Trev's travails: The Roaches and Lud's Church

This week saw us visit the famous Roaches - as featured on Countryfile a few months ago, when Matt Baker told viewers how the pine martin was making a comeback in the area - and Lud's Church.

Dave led the intrepid band and fortunately the much expected rain did not reach us and we managed to complete our 10.6 mile trip in the dry - with even a hint of sunshine!

We started opposite the Roaches Tea Room and skirted Hen Cloud

A pair of peregrines had taken up residence again on Hen Cloud for the fourth successive year. They were not nesting yet but there was a small exclusion zone around Hen Cloud rocks.

The Roaches, with Hen Cloud and Ramshaw Rocks, form a gritstone escarpment which marks the south-western edge of the Peak. Best viewed from the approach along the Leek road, they stand as a line of silent sentinels guarding the entrance to the Peak District, worn into fantastic shapes by the elements.

The area is one of rock and heather which once belonged to the Swythamley Estate. The name Roaches has evolved recently from 'Roches' as the area used to be known only 100 years (or less) ago. 'Roches' is the french word for rocks.

The area was once famous for its wallabies. These were released in World War II from a private zoo at Swythamley and managed to breed and survive until the late 1990s, when the last survivors seem to have disappeared. Three Yaks were also released at the same time but they died out in the 1950's.

Hen Cloud, so named because with a little imagination it looks like a roosting hen (can't see it myself). The name could also have been derived from the Anglo -Saxon 'Henge Clud' meaning steep cliff (I'll buy that).

View towards Leek and Tittesworth Reservoir

Last week I reported that on Derwent Edge many of the rock formations had been given names which now appear on Ordnance Survey maps. Many of the shapes on The Roaches seemed to me to be equally worthy of achieving OS fame

How about "Old Boot" ?

"Upside down feet" ?

"Castle turret" ?

What does this remind you of?

A camel's face?

"Donald Duck with a hat on" ?

Another Trig Point to tick off Andy's list

Brian getting in on the act - he likes rocks with dates carved in them - this one was 1875

Doxy Pool

Lud's Church

Lud's Church is an immense natural cleft in the rock on the hillside above Gradbach,and was formed by a landslip which detached a large section of rock from the hillside, thus forming a cleft which is over 15 metres high in places and over 100 metres long, though usually only a couple of metres wide.

It is believed that the chasm was considered by early Pagans to be a sacred place, most likely due to the phenomenon that occurs on Midsummer Day, where only on this day does the Sun's light penetrate deep into the chasm.

The area also has a place in Christian history: the Lollards, who were followers of John Wycliffe, an early church reformer, are supposed to have used this as a secret place of worship during the early 15th century, when they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

Lud's Church may have been named after Walter de Ludank or Walter de Lud-Auk who was captured here at one of their meetings. A wooden ship's figurehead from the ship Swythamley formerly stood in a high niche above the chasm, placed there by Philip Brocklehurst, then the landowner, around 1862. It was called 'Lady Lud' and was supposed to commemorate the death of the daughter of a Lollard preacher.

Robin Hood, Friar Tuck and Bonny Prince Charlie are all reputed to have hidden from the authorities within the chasm. Ralph Elliott, local Luddites (known to be active in the area during the Luddite protests), and others have identified Lud's Church as the Green Chapel of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'.

Looking back into the dark cleft it is possible to distinctly see the outline, in the rock, of The Green Knight.

The original poem describes it in this way:

They rode up steep slopes where the branches are bare

They climbed up rock faces gripped by the cold

The clouds were high up – but dark underneath.

Mist drizzled on moor – broke up on the hills

Each peak wore a hat - a big cloak of mist.

Streams boiled and splashed down the hillsides about

In Miller’s “Olde Leeke” it states that Hen Cloud and the Roches are “rich with Druidical and sacrificial altars of stone, cromlechs (prehistoric stone structures), rocking stones and weird caverns”.