Youlgreave

This straggling village can also be spelled Youlgrave, and to confuse matters further, it is known locally as Pommy. There have been over sixty variations on the name of this busy, one-street village. The name is thought to mean ‘the yellow grove’ or ‘Geola’s grove’ – an old name for a lead mine – and Youlgreave was certainly once at the centre of the Derbyshire lead mining industry. In fact, fluorspar and calcite are still extracted from some of the old mines.

The Parish Church of All Saints, one of the most beautiful churches in Derbyshire, contains some parts of the original Saxon building though its ancient font is, unfortunately, upturned and used as a sundial. Inside, the working font is Norman and still retains its stoup for holding the Holy Water. It is well worth taking the time to have a look at, as it is the only such font in England. The Church also contains a small tomb with an equally small alabaster effigy; dated 1488. It is a memorial to Thomas Cockayne, who was killed in a brawl when only in his teens. A fine alabaster panel in the north aisle, dated 1492, depicts the Virgin with Robert Gylbert, his wife and seventeen children. There is a glorious Burne-Jones stained-glass window, which was added in 1870, when Norman Shaw very sensitively restored the church.

Further up the village’s main street is Thimble Hall, the smallest market hall in the Peak District. It dates from 1656 and there are also some rather grand Georgian houses to be found in the village. Nearby, the old shop built in 1887 for the local Co-operative Society is now a youth hostel. It featured in the film of DH Lawrence’s The Virgin and the Gypsy, much of which was filmed in the village. Standing opposite is the Conduit Head, a gritstone water tank that has the unofficial name of The Fountain. Built by the village’s own water company in 1829, it supplied fresh soft water to all those who paid an annual fee of sixpence. In celebration of their new, clean water supply, the villagers held their first well-dressing in 1829. Today, Youlgreave dresses its wells for the Saturday nearest to St John the Baptist’s Day (24th June). Such is the standard of the work that the villagers, all amateurs, are in great demand for advice and help.

Two or three miles to the west of the village is the Bronze Age Arbor Low, sometimes referred to as the ‘Stonehenge of the Peak District’. About 250 feet in diameter, the central plateau is encircled by a ditch, which lies within a high circular bank. On the plateau is a stone circle of limestone blocks, with a group of four stones in the centre cove. There are a total of 47 stones each weighing no less than eight tonnes, and a further three stones in the centre. Probably used as an observatory and also a religious site, it is not known whether the stones, which have been placed in pairs, ever stood upright. There is no archaeological evidence to suggest that they did. Gaps in the outer bank, to the northwest and southeast, could have been entrances and exits for religious ceremonies.

Arbor Low dates to the Early Bronze Age period, and there is much evidence in the dales along the River Lathkill that they were inhabited at that time. Nearby there is a large barrow known as Gib Hill, which stands at around 16 feet. When it was excavated a stone cist was discovered, containing a clay urn and burned human bones. This circular mound to the south of the stone circle, offers some protection against the weather and it is from this that Arbor Low got its name – ‘sheltered heap’.