ground floor, and one above, over which the roof was raised, not flat, but with gable ends to the north and fouth, the outer walls rifing above it. The ground floor was about 14 feet high, as well as can be discovered from the rubbish now fallen on the bottom; the other room was 16 feet high. There was no entrance to the lower room from the outfide, (what is now used as an entrance being only a hole broke through the wall at the corner where the staircase is*) but a flight of steps led to a door in the fouth fide of the upper room, the door being seven feet high, and about four and a half wide. It is faid these steps are remembered to have been there, but are now quite deftroyed. The places where were the hinges of the door, remain, and on one fide is a hole in the wall, in which the bar to faften the door was put. It is now called the bar-hole, is made of squared stone, and goes 12 or 14 feet into the wall; on the other fide is a hole to correspond with it. In this room is one narrow window over the door, one in the north, and one in the east fide; in the north-east and fouth-weft corners, are two places which have the appearance of privies; in the fouth-eaft corner is a narrow winding ftair-cafe, now in a ruinous condition, which led down to the room below, and up to the roof. Defcending this staircase, the lower room is found to have been lighted by two windows, or loops, one in the north fide, the other in the east, each of them being feven feet high, five feet five inches wide on the infide, but narrowing to about four feet high, and seven inches wide on the outfidet. The walls are com pofed of small limeftones and mortar, of such an excellent temper, that it binds the whole together like a rock, faced on the outside and infide with hewn gritstone. Part of that on the outside, and much of it on the infide, is ftill pretty intire; but the fandy part of fome of the ftones has crumbled away, fo as at first fight to exhibit an appearance of very rude fculpture; but within a quarter of an inch of the mortar, at the joints, the stone is entire, which may be owing to the effect of the well tempered mortar on fuch parts as come in contact with it. In further confirmation of this opinion, I am affured, that at Bur-tor there is a ftratum of stone which moulders away in this manner. On the outfide there is no appearance of any fuch thing; may we fuppofe the weather to have hardened the ftone there? Within fide there is in the wall a little herring-bone ornament. This castle was used for keeping the records of the miners' courts, till they were removed to Tutbury caftle in the time of Queen Elizabeth. An intrenchment, which begins at the lower end of the valley, called the Cave, inclosed the town, ending at the great cavern, and forming a femicircle; this is now called the town ditch, but the whole of it cannot eafily be traced, having been destroyed in many parts by buildings and the plough. Here, at Burgh, and at Hope, are fome chalybeate fpringst. The celebrated cavern well deferves to be seen, and is vifited without danger, and with much less trouble than may be imagined by those who have not gone into it. A rock on the left of the entrance is 75 yards and a quarter high; and directly from the caftle wall to the ground, is eighty-nine yards and an half§; the precipice, which flopes down all the way on the left hand from the caftle, is above 200 yards long, that on the right 100. The mouth, in which are a few huts of fome packthread-spinners, is 40 yards wide, and 14 high. At 150 yards from the entrance you come to the first water, the roof gradually floping down till it comes within about two feet of the * Mr. King thinks otherwise, and that the fteps leading to the door began on the eaft fide, and went round the corner of the wall. He has paid fuch attention to these matters in general, and to this place in particular, that I dare not dispute his opinion. + Mr. King has given a large account of this caftle in the 6th vol, of the Arch. p. 247, &c. Short, p. 277• § Ibid. p. 30. furface furface of the ftream which paffes through the cavern; this water is to be croffed by lying down in a boat filled with straw, which is pufhed forward by the guide, who wades through the water. You foon come to a cavern, faid to be 70 yards wide, and 40 high, in the top of which are feveral openings, but the candles will not enable the eye to reach their extent. After crofling the water a fecond time, (on the guide's back) you come to a cavern, called Roger Rain's House, because there is a continual dropping of water from the roof. At this place you are entertained by a company of fingers, who have taken another path, and ascended to a place called the Chancel, confiderably higher than the part you stand on, where, with lights in their hands, they fing various fongs. The effect is very ftriking. In the whole, the water is croffed feven times, but ftepping-ftones are fufficient, except at the two first. In one place, the stream is loft in a quickfand, but emerges again. At the distance of about 750 yards from the entrance, the rock came down so close to the water, that it precluded all farther paffage; but as there was reafon to believe from the found, that there was a cavern beyond, about