Derbyshire Peak District Research Articles

Water and vertical territory: the volatile and hidden historical geographies of Derbyshire’s lead mining soughs, 1650s–1830s

ABSTRACTThis paper is concerned with the complex subterranean politics of lead mining in the Derbyshire Peak District. We focus specifically on the implications of lead mining ‘soughs’ – underground channels driven to drain water out of mines to allow for mineral extraction. Built during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, soughs were substantial, capital and labour intensive projects which served a key function in the refashioning of subterranean and surface hydrological landscapes. They were ‘driven’ at a time when water was both a major hindrance to mining endeavour and the primary energy source for industrial expansion, such that historical disputes surrounding sough drainage were common. Here, we draw on unpublished historical legal records to explore the ways in which vertical conceptualisations of space were central to the legal discourse over soughs and extend the so called ‘vertical turn’ in geography to include subterranean proto-historical landscapes. Drawing on a high profile conflict between English entrepreneur Richard Arkwright and Conservative politician Francis Hurt, we go some way to addressing recent claims for more ethnographic detail in studies of verticality by considering the people who legally and physically negotiated sough development below as well as above ground. We also illustrate the range of temporalities which framed sough developments and highlight the cross-generational nature of the legal disputes over soughs and the productive landscapes they drained.

The contribution of maps to appreciating physical landscape: examples from Derbyshire's Peak District

Abstract It is only in the last 100 years or so that most of Britain has been covered by accurate, published, topographic and geological maps. Although travellers’ guides were available from the late seventeenth century, they lacked adequate maps. Whilst fairly accurate maps of the major roads were published in the early seventeenth century as strip maps, topographic maps were not generally available until the nineteenth century. Cartographers, usually when preparing county maps, struggled with the representation of Britain's varied topography. In the nineteenth century, medium-scale (1-inch-to-the-mile) topographic maps initially developed through the agency of the prizes offered by the Royal Society of Arts but primarily due to the Ordnance Survey. Geological maps benefitted from improved base maps – those of John Cary and the Ordnance Survey. This paper especially explores and illustrates the development of maps and the role they played in the depiction and understanding of landscape and promotion of the major early geotourism region of the Peak District from 1780 to 1930.

Geogenic lead isotope signatures from meat products in Great Britain: Potential for use in food authentication and supply chain traceability

This paper presents lead (Pb) isotope data from samples of farm livestock raised in three areas of Britain that have elevated natural Pb levels: Central Wales, the Mendips and the Derbyshire Peak District. This study highlights three important observations; that the Pb found in modern British meat from these three areas is geogenic and shows no clear evidence of modern tetraethyl anthropogenic Pb contribution; that the generally excellent match between the biological samples and the ore field data, particularly for the Mendip and Welsh data, suggests that this technique might be used to provenance biological products to specific ore sites, under favourable conditions; and that modern systems reflect the same process of biosphere averaging that is analogous to cultural focusing in human archaeological studies that is the process of biological averaging leading to an homogenised isotope signature with increasing Pb concentration.

Thomas Hobbes, Charles Cotton and the ‘wonders’ of the Derbyshire Peak

This essay deals with two seventeenth-century writers who describe, from personal experience, the ‘wonders’ of the Derbyshire Peak district, one of the first destinations for English domestic tourism. Both Thomas Hobbes and Charles Cotton describe the Peak in poems usually associated, in the rare instances where they have attracted any critical attention at all, with the country house or estate tradition of Jonson and Marvell. I argue that Hobbes's De Mirabilibus Pecci, first published in 1636, is best understood as a ‘journey poem’, a largely neglected early modern genre, and that it finds in the Peak a space on which to project those authoritarian theories of science and politics for which Hobbes would later become notorious. I suggest that Charles Cotton's Wonders of the Peake makes explicit the science and the politics in Hobbes's poetic topography, confronting and revising them in response to the new political circumstances of 1681.

Excavations at Fin Cop, Derbyshire: An Iron Age Hillfort in Conflict?

A programme of archaeological investigation took place on Fin Cop hillfort, in the Derbyshire Peak District, during the summers of 2009 and 2010. In total fifty test-pits and eight trenches were excavated, revealing evidence for a Mesolithic quarry site, and sporadic evidence for Neolithic and Beaker period activity. An assemblage of Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age ceramics was recovered from the interior of the fort in association with rock-cut pits testifying to occupation of the hilltop prior to the construction of the hillfort rampart. The hillfort rampart construction took place in the period 435–390 cal. BC (68% probability) and was destroyed before its completion, probably by the mid-fourth century cal. BC, when large numbers of women and children were disposed of in the ditch together with the demolition material from the fort's wall. The defensive character of the monument and the evidence for a violent end to the site appear to indicate, on current evidence, that the fort was sacked.

