Fairies of Cauldon Lowe

Belief in Fairies was common enough for people in the  past although in more recent times such opinions are considered idiosyncratic. In country areas however belief in them and in other fey entities such as elves, goblins and boggarts persisted well into the 19^th century.

Some months ago I was having a chat with an elderly former quarry worker from Cauldon Lowe who was telling me entertaining stories about his childhood including encounters with gypsies he called “ roadsters”. I touched on a legend I had heard of the area “The Fairies of Caldon Lowe”  well enough known story to have a 19^th century writer Mary Howitt produce a poem on the subject in the 1840s. (She was the first English translator of the children stories of Hans Christian Andersen) The old man told me that he had heard accounts of fairy’s dancing on an ancient burial mound on certain nights of the year.

The Leek priest and folklorist of the 1950s WP Wincutt researched a number of other places in the Moorlands that fairy traditions attached to them including Long Low close to Castern Hill where pixies danced inside a hill on Christmas Eve. Wincutt believed that a common denominator in most of these local stories was that incidents happened at sites of great antiquity.

 In another account a writer in 1901 described at Longnor a flickering light “seen moving as one moves . . . it has given rise to many tales of belated travellers having been beguiled by it and led into the swamp, where their bodies remain, and from whence their “boggarts” arise at night to caper and dance all over the countryside, to the terror of the inhabitants.”

Fairy lore has a tradition of thousands of years going back to before pre Christian times. Mischievous fairies have been said to abduct human babies and substituting them with their own children or “changelings”. They are accused of inflicting amnesia on their victims, drugging their victims and taking them to other worldly places filled with light. Medieval tales are full of encounters between humans and fairies where people when wandering back home find that life has radically changed.

One example from the Welsh border refers to a King called Herla who is invited by an Elf King to attend a feast. He and his entourage are let into a magnificent hall under a cliff where they are wined and dined until the meal ends and they fall asleep. On returning to the surface find that they have been gone 300 years and all has changed.

If we could remove the mythological aspect from fairy abductions and dress them a little differently, these folklore reports would be virtually indistinguishable from present UFO abduction reports which is an interesting conclusion to arrive at. 

The ability of fairies to cause mischief even into the 20^th century is illustrated by the fooling of the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle who was taken in by two young girls in 1920s Yorkshire photographed posing with fairies. Many years later Elsie and Frances confessed that they had faked the pictures with paper cut outs.

Do you remember March 1955?

The month became with a severe storm which swept in covering the area with many feet of snow. Locals reckoned it was the worst weather since the infamous winter of 1947. The roads were blocked with vehicles abandoned in Solomon's Hollow. There was a birth and a death in the blizzards. A retired miner Ernest Jones aged 70 in a vain attempt to get to a health tribunal in Stoke tried to walk through the snow and was later found dead only yards from a farm house in Quanford. A GP from Hartington battled through the weather to deliver a baby at Longnor. Public transport acquitted itself fairly well and a snow plough fitted to a train was able to keep all local lines clear including the “bread” train down the Churnet line. The weather was eloquently described by a farmer WS Buxton from Old Mixon Haye Farm, Onecote. “ The weather has just been about as much as people can stand. It is a marvellous sight at the back of our place. The snow has formed into a 20 foot drift 100 yards long tunnel- its a wonderful sight”

A murder trial came to its conclusion in March 1955. It was a terribly sad affair as the jury took only 15 minutes to reach its verdict . Polish labourer 45 year old Jan Mirys was found guilty and ordered to be detained in a secure hospital as he was deemed unfit to plead by dint of insanity. The previous year Mirys had killed his Mother in Law Maria Kosarzewska at her Cromwell Terrace home in Leek with an axe. He then went on the run and was found later in Ballington Woods with self inflicted injuries to his legs. Mirys was suffering from paranoid delusions when he killed Maria. At his trial 12 months later he cut a pathetic figure as he had to be carried in by a prison warden as the Pole's legs had been amputated.

