In even the most mundane of places, I see ghosts, let me explain. I enter a room and I wonder about the lives that passed through there; the stories written, the jokes told, the ideas shaped, and the tragedies endured. I find it so absurd that a place can be the centre of the universe to one person, and simply four walls and a bed to another. Rarely is this sense more prevalent than when I am in so-called 'forgotten places'. Wild and natural spaces, left to bury the past under new life, but never really gone. I wonder, between the periods of relative stillness, what this place once was, and to whom.
Having spent 2 years training with Woodland Ways at the Derbyshire woodlands on the edge of Stanton Moor, I have passed many an evening in my sleeping bag mulling over the stories there. Stanton Moor, located in Derbyshire, is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a rich Bronze-age landscape, with the River Derwent to the east. This landscape has been settled since the Bronze-Age at least, and is a site of significant industrial and cultural importance. A relatively small moor, it is one of the largest Bronze-Age cemeteries in Europe.
I am no historian, and this is by no means a complete history. However, this blog post is a good opportunity to discover some of the stories that have taken place in our current home.
Stanton Moor
Stanton Moor (Map)
Although not directly tied to Stanton Moor, I feel compelled to give a special mention to Cheddar Man, Britains oldest nearly complete Homo Sapiens skeleton discovered in Somerset in 1903. He lived roughly 10,000 years ago in the Mesolithic period, stood around 5ft5inches and according to researchers had dark-to-black skin, dark brown or black curly hair, and striking blue or green eyes. He would have lived as a hunter-gatherer, at a time when Britain was attached to continental Europe and in an increasingly densely forested environment. As well as collecting seeds and nuts, his diet would have consisted of red deer, aurochs and some freshwater fish. Other similar sites from the Mesolithic period can offer insights about his life. Some of the oldest Mesolithic art in Britain has been discovered at Star Carr (a Mesolithic settlement in North Yorkshire that was inhabited c.1000 years before Cheddar Man); an engraved shale pendant, red deer skull-caps, and semiprecious stones of amber, hematite, pyrite. What is significant about Cheddar Man however, is that during a time of traditionally communal burials, Cheddar Man was found alone. Sadly, many of the items excavated with Cheddar Man were lost, and so we may never fully learn his story.
Cheddar Man reconstruction (Natural History Museum)
It is thought that bronze was first brought over to Britain by the Bell Beaker culture from continental Europe and the Eurasian Steppe (c.4500 years ago), so named because of the distinctive bell-shaped pottery drinking vessels found in many burial sites. Unlike continental Europe however, which spread Beaker culture from Iberia without significant movement of people, within a few hundred years in Britain the migration had largely replaced the local neolithic groups (replacing the olive-brown skin, dark hair and brown eyes with the now more common lighter skin, blue eyes and blonde hair). Cheddar Mans culture would have vanished by this time, the British Isles having moved towards early farming practices brought over by Neolithic peoples. The Beaker folk introduced copper, gold and eventually bronze to the British Isles, as well as stronger metal tools that allowed for more extensive land-clearing, larger crop yields and the rise of settled farming. During the Bronze-Age the landscape of Stanton Moor would have consisted of fertile farmland, with timber roundhouses dotting the area. There is archaeological evidence everywhere of field boundaries, burial mounds and stone circles.
Bronze-Age Burial Mound on Stanton Moor
Early Bronze Age people buried their dead under earth mounds called barrows, although later periods shifted towards cremation and urn burial. There are at least 70 funerary barrows, cairns and mounds across the Moors, as well as four ancient stone circles, the most famous of which are The Nine Ladies. The Nine Ladies, erected around 4000 years ago, was first noted by Major Hayman Rooke in 1782 (although the 10th stone was unearthed in 1977), and presided over by a 'King' stone speculated to be part of a separate, long-gone circle. The legend goes that the circle is made up of 9 maidens and a fiddler who were turned to stone for dancing on the sabbath, although as the stones predate Abrahamic religion this must surely be a relatively "modern" legend. The purpose of these stone circles is largely unknown, with some attributing it to trade routes and sightlines, others to funerary purposes. Little evidence of human visitation after their construction was posited (Ronald Hutton - historian) to mean they were left deliberately as "silent and empty monuments" rather than for ritualistic or ceremonial purposes. Mike Parker Pearson (archaeologist) argues that, in Neolithic Britain, stone was associated with the dead, wood with the living. Others believe that stone represents not the ancestors, but other supernatural entities such as deities. Both they and the surrounding landscape are considered sacred for modern pagan groups, believing it to be on a leyline – an alignment of spiritual or natural energy that crosses the earth and connects ancient monuments, burial mounds or other holy/sacred sites. Major Rooke also first noted the site as a "druid temple" upon discovery. The stone circles may have originally served several of these purposes, or none.