Murders in the Winnats Pass: Evolution of a Peak District Legend

One of the best-known legends of the Derbyshire Peak District concerns two eloping lovers, usually dubbed “Allan and Clara,” who were supposedly robbed and murdered by local lead miners in the Winnats Pass near Castleton sometime between 1745 and 1768. Variants of the story abound in collections of legends and folktales and even in scholarly books and articles. The identities of the victims were never established, but the alleged murderers were named, and at least two of them can be identified from the parish register. The distinctive, perhaps unique, feature of this story is the abundance of variants recorded over a period of more than two centuries. The earliest written version dates from 1785, the most recent from 2008. The evolution of the Winnats Pass murder tale can be traced in detail through this wealth of recorded forms. I argue that aspects of local history help to explain how and why the story originated, survived and underwent various metamorphoses. The nature of lead mining communities, the rise of Methodism, the impact of turnpike roads, and the growth of tourism in the Peak District all appear relevant. The present article outlines this evolutionary process, showing how the pivotal version of the legend (first published in 1843) assimilated elements from at least three of its precursors and influenced almost all subsequent variants. The findings may have general implications for the mechanisms by which such tales evolve.

Comparison of structural and functional stream assessment methods to detect changes in riparian vegetation and water pH

Summary1. Streams draining conifer plantations are often assumed to suffer from reduced ecosystem function due to acidity and diminished basal food resources. Evidence exists for the deleterious impacts of conifer plantations on stream ecosystem function and also of the negative impacts of acidification. This study compared the performance of a measure of ecosystem function (leaf litter decomposition) with structural measures (shredder species richness; shredder abundance; ASPT (Average Score Per Taxon) and seven different acidity index scores) in determining the impacts of conifer plantations and acidification on streams.2. The study was conducted in the Derbyshire Peak District (U.K.) from January to April 2003. Five pairs of sites with broadleaved versus coniferous riparian vegetation were selected for comparison. Three of the broadleaved sites and two of the coniferous sites were also acid (mean pH < 6.1).3. Breakdown rates of alder and oak leaves as well as shredder species richness and abundance were determined from mesh bags. Benthic samples were also collected on the same sampling dates and these were used to calculate the various index scores for each site. Community composition was investigated using redundancy analysis.4. Clear differences in mesh bags were observed between the two riparian vegetation types: all parameters measured were higher in conifer sites than broadleaved sites. Leaf litter breakdown also differed between pH classes: mass loss was higher in neutral than acid sites. Structural index scores were unable to differentiate between the riparian vegetation types and with the exception of the species level Acid Water Indicator Community score, no structural index was able to differentiate between the two acidity classes.5. The results suggest that stream function (leaf litter breakdown) responds to differences in riparian land use and stream acidity more strongly overall than community structure (structural indices). This in turn suggests that stream structure and function may be only loosely coupled. Therefore, the use of water quality indices should ideally be combined with functional measures to obtain a complete assessment of stream ecosystems.

Recreating atmospheric sulphur deposition histories from peat stratigraphy: Diagenetic conditions required for signal preservation and reconstruction of past sulphur deposition in the Derbyshire Peak District, UK

Three modern pristine and one previously polluted ombrotrophic peat were sampled and analysed to investigate whether the isotopic composition of atmospheric sulphur inputs could be preserved in the organic fraction of ombrotrophic peats without undue alteration through syn-depositional or diagenetic effects. Peat type (reflecting the environment of deposition and diagenesis) was shown to be critical in determining whether an environmental archive of sulphur deposition could be preserved within the profile. Of the pristine peats sampled, hummock peat from Shetland proved to be the most suitable exhibiting a near-constant δ 34S characteristic of the growing vegetation in the organic fraction of peat in the upper 30 cm of the profile. However, only short to medium term changes (<600 years) in input are likely to be preserved due to the masking effect produced by incorporation of sulphide, derived from bacterial sulphate reduction (BSR), into the organic fraction at depth. The organic fraction of peat sampled from waterlogged pools at Forsinard (NE Scotland) was masked by sulphide incorporation throughout the profile, while peat from Abisko (N. Sweden) was exposed to annual freeze–thaw cycles, which appear to have produced significant decomposition of the organically bound sulphur and loss of the original depositional isotopic signal. Three peat types were sampled from the southern Pennines, an area with a gross history of sulphur pollution during the Industrial Revolution: high hummock peat, low hummock peat and waterlogged peat from a pool complex. In drier, high and low hummock peat types, diagenesis and decomposition were not found to be significant processes in the upper portions of the peat. Hence, alterations in the isotopic composition of the organic sulphur fraction in the profile reflect that of the depositional environment. In the hummock peats, organically bound sulphur becomes isotopically lighter at around 1400 AD, which may reflect alterations in local sulphur inputs at this time due to the small-scale smelting of lead in the area. Isotopic compositions become progressively lighter still towards the peat surface layers, which correlate well with the excesses of sulphur deposition, largely from coal burning, during the Industrial Revolution.