From the perspective of today we make the assumption that the 1950s were a period when political engagement was at its height. Over 80 % of the electorate had turned out in the 1951 election and both the two main political parties had over a million members. However apathy existed in the 1950s in votes cast in council elections. An editorial in the paper found the low turn out in the County elections deplorable accusing the people of the area of having a “ a could not care less attitude”. Only one member of the public attended a parish council meeting in Alton on a sewerage issue.

The sad news that Danny the last horse to work for Leek Urban Council had been put down. Danny represented the end of a tradition of the working horse. In 1900 there had been over 1 million working horses. The First World War had killed many horses and there future as a general beast of burden ended with the arrival of the internal combustion engine. News of other horses was reported in the letters page of the Post and Times suggesting a campaign against the high number of deaths at the Grand National at Aintree. In the 1954 Grand National 4 horses had been killed or humanely dispatched.

The death was announced of Charles Bill aged 83. He was the last Bill of Farley Hall near Oakamoor. The family had held the estate since the beginning of the 17^th century and the family had been prominent in local politics for many years . Charles Bills father- another Charles- was Tory MP for Leek between 1892-1905. His son had a distinguished military career fighting in the Boer War and First World War. Mention should be made of his brother Hugo's exploit who rode from Persia back to England in 1911

It was in the news recently that there are plans to re open the Talbot pub as a hotel which will be a major boost for the town, There was a major renovation of the former coaching inn that year. The article in the paper informed the readers that “ the bar has red mottled plastic tops- cigarette burn proof and oak strips alternative light and dark in colour.” 

Do you remember January 1989?

1989 did not begin well for the District Council. It was voted “ Most Philistine” Council in the satirical magazine “Private Eye” for the second year running. The 1980s locally were dominated by proposals to redevelop Leek and although there was much local opposition the Council were determined to press ahead. Matters had come to a head with a referendum taken the previous autumn in which the plans were rejected

Another charge levelled at the authority was its obsessive secrecy and its willingness to accept the mediocre in terms of building designs for the town centre and for the new Council chamber. It seems to me as a long term resident of the town that the lack of openness identified by the magazine still exists today.

The Post and Times carried headlines of the mental health strategy of local health services. It was reported that 120 patients from St Edwards Hospital were being moved out in the community. These plans were in line with the tenor of the times. Some years earlier the Griffiths Report on Community Care had been published which called for the closure of “asylums” and the treatment of patients in the community. It was a move generally supported by health professionals and the users. Long stay hospitals had been built often in countryside some way from urban areas and the patients tended to be institutionalised in such facilities. In the late 80s I worked as a Community Health Council officer in the North west and can recall some of the terrible stories of patient who had been effectively incarcerated in huge hospitals like Calderstones in Lancashire. In one case a woman had been a patient since the 1930s for having a child out of wedlock.

Bill Sheldon of Wetley Rocks turned 90 in 1989. He was a First World War veteran joining the Leicestershire Regiment at the age of 18. He had a memento of his war experiences in the trenches. A German prisoner at the end of the war had made him a shaving mirror complete with the crest of Bill's regiment- the Fox. Bill had a narrow escape in Flanders in 1917 when he and 5 other comrades including a mate from Longnor were detailed to go on a night raid to gather information. There plans were discovered by an alert German machine gunner who opened fire on them in No Man's land. Only Bill and the Longnor man made it safely back to British lines

It was a happy opening of the year for the Riondino family when Tracey nee Lowndes of Leek gave birth to triplets. Tracey was married to an evangelist preacher Carmine from Italy and they had given the children biblical names Melchisedel, Zipporah and Zion. The family were visiting family members in Leek over the festive period. Carmine had an interesting past and as a young man was involved with the Mafia. He bought this experience to good use in working with gang members and drug user and the family planned to build a church in Central Italy,

Residents in Rudyard were outraged at the activities of a local hunt which had disrupted life in the area over several months in 1988/9. Fox hounds had crashed into a garden in Devil's Lane causing several cats and a puppy to narrowly escape with their lives, the dogs had wrecked havoc in gardens as they pursued a fox some distance. Worse occurred some months earlier when a toddler witnessed a cub ripped apart in front of him.

