If you would like to be involved please contact John Anfield through the BCA website.
Reassuringly, being the largest supplier of such an invaluable product as lime means High Peak Borough Council must always keep the A6 open to Manchester. Approximately 200,000 lorry ‘movements’ were attributed to the building of the second Manchester runway as well as six trains a day and there is no doubt that the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ will need feeding with our lime. The rate of extraction continues at a phenomenal rate. Old Moor is six levels down and will be worked out by 2042. With no planning permission, because of its situation within the National Park, there is an ongoing rolling programme of restoration. Viv spoke highly of the fact that positive changes in the industry have come from the people involved who are proud of their contribution. They have 61 apprentices and want more graduate trainees. Increasingly importance has been placed on lowering emissions, safety and environmental protection in this massive industry. Sponsoring the local community is a focus for promoting this positive image. There is now a sculpture of a lime worker in Ashwood Park and a display of 24,000 archive pictures and photographs have been shared with local galleries. There have been drystone walling volunteer days, podcasts sponsored for Discover Buxton and the Rugby Club Limeburner Meeting Room. The Poppy locomotive is a memorial to the fifteen lads who died on the Somme. Blythe House Hospice is provided with sponsorship and electricians at Christmas for ‘Light up a Life’. The open days invite the community to see how the industry is capable of policing itself. Look out for the open days and take the opportunity to see and understand this important industry on which we remain so dependent.
Vera Brittain
Nurse at the Devonshire Hospital 1915 As we prepare to commemorate the end of the First World War the experiences of Vera Brittain during that time embody its terrors. She finally left Buxton in 1915 to continue nursing as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse in London in order to be nearer to her brother Edward and her fiancé Roland Leighton. In 1913 she started studying at Oxford University. “Oxford I trust may lead to something … but Buxton never will.” However, after a year she was back here in Buxton working at the Royal Devonshire Hospital. The very drive and determination that made chaperoned Sunday Church Parades in the Pavilion Gardens so uninspiring, powered her resolve and gave her the fortitude to face the horrors and loss of that time through her own actions. Two poems, written in the midst of the turmoil of that time, owe imagery to their walks together around Buxton, the spring before the war. One, written by Roland in France (his last and finest) was received by Vera, on his death, alongside his blood stained belongings. The other is her poem about his loss. We appreciate the incredible beauty of our countryside as it once again restores itself to its spring beauty and blue skies. The ‘long white road’ Roland and Vera walked was possibly the Macclesfield Old Road into the Goyt Valley or walks in Corbar or Gadley Woods.
Headauville by Roland Leighton The sunshine on the long white road That ribboned down the hill, The velvet clematis that clung Around your window sill, Are waiting for you still. Again the shadowed pool shall break In dimples round your feet, And when the thrush sings in your wood, Unknowing you may meet Another stranger, Sweet. And if he is not quite so old As the boy you used to know, And less proud and worthier, You may not let him go – (And daisies are truer than passion flowers) It will be better so.
To R.A.L. Died of Wounds in France (December 23rd 1915) by Vera Brittain Perhaps some day the sun will shine again, And I shall see that still the skies are blue, And feel once more I do not live in vain, Although bereft of You … But, though kind Time may many joys renew, There is one greatest joy I shall not know Again, because my heart for loss of You Was broken, long ago.
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Unique
Seeds Of The Past A Walk with our Ancestors
In Lismore Fields you are walking in the steps of our ancestors in a field that has probably never been ploughed and is undisturbed, except by huge numbers of moles and earthworms that have scattered the flints. Archaeological finds from this area are nationally famous and unique.
by Alyson Phillips
“Seeds found at this site revealed the earliest record for cereal cultivation so far found in the British Isles and Ireland.
This Way To Buxton’s Stone Age Settlement
There has been little interference from regional pollen input and this makes this area of paramount importance to prehistoric archaeology.
A new sign has appeared at the entrance to the Serpentine Walks sponsored by the Friends of the Pavilion Gardens and High Peak Borough Council, drawing attention to the importance of the Stone Age settlement in Lismore Fields.