The interactions between plant growth, vegetation structure and soil processes in semi-natural acidic and calcareous grasslands receiving long-term inputs of simulated pollutant nitrogen deposition

Regular applications of ammonium nitrate (35–140 kg N ha −1 year −1) and ammonium sulphate (140 kg N ha −1 year −1) to areas of acidic and calcareous grassland in the Derbyshire Peak District over a period of 6 years, have resulted in significant losses in both overall plant cover, and the abundance of individual species, associated with clear and dose-related increases in shoot nitrogen content. No overall growth response to nitrogen treatment was seen at any stage in the experiment. Phosphorus additions to the calcareous plots did however lead to significant increases in plant cover and total biomass, indicative of phosphorus limitation in this system. Clear and dose-related increases in soil nitrogen mineralization rates were also obtained, consistent with marked effects of the nitrogen additions on soil processes. High nitrification rates were seen on the calcareous plots, and this process was associated with significant acidification of the 140 kg N ha −1 year −1 treatments.

Places Apart? Caves and Monuments in Neolithic and Earlier Bronze Age Britain

The recent growth of landscape perspectives has stimulated fresh approaches to the ways in which prehistoric communities attached significance to what we classify as topography or geology. Using evidence from North Wales and the Derbyshire Peak District, we argue here that the use of caves during the Neolithic and Bronze Age reflects a significant blurring of the distinction that archaeologists often draw between monuments and natural features.

The effect of long-term nitrogen additions on the bryophyte cover of upland acidic grasslands

Regular applications of NH4NO3 (3.5–14 g N m−2 yr−l) and (NH4)2SO4 (14 g N m−2 yr−l) to areas of acidic grassland in the Derbyshire Peak District over a period of six years have resulted in marked changes in the abundance of the bryophyte species present on the site. A dose-related reduction in bryophyte cover, significant at all levels of nitrogen addition, was obtained after only one year of applications and this effect has been maintained over a further five years of treatment.(NH4)2SO4 additions at the same rate as the highest NH4NO3 input (14 g N m−2 yr−1) produced greater reductions in cover with losses of 80–95% compared with 45–55% for the 14 g NH4NO3 treatment. Soil pH measurements taken from cores collected in December 1994 showed a small reduction in the pH of the (NH4)2SO4 treated plots (4.03 compared with 4.41 for the controls), whereas the NH4NO3 treatments were unaffected.The mean stem density of the dominant bryophyte species Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus was significantly reduced at the lowest level of nitrogen addition and this was associated with marked increases in the total stem nitrogen content of this species. Pleurozium schreberi, present at much lower cover values, however showed no significant change except at the highest level of application, suggesting differential effects of the treatments on these two species.These results are indicative of significant losses in the bryophyte cover of acidic grasslands at atmospheric input rates of 5 g N m−2 yr−1 or less, and suggest that these species may be particularly at risk from the high atmospheric nitrogen deposition rates that are becoming a feature of many upland areas.

Agricultural land-use effects on the indicator bacterial quality of an upland stream in the Derbyshire peak district in the U.K.

Concentrations of indicator bacteria – faecal coliforms (FC) and faecal streptococci (FS) – were monitored at stream and water inflow sampling sites over a 21 month period within a small upland catchment in north Derbyshire, England. Agricultural land-use within the catchment included rough, semi-improved and improved pastures for sheep grazing. During its passage through the catchment, the stream became significantly contaminated by faecal bacteria, suggesting the existence of a semi-permanent store of faecal bacteria in catchment soils, combined with hydrological transport mechanisms capable of moving bacteria from the land to the stream channel. Spatial changes in the bacterial quality of streamwater could be explained by the influence of a number of monitored water inflows to the stream, although a clear and consistent relationship between the bacterial quality of catchment waters and the intensity of adjacent agricultural land-use was not apparent. This is explained in terms of a trade-off between practices which allow land-use intensification and a consequent reduction in the potential for bacterial survival in soils and efficient hydrological transport via surface-water flows. A consistent seasonal pattern of bacterial concentration change was observed, with the highest concentrations occurring during summer months as stocking density increased and the bacterial land store recovered from high precipitation-related outputs during the winter. The extent of faecal bacterial contamination of the stream, particularly during summer months, may constitute a real health risk to recreational cavers using parts of the limestone karst system into which the stream drains.