Photo of the Nine Ladies
There may have been many more Bronze-Age structures to be found before large-scale quarrying took place. Having spent many a night in woodlands obviously marked by signs of excavation, I often wonder at the lives of those more recent ancestors, their communities and their families. I hear the clang of hammers, the snorting of horses, the shouts of the foreman (or 'ganger'). Close enough in time to seem familiar, to have left tangible markings that close the gap and yet highlights the gulf that lies between then and now. The people who called this place home, who knew intimately its paths, its seasons, the character of its earth and stone. The moors that I visit would be both his workplace and a familiar part of everyday life.
Contemporary photograph of a Stanton Quarry
Quarrying on an industrial scale took place from c.mid-19th to mid-20th century on Stanton Moor, although the moor was a working landscape long before the Victorian Era. Stone collection is documented locally from the late 16th century and smaller-scale extraction may be much older. However by the mid-19th to 20th century large scale stone extraction flourished across the western and northern edges of the moor, producing high-quality blockstone, grindstones, walling, paving, and bespoke masonry. Quarrying districts in places like Derbyshire were shaped by it at nearly every level of community life, influencing where they lived, whom they married, how their children entered employment and what happened when the local economy declined. There was also a strong sense of occupational pride, as stoneworkers developed considerable knowledge of their material and craft, which distinguished a skilled man from an ordinary labourer. Some men specialised in extraction, others in shaping, and others in moving and loading stone. They were craftsmen and labourers whose livelihood depended on understanding the rock, working with one another and producing quality materials for customers across Britain and beyond.
Modern photo of quarry
For many stone-quarry workers, life would have been physically punishing, economically uncertain and tied closely to the rhythms of the local community. Work might begin before sunrise, and involve hours of breaking and moving stone in all weathers. Work was often seasonal, and the climate played an important role – there are reports of frost making the rock difficult to work, sometimes for sustained periods. Some quarry workers were paid by the day/week, others according to how much stone they extracted or produced – meaning uncertain wages in times of bad weather, equipment failure or a lack of orders.
Some families may also have combined industrial employment with small-scale farming, particularly before WW1 – a worker might therefore have been a quarryman during the week and helped with a smallholding or livestock when the time allowed. His wife might manage the garden, preserve food, care for animals or take on paid work. Not every family necessarily farmed, but this helps explain how some rural industrial households coped with irregular quarry earnings.
At this time, life was rooted in the village – socialising with neighbours, visiting pubs, attending church, trade union association – but financial security depended on industrial markets that extend far beyond it.
The work could be dangerous, often fatal, due to accident and lack of PPE, and medical knowledge at the time of occupational lung disease was limited. Injury could remove a mans ability to earn, and chronic respiratory disease could emerge after years of exposure.
Remnants of the quarry work
The period between 1850-1950 spans enormous change though, from largely manual labour and horse-drawn transport in the 1850s to mechanised extraction, motor transport and stronger workplace protections by the 1950s. Initially, hand tools dominate: wedges, chisels and manual lifting, although steam power and machinery are increasingly used. From 1880 onwards, more widespread use of machinery makes the work somewhat less physically demanding although introduces different hazards and does not eliminate manual labour.
It was also common in the late-18th century for children, particularly of lesser means, to contribute to the economic wellbeing of the household. In the quarries that could include carrying, sorting and other less-skilled tasks, dependent on the particular quarry and local practices. Over time, the laws regarding child labour changed but for a quarryman's son, the transition into adulthood might nevertheless involve following his father into the trade.
Carved inscriptions left on infrastructure
Spending time in the Derbyshire Woods and around Stanton Moor, the evidence of these stories is impossible to miss – old infrastructure, stone circles, mounds, spoil heaps, inscriptions and quarry related buildings and tracks. These matter because they connect the larger history, both industrial and cultural, to individual lives. The inscriptions and old chisel marks offer me the same sense of awe as ancient handprints in Argentina, or prehistoric cave paintings in Indonesia. A glimpse into the life of someone we will never know, never meet, maybe never truly understand, but someone who was real, who stood where we stand, who was like us.
Handprints in Cueva de las Manos Argentina