The evidence from the charcoal record showed continuous exploitation of Lismore Fields during the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) and Neolithic (New Stone Age) periods. The environment was changed by human settlement; this was a watering place with intensive land use and deforestation of the limestone plateau, with woodland in the surrounding dale.
If you walk along the Serpentine Walks, with the River Wye on your right you come to the bridge where the route meets St John’s Road. Stay with the river on your right, climb the steps and take the public footpath on the left. You come to a five barred gate. This is Lismore Fields. Take the path diagonally across the field. Walk through the gennel towards the old white cottages and follow the path on the left to the road. Turn left past an old stone cottage and you have reached Wye Head. This is a small piece of land, owned by BCA, where the River Wye emerges for the first time having roared its way through Poole’s Cavern.
The Serpentine Seed Project The Serpentine Farm is a volunteer project established to grow crops in the grounds of the old plant nursery. Volunteers experiment with local seeds, using soils and compost collected from the area around the Pavilion Gardens to see what will grow, against all odds, in this climate.
Wye Head - A Perfect Place To Live In this area they found everything they needed to sustain life. They constructed buildings, used Poole’s Cavern for safety and warmth and drank fresh water that had gushed through the cave since the last Ice Age. They climbed to Grin ‘tlaw’, Old English for a low, a burial mound to celebrate their dead. Now Solomon’s Temple stands on the site. BCA owns and manages Wye Head Woods 1.288 acres where the Wye first emerges after its journey through Poole’s Cavern
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Lismore Bowl Buxton Museum
Unfortunately these intensive farming methods resulted in soil impoverishment by the Early Bronze Age and could explain the fact that mainly Stone Age remains have been discovered. This was due to deforestation as farming became more widespread. This underlies the importance of Lismore Fields; it is one of the very rare instances where polleniferous peat (rich in seed samples) for the Mesolithic and Neolithic have been found.” Palynolgical Analysis of Lismore Field P E J Wiltshire
The Meeting Of The Clans
Climate Change
Instead of imagining these nomads settling down into family farmsteads consider instead that they remained as semi-nomadic tribes. They would know how to make shelters like tepees or yurts. These groups would combine as clans, so they would be large enough to protect and feed everyone and no doubt conflict would arise when numbers became unmanageable. How these groups combined is lost in the mists of time but the different strengths and talents would dictate how and where they went. They would be preoccupied in gathering food for everyone.
Around 8000 BC Britain was becoming an island. The nomadic tribes that had moved through the land from the south of France to the north of Derbyshire, (see evidence at Cresswell Crags) following the herds for their summer grazing, had to limit their range. The Ice Ages were over leaving Derbyshire warm and fertile.
The clans would be part of a larger tribe which would periodically congregate, perhaps for the summer hunt or to share the bounty of autumn. They would share a language and traditions and follow the pattern of the seasons. Here, where the pure water surfaced in fresh springs, some warm, we now know they would meet. The remains of the rare, permanent buildings cannot be explained. They built longhouses - but the shape of the constructions on Lismore Fields is unique in the UK. “It is possible that the actual find of Neolithic buildings (so far) represents only a small proportion of constructions which have been erected on the site.” P E J Wiltshire
Food For Thought - Lismore Fields A Place For A Seed Exchange? Neolithic tribes only came together in a few special places like Stone Henge and Arbor Low and perhaps here in Lismore Fields. Perhaps this was where they came together to trade their cereals and exchange seeds. It was always an easy place to find, where millstone grit and the carboniferous limestone join at the confluence of two rivers. The soil was so fertile it could sustain new crops. Maybe this is why Lismore Fields contains rare examples of such a wide range of seeds from our ancestors. Turn from where the river comes out into the daylight and follow in their footsteps, walk the old pathways and look back up to the Country Park and Grin Low. Then retrace, past Serpentine Farm, where seeds will germinate and hope will grow.
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