four years ago a gentleman determined to try if he could not dive under the rock, and rife in the cavern beyond; he plunged in, but, as was expected, ftruck his head against the rock, fell motionless to the bottom, and was dragged out with difficulty. The man who fhews this place, has been at much trouble and fome expence in blowing up the rock, to open a paffage to this fuppofed cavern, but finds that he has mistaken the courfe, and now means to try in another part. He treated us with an explosion, which rolled like thunder. The water which is found here, is fuppofed to be that which is ingulphed by the fide of the turnpike road, three miles from Castleton. in the way to Chapel in Frith, juft by a farm-house. On coming out of the cavern, after having been fo long abfent from day-light, the first appearance of it has an effect beyond description; I know not whether a compa-. rifon of it with the break of day under a grey fky, interfperfed with fleecy clouds, will convey an adequate idea, but no one can fee it without feeling a most pleasing fenfation. At the foot of Mam Torr is another cavern, called Water Hull, into which the good-natured Ciceroni will probably endeavour to prevail on the traveller to descend; the defcent, however, is very dirty and difficult, and there is not any thing at the bottom worth feeing. They get out of it fome blue-john, ufed by the polishers for making vafes, &c. and petrifactions, amongst which are fome exactly refembling the bones and fhells of fifhes of various forts, cockles, oyfters, pectunculi, patella, and the nautilus; bodies like the vertebræ, fnails, stars, fkrews, and various ftriated figures, and pieces of the capfulæ of infects, like thofe of butterflies. I was told by one who had been in it, that there is, at some distance on the other fde of the caftle, a cavern in a mine, which if it was not for the very great difficulty of accefs, would be well worth visiting; from his defcription it seemed to resemble, in miniature, the famous grotto of Antiparos, in the Archipelago; but, like that, would require an uncommon fhare of refolution in the vifitor. The hills on the different fides of the town produce ftone of very different quality. Those on the fouth, on one of which the castle ftands, furnish a stone which is burnt into lime, and is used for a manure; thofe on the north yield a grit-ftone fit for building. The hill on the north appears brown and barren when viewed at a distance, but is, in fact, very good paflure; the Yorkshire drovers bring their cattle here in the beginning of May, and keep them all the fummer, paying about thirty fhillings a head for their feed. It is not very easy to afcend this hill, but it is worth the labour; Castleton dale spreads as you ascend, and on gaining the fummit, a fequestered valley, called Edale, opens to the eye in a beautiful manner; it is wide and fertile, the inclofures running up the fides of the hills, and yearly increasing. Other fmall dales come into it from between other hills, and their verdure is contrafted by the brown tops of the yet uncultivated ridges. Near the end of one of these is the principle part of the village of Edale, and an humble chapel, without fpire or tower. A rivulet runs down by it, fhewing itfeif in many places, and by the noife of its fall, directs to a mill placed in a little grove. Two or three other clumps of houses, and small tufts of trees, and another ftreamlet falling into this, enliven the scene. From hence various other dales branch off to what is called the Woodland of Derbyfhire, through which no high road has yet been made. This tract is of great extent, but much of it has been cleared of late, and the plough introduced by the Duke of Devon fhire, to whom it moftly belongs. Oats is the only corn they fow on the hills, which they do three years together, if the land is in good condition, otherwife but two, and then lay it down into grafs for fix or feven years. When they break up new ground on the hills, they used to lime it only, which is found to kill the heath, and produces a new, fweet grafs; but they now generally denfhire (i. e. pare and burn the fward, plow it for turnips, then fow oats and grafs-feed. Some put on lime after it is laid down into grafs, others in the turnip crop. The hill which I have just mentioned as dividing Caftleton-dale from Edale, confifts of a long ridge, terminating towards the welt in a broad end, one point of which is called Mam Torr, or the fhivering mountain, the foot of which is about a mile from Caftleton. On the top of this hill is good mould, two yards deep, then clay three-fourths of a yard; after that a bed of fhale, and a row of ironstone, in their turns, for about 20 yards, but the ironftone always thickeft, being often a yard, the other not half fo much; then begins an intermixture of fhale, and a mixt ftone, between ironstone and gritftone, in beds of the fame thickness, which continues to the foot of the Toor. Thefe ftrata lie horizontally, in the moft exact order. In the upper part it is perpendicular, but in the middle it flopes. On the top it is about 60 yards broad, at the bottom of the running fhale, about 400 yards*. West from this is a fimilar breach in the hill, but fmaller, called Little