Abandoned Villages
by Brian Spencer A quick look at the Ordnance Survey 1:25000 scale map of the White Peak shows that the region has a history going back thousands of years. Gothic lettered map symbols indicating tumuli, stone circles, field systems or cairns tell us that our forefathers lived and farmed on what are now the high moors of the White Peak, but for some unknown reason abandoned their handiwork for pastures new. There are many reasons why habitations became lost features in the landscape. There are still farms here and there whose early owners would have slaved for their Roman overlords, or worked as lay employees on monastic granges. Later farms, the source of this monastic wealth as huge sheep walks, were split into the comparatively smaller units that became modern farms. Ethnic cleansing and medieval pestilence like the Black Death did far more damage than the Covid 19 pandemic is ever likely to do. Clearances have gone on right up to comparatively modern times, be it flooding pretty villages to create reservoirs or open cast coal mining. Major landowners a couple of hundred years ago moved whole villages simply to improve the look of ducal landscapes. And, of course the most up to date subject of climate change has been around for millenniums in one form or another. Armed with that wonderful aid for exploration, the Ordnance Survey 1:25000 map of the White Peak, we can start to look at our countryside with enquiring eyes. The best way to do this is to try and follow change under a number of headings, i.e. Mythical Accounts. Prehistoric settlements Climate change. Roman influence. Ethnic cleansing. Pestilence. Monastic clearances and later changes in farming patterns. Improvements to ducal estates – the NIMBY syndrome. Inundation during reservoir construction. Urban expansion. MYHICAL ACCOUNTS AND FOLKLORE Children attending Ashover Junior School were reminded of their ancestry when the modern version of an Iron Age roundhouse was built on the site of its prehistoric predecessor. Accurate in many details it told the children that this was just one memory of a bygone era. Some villages have celebrations based on past events, but probably the one that provokes the greater response is one where there is no longer any hint of past habitation. This is Leash Fen, an area of damp moorland on the Chesterfield side of the A621 Baslow/Sheffield road. Apart from a much later preaching cross in Shillito Wood to the north-east, there is nothing left of Leach Fen, but local children do remember it when they sing: “When Chesterfield was heath and broom, Leash Fen was amarket town. Now Leash Fen is all heath and broom, And Chesterfield a market town.” Dunsley near Bonsall no longer exists, but it is mentioned in the Domesday Book and Bonsall folk still accept there is a lost village above Marl Cottage in the via Gellia. Dunsley Spring water has been bottled and sold in the past. CLIMATE CHANGE IN PREHISTORIC TIMES When Neolithic people lost interest in hunting and gathering, preferring instead to lead a more settled life, they opted to farm on high ground, such as Big Moor and around the Upper Padley Gorge, no doubt in places where marauding carnivores could be avoided. The map of Big Moor has many indications of simple farming techniques – words like ‘enclosure’ or ‘field systems’, tell us that farms once dotted the moor. Remembering that the earliest settlers must have arrived not all that long after the comparatively rapid dispersal of ice that once covered the land, it is possible that this form of climate change continued, eventually making the land less suitable for agriculture. THE ROMAN INFLUENCE The abundance of lead and copper first attracted Imperial Rome to invade England in AD43. Between then and when they left around AD476, they left their indelible mark across the land, mostly by their road network and well laid out cities and forts. Place names with ‘Chester’ in their title, such as Chesterfield, are still with us, but only a few of their settlements can be traced to this day, if only by name. Modern Derby has shifted a mile or so to the south of DERVENTIO, Little Chester, a fortress which stood at the junction of Rykneild Street (Leicester to York) and their road from Derventio (Derby) to Mamucium (Manchester), known in later times as ‘The Street’. This road also reached AQVAE ARNEAMETIA, a place now known as Buxton and where naturally warm water still draws devotees. An administrative and lead smelting district known as LUTUDARUM is thought to have existed, and now lies beneath the waters of Carsington Reservoir. Pigs (ingots) of lead stamped LVT ex ARG found as far away as Italy, tell us that the silver had been removed when the ingot was cast at Lutudaron. In order to consolidate their search for lead, often aided by captured slaves, and control movement through the district, forts were built at strategic sites such as Bradwell where only traces of the fort remain, the village or ‘Vicus’ that once sheltered in its protection is long gone. When a Roman soldier completed his service, he was allowed to remain in England where they often married local girls. One of them took on Roystone Farm below Minninglow and the High Peak Trail. The present farm buildings are well away from the foundations of the Romano/Celtic farm’s footings, but they are still there lost in the mists of time. THE NORMAN CONQUEST & ETHNIC CLEANSING When King William, the ‘Conqueror’s’ scribes toured his new kingdom in 1086, collecting data for what became the Domesday Book they found that tax income was a fraction of what it had been under King Edward III, the Confessor. Time after time the comment ‘Wasta Est’ appears after a once wealthy place. Wasta Est indicated the ‘all is waste’, in other words, the place was deserted, all the crops ruined, the stock slaughtered and the inhabitants either murdered or fled. This had come about by the systematic
