The Castleton area of Derbyshire

If you are making a short visit to the Peak District of Derbyshire, you could do a lot worse than make the village of Castleton your centre of operations. Assuming that you are not an expert caver, but would nevertheless like to get underground, there are four cave systems within easy reach that are open to the public, and you also have a splendid castle to visit. Apart from that, this is an excellent starting point if you are a keen walker, with several strenuous routes heading off into the hills. One of the walks links all four of the show caves mentioned below. Castleton is also close to the southern end of the Pennine Way that could take you all the way to Scotland!

Peveril Castle

This is what gave Castleton its name. The castle stands high on the southern side of the village, and the approach is via a steep zigzag path that will test your fitness before you have even started to explore the castle! Peveril Castle was originally built by an illegitimate son of William the Conqueror, but most of the remains, including the prominent square keep, date from the late 12^th century. Apart from the circuit of the curtain wall, only the keep remains to be visited, but the views from the first-floor walkway are definitely an added attraction. The keep is built on top of a sheer limestone cliff at the side of Cave Dale, and you can appreciate what a strong defensive position this was as you look down. Looking around, you get magnificent views across the Hope Valley, with the bulk of Mam Tor rising on the other side.

Peak Cavern

This is approached via a riverside walk that takes you into a gash in the limestone cliffs, rising to 280 feet, that itself contains the entrance to the cavern. The cave mouth, the largest natural cave entrance in Britain, was once used by ropemakers who supplied local lead miners, and demonstrations of ropemaking still take place. The caves themselves, which are popularly known by the more colourful title of “The Devil’s Arse”, comprise a series of large chambers with water flowing through them, at one point forming a cascade. Given the “devilish” theme, it is not surprise that the stream is the River Styx and the chambers include Pluto’s Dining Room and the Devil’s Cellar. The guided tour takes about one hour.

Speedwell Cavern

This is not far from Peak Cavern, but the experience is a very different one. This is only partly natural, as it is mainly a disused lead mine. It is also very deep, at 600 feet below the surface, although the visitor has only 100 damp steps to descend (and then climb back up afterwards!). At the foot of the steps you climb aboard a boat and are taken along an underground canal through a narrow tunnel that was blasted by lead miners in the 1770s for a quarter of a mile. At the end of the tunnel you emerge into a vast chamber, the roof of which is out of sight. You can then look down into the “Bottomless Pit”, so called because the pool at its foot remained at the same level throughout the mine’s history, despite having 40,000 tons of waste rock dumped into it.

Treak Cliff Cavern

This is both a natural set of caves and a mine, although it was not lead that was mined here but the remarkable stone known as “Blue John” (which is not necessarily blue!). This is a semi-precious mineral, a variety of fluorspar that is coloured by various hydrocarbon impurities and which is found nowhere in the world but this small area of the Peak District. This material has long been highly prized for making into ornaments, jewellery and even vases and bowls, as it can be polished like marble. It is still being mined, although the quantities now available are very much less than they once were.

The first part of the Treak Cliff Cavern was dug by miners, although a number of natural caves were opened in the process. Further back, the caves are all natural, as the Blue John seams only go so far. The tour takes about 40 minutes, during which you will see a pillar of rock that contains a vein of Blue John that cannot be mined as the pillar keeps the roof up! You will also visit caverns that contain thousands of stalactites, some of which have been growing for 100,000 years. At one point a stalactite (hanging from the ceiling) is nearly touching a stalagmite that is growing from the floor. The gap between them is only an inch and a half; come back in a thousand years’ time and they will have joined up!

Blue John Cavern

As its name suggests, this is another Blue John mine, sited about two miles to the west of Castleton. This is a combination of natural and man-made chambers, notable for their rock formations and walls coloured by minerals and iron oxide deposits. At one point a stalactite formation looks like a frozen waterfall, and at another two streams met and formed a whirlpool that created a roughly circular chamber. The final chamber has a roof more than 200 feet high. Blue John is still being produced (in parts of the mine not open to the public) and pieces can be bought or ordered from the craft shop. If you buy an ornament made from Blue John it will be unique, because no two pieces are ever identical.

A visit to the Castleton area is well worth the trip, and a single day will not be enough. Also, bear in mind that this is only one small part of the Peak District, and there is a lot more yet to explore.

© John Welford