Mam Torr. The perpendicular height of the largest, as measured by a friend of mine, is 456 feet; of the leaft, 243 feet; but the top of Mam Torr is faid to be near 1000 feet above the level of Caftleton valleyt. On the top and fides of this hill is a camp, supposed to be Roman, of an oblong form, running from N. E. to S. W. the broad end being to the fouth west, where Mam Torr forms one point, Little Mam Torr the other; the smaller end is to the north-eaft, on the ridge which continues on towards Loofehill. There has been a double trench all round it, but the fouth corner is broken off by the falling of the earth at Great Mam Torr, and the weft by that at Little Mam Torr. The fummit of the hill is not level, but runs in a ridge nearly from weft to eaft, along which is built a ftone wall, as a pafture fence, now dividing the camp into two parts. The afcent to it is very fteep every way, except at the north-eaft end, where the ditch croffes the ridge. The principal entrance feems to have been at the weft corner, very near the top of Little Mam Torr; but there is a track of an old road leading from Mam Gate, up the north fide of the hill, to a gate of about four yards wide at the final end of the camp oppofite to the other gateway. There is a third of the fame width, towards the north-weft fide, going down to Edale. Near the north-eaft corner is a good Whitehurst, p. 153. VOL. II. * Short, p. 32. fpring. At the fouth-weft end are two fmall mounts within the camp. The trench is about 16 feet wide at bottom, and inclofes fomething more than fixteen acres of ground, the whole circumference being about 1200 yards. At the foot of Little Mam Torr, near Mam Gate, is a field called Hills Pafture, taking its name from a number of fmall hillocks irregularly difperfed about it. On the level ground, amongst thefe, the foundations of feveral buildings were discovered a few years ago, which were grown over with grafs; the ftone was taken up and carried away, to be used in other places. The perfon employed about it fays, that the walls were in general from 18 inches to two feet in thickness, compofed of ftone, which did not seem to have been hewed fmooth with a chiffel, but dreffed with a pick-axe, just fufficiently to make them bed together, without any mortar or cement. There were feveral door thresholds, but no appearance of any ftones marked with fire, to indicate chimnies. Thefe buildings were of various fhape and fize; one of them was circular, about 24 feet diameter, with an opening for a door-way on the fouth fide; about eight feet weft of it was a fmall building, containing three fides of an oblong fquare, one end being open. The whole inclofed by a wall, fomething in the fhape of a triangle, but not regular; the longest fide about 50 yards. Near this were two other buildings, nearly fquare, wider at one end than at the other, the fmalleft end being 12 feet, the other three fides 18 feet each; the fmall end of one was to the fouth, of the other to the weft; the fize of these was exactly the fame. At a little distance from the wide end of each, is a heap of ftone and rubbish, overgrown with grafs, of about fix feet long, and one high. There were two other buildings confiderably larger, of irregular hape. Whether these had any relation to the camp, I do not know. Nothing was found to fhew the purpofe for which they were originally intended, nor is there any remembrance of their being in any other state than they were found on this occafion, nor any tradition concerning them. From this camp a ditch is carried down the fouth fide of the hill, crofs the valley to Micklow-hill, about three miles off; and from thence, S. E. by S. croffing the Bathom-gate, and a ftream that rifes at Bradwell, and runs by Brough, it goes in a ftraight line to Shatton, or Bradwell-edge, about three miles more. It is called the Grey-ditch, and poffibly was a Prætentura, or fore-fence of the Romans*. On the fide of Mam Torr Hill it is very vifible; in the valley it is loft in many places, the plough having deftroyed it; but from Micklow-hill to Shatton-edge, it is plainly feen. The flope or front is towards Brough; it is about 20 feet high, and 12 broad at top. There is no tradition concerning it, but pieces of fwords, fpears, fpurs, and bridle-bits, have been found on both sides, and very near it, between Bathom-gate and Bradwellwater. Juft where it croffes the Bathom-gate, on the east fide of it is a large limeftone rock, called Idintree, or Edentree. It is faid that a King Eddin had a house here, but perhaps it is unneceffary to fay that nothing of it remains now. About a hundred yards north of this rock is a faltith fpring, very clear and cold, of a purgative quality; many poor people have ufed it for bathing and drinking, and found it ufeful in fcorbutic and ulcerous complaints. This fpring runs into Bradwell-water, at a part of it vulgarly called Birdfwath, a little before it joins the Nooe. Perhaps the true name relates to this ftation, and is, Burgh-wash. On the point of land formed by the junction of these two small streams, was the Roman ftation called Brough, or Burgh. The road called Bathom-gate, went from Similar to that mentioned in Morton's Natural Hiftory of Northamptonshire, p. 526. |