Response of bilberry Vaccinium myrtillus L. stands in the Derbyshire Peak District to sheep grazing, and implications for moorland conservation

Exclosure systems were set up at two sites in Derbyshire, England, in 1990 to compare summer, winter, year-round and zero grazing. Initially the sites were similar in bilberry Vaccinium myrtillus extent, with cover means c. 70%, but they differed in heather Calluna vulgaris extent, with cover means 1 and 25%. Sheep occupance was estimated from counts of faecal-pellet groups six or seven times a year and utilisation of bilberry and heather from assessments in permanent positions four times a year. Plant cover was measured each August from 1990 to 1996. It was found that the sheep consistently chose to graze the bilberry swards much more heavily in autumn than the rest of the year. Dung deposition rates were quite similar at the two sites, but the winter-only grazed plots had significantly greater dung deposition at the heather-bilberry site than the pure bilberry site. Shoot utilisation reflected sheep occupance. Winter protection reduced utilisation, significantly so at the pure bilberry site, but differences were minimised because of bursts of heavy usage following the reopening of the plots to grazing in April. At the pure bilberry site the height of bilberry stayed remarkably constant under all three grazing regimes, but increased sharply in the absence of grazing. Bilberry cover was unaffected by season of grazing, but crowberry Empetrum nigrum appeared to benefit from winter protection. At the heather-bilberry site, bilberry was significantly reduced in cover under all the grazing treatments, whereas heather increased significantly in cover and height despite an average grazing pressure of 1·4 sheep ha −1. This suggests that the desired light stocking rates presently being advocated to conserve heather moorland will cause losses of bilberry moorland, and that for the conservation of a diversity of vegetation types in a block of moorland some zonal variation in grazing pressure is required.

Three projects, Calver, Derbyshire

This essay explores the problem of creating a contemporary architecture for a rural setting with a strong indigenous character. It focuses on a series of three inter-related projects, designed by a team which includes the author, for the village of Calver in the Derbyshire Peak District. One of these projects, ‘The Orchard’ is presented in some detail to illustrate the investigation of an architecture that can be simultaneously cognisant of both broad cultural ideas and rooted to the specifics of a local cultural context.

Epilithic bacteria in an acid and a calcareous headstream

SUMMARY. 1. Environmental variables and epilithic bacteria on small stones were monitored during summer and winter in Burbage Brook and the River Lathkill, two headstreams in the Derbyshire Peak District.2. Burbage Brook was usually near‐neutral in summer, but acid in winter; the River Lathkill was circumneutral throughout the year.3. In summer, epilithic bacteria showed few between‐stream differences. In winter, however, total bacteria, colony‐forming units, per cent chromogenic colony‐forming units, per cent viable bacteria, Vmax for glucose mineralization and Vmax/bacterium were all significantly less in the acid Burbage Brook.4. Inhibition of epilithic bacteria in Burbage Brook was also observed when pH fell to a low level during a summer spate.5. Multiple‐regression analysis confirmed that epilithic bacteria were less successful at low pH but also suggested that pH was not the only environmental variable to influence epilithic bacteria. Especially notable were positive relationships with density of epilithic chlorophyll a and temperature in Burbage Brook and with chlorophyll a in the River Lathkill.

The Excavation of the Bee Low Round Cairn, Youlgreave, Derbyshire

SummaryThere has been little investigation into the beaker period in the Derbyshire Peak District since Thomas Bateman's activities between 1843–60. This paper describes the excavation, between 1966–8, of Bee Low, a beaker round cairn imperfectly examined by Bateman in 1843 and 1851. The excavation produced evidence of almost continuous usage of the mound by beaker and later communities over a period of some 300 years. The earliest burials (c. 1700 B.C.) were a collective group of six or more inhumations in a stone cist with an All-Over-Cord beaker, a pottery type hitherto unrepresented in the Peak. In all, twenty-three inhumations and five cremations were recorded from the cairn, with further beakers of types N2 (Developed Northern), S2 (Developed Southern), and S4 (Final Southern), the last a further type not previously recorded with certainty in beaker contexts in the area. Burial customs included collective, crouched, and disarticulated interment. Only one inhumation had a metal association—a bronze awl—but two cremations were provided with bronzes, an awl and a small riveted knife. The excavation of this miniature necropolis has added considerably to present knowledge of the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age cultures of the Peak.