Birchover

Birchover’s name means ‘the ridge where the birch trees grow’. Its main street meanders gently up from the unusual outcrops of Rowtor Rocks at the foot of the village, heading up towards neighbouring Stanton Moor. The village was once home to father-and-son amateur antiquarians J.C. and J.P. Heathcote, who excavated over seventy Bronze Age burial mounds. They kept a detailed and fascinating private museum in the old village post office in the main street and it is now in Sheffield’s Weston Park Museum.

The strange Rocks of Rowtor, behind The Druid Inn, are said to have been used for Druidical rites. The Reverend Thomas Eyre, who died in 1717, was fascinated by these rocks and built the strange collection of steps, rooms and seats which have been carved out of the gritstone rocks on the summit of the outcrop. It is said that the reverend would take his friends there to admire the view across the valley below - a view which, nowadays, is obscured by trees. Prehistoric cup-and-ring marks have been discovered on the rocks and several rocking stones can be moved by the application of a shoulder. One of these, weighing about 50 tons, could once be rocked easily by hand, but in 1799 fourteen young men decided to remove it for a bit of a lark. However when they put it back, they couldn’t get the balance right.

Thomas Eyre lived at the Old Vicarage in the village below Rowtor Rocks, and also restored the lovely tiny church known as the Jesus Chapel or Rowtor Chapel. The chapel later became the village cheese shop, and it now features, among fragments of Norman work, unusual carvings and some wonderful decorative features, including modern stained glass by the artist Brian Clarke, who lived at the vicarage for a time during the 1970s.

Nearby across the fields are two equally strange outcrops Robin Hood’s Stride (also known as ‘Mock Beggar’s Hall’) and Cratcliff Tor. A medieval hermit’s cave, complete with crucifix, can be seen at the foot of Cratcliff Tor, hidden behind an ancient yew tree.