Leek Ladies had formed a football club and were serious in intent. They took training seriously going on longcross country runs. The star of the team was Maxine Brookes who had acquired the nickname “ Mad Max” given her tenacious tackling ability. It had not gone too smoothly as in an early fixture they were beaten by the Doncaster Belles 36-0

Wife selling Longnor 1886

In July 1886 the Leek Times reported on a wife selling incident in Longnor. It would seem not exactly a rare event. Between the 18th and early 20th century there were around 400 cases of wife selling around the country. An alleged incident took place in 1854 in Leek so the Longnor case takes such instances virtually to the dawn of the 20th century.

Wife selling was regarded as an alternative way to end an unhappy marriage other than by costly divorce. It was regarded as a rural custom, which relied on the mutual consent of the parties. To give wife selling validity it was necessary to make it a witnessed event.

Locally the custom followed a set procedure. A man took his wife to market tied with a length of rope. He paid a toll that gave him the right to sell her. He then paraded her around extolling her virtues. Once the deal was agreed the parties would adjourn to a local pub and the deal sealed over a beer.

The Leek Times reported that three tinkers came to Longnor, one was playing a tin whistle the other sang and the third a woman collected pennies. A local farmer John Gould of Coats Farm, Hollinsclough whose wife had left him years before entered into negotiations to buy the woman. The sale was agreed over brown ale in the Bull’s Head. Gould then took the halter to lead his newly acquired wife into the market place so that his friends were made aware of his new acquisition.

 At this stage a local policeman intervened and the farmer was told that his purchase was illegal and that he ran the risk of being run in. It did not deter him. He said“ I do not think you can interfere with me when my wife left me. I have the right to buy another” The couple was last seen walking away from the Bull’s Head arm in arm later that evening.

By 1886 the practice was dying out the passing of divorce legislation in the middle of the 19th century spelt the end of wife selling. Before the 1857 act men whose wife had committed adultery were forced to take drastic action such as wife selling to re-gain their self-respect. It is likely though that the tradition lingered on in rural areas.

Archaeology in the Stafordshire Peak

I have something of an interest in how the Victorians came to terms with the past especially pre-recorded history. By the start of the 19^th century the old beliefs about the beginning of mankind were unravelling. This applies this to those early geologists and archaeologists that examined the landscape of the Peak District. The sense of curiosity extended to those who saw in the countryside possibilities for discovering more about the lives of the earliest inhabitants of the Staffordshire Moorlands. By the 1840s the interest in early man was showing itself in the excavation of many of the ancient monuments. The science of archaeology had been established years before. Rev William Buckland who had discovered in 1823 the Red Lady of Paviland in South Wales, the first human fossil of its kind ever to be found in the world. The bones were later found not to be female at all and are still the earliest remains ever to be found in the UK at 33,000 years old.
One of the earliest local archaeologists was Thomas Bateman of Middleton in Youlgrave who in one year 1845 excavated 38 barrows and tumuli in Staffordshire and Derbyshire. Amongst then was one near Wetton in June 1845 in which early pottery and the skeleton of a girl were discovered. The site had lain undiscovered for 4,000 years. Bateman was an amateur and the archaeology bug seem to have bitten others. Mr Charlesworth of Heath House near Longnor who was interested in a mound of earth close by. According to the Derby Mercury of May 1847 he opened the barrow and as the account follows discovered bones and charcoal a few feet from the surface. " In the centre of the barrow was a body fixed in an upright position. The bones were presented to Mr Goodwin of Longnor Cottage"
. I am sure that the techniques that were used by these early rooters into the distant past would make a modern day archaeologist wince. I am equally certain that they made mistakes, but I recognise that they were the pioneers trying to reconstruct the distant past, a fascination that continues up to the present day.