There's a village in Derbyshire called Dove Holes. Sounds nice doesn't it? A place where you will find doves cooing happily in the snug recesses of rock faces. But no - it's not like that. Earlier this millennium, a BBC survey deemed Dove Holes to be the worst English village to live in and the ugliest too.
I think that that label is totally unfair. Okay - I would not choose to live there myself - but there are far worse places in this country. The worst thing about Dove Holes is the busy A6 road that cuts right through it. Another negative is that although more than a thousand people live there, the village does not have a shop. Two churches, a school, a pub, a railway station and a massive limestone quarry - but no shop.
Oh - and another thing Dove Holes has got is a significant neolithic henge. Once a circle of standing stones would have graced the circular mounds for mysterious purposes. It is amazing that the mounds have survived for some five thousand years. Surely a village that boasts such an ancient site cannot possibly be the worst place in England. They call the circles The Bull Ring.
At the top you can see a picture I took on Monday and below an aerial view of The Bull Ring which I took from my helicopter. Only kidding:-
After checking out the henge with wonder, my Ordnance Survey map led me out of the village up to the western edge of the same vast limestone quarry I snapped in last week's snow. You might remember.
I plodded in a big circle back to the dozing Clint parked by Dove Holes Village Hall. From the west, over Coombs Moor, a wintry shower was approaching. For ten minutes it pelted me with little bullets of snow, making my cheeks sting.
Limestone working around Dove Holes goes back many years as can be deduced from the picture below. To the left on the raised ground you can see a recent housing development.
But here we are back at the huge Dove Holes Limestone Quarry. I am close to the rim but a fence prevents me from getting closer. Just beyond those rocks there's a massive man-made cliff that drops down to deep lakes created by years of quarrying. The quarry is the largest in England and is now operated by a multi-national organisation called Cemex. Most of the company's products are used in construction and road building.
Lord knows what the people who created The Bull Ring would have made of it all.
If they're still building homes there, it must be for a reason. I believe no new homes have been built in Barnsley for several decades!
ReplyDeleteBarnsley is not a bad place Monsieur Cro. The people there are the salt of the earth. "It's Time To Make A Fresh Start" say Barratt Homes. Perhaps you and Madame Cro could purchase a small holiday home in Barnsley.
DeleteI think we may have to take time to consider that, as our list for holiday home locations tend to be further south.
DeleteI have spotted a property in Barnsley that might suit you sir - a snip at only £43,000. Go here:-
Deletehttps://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-72924958.html
It seems indeed unfair to call Dove Holes the ugliest village mainly because of a busy road cutting through it. Those people who call places close to roads ugly are probably the very same ones who merrily speed along on such roads and motorways themselves, using their cars for even the shortest trips, and having one car per family member, cat and dog including.
ReplyDeleteYou had really good weather for your walk! Congratulations on having your own helicopter. It makes traveling much easier, doesn't it.
I don't know about being "unfair", Meike. Some things just are. Ugly. Which, you may agree, is fair enough but slightly different to the superlative "ugliest". That's the thing, as soon as you start comparing there will always be the beauties, the largely unremarkable, trailed by the uglies. One of which will have to be, by definition, the ugliest. Still, to keep it in perspective, and by way of comfort to both you and the inhabitants of Dove Holes: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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Dove Holes is not a beautiful village but it is very close to wonderful countryside and is on the very doorstep of The Peak District National Park. I think some of the former pit villages in South Yorkshire and The North East are uglier and and less affluent by far but in the BBC poll they were probably entirely overlooked which says something about them.
DeleteThe aerial view is actually very nice. I guess ugly is relative.
ReplyDeleteThe aerial view is just to the east of Dove Holes. The village is off-camera.
DeleteI remember seeing a lot of henges in Wiltshire (apart from the big Stonehenge). One at Avebury springs to mind. They are the "churches" of their time.
ReplyDeleteAll henges and burial mounds whisper to us through the centuries about the people who lived on this island long ago.
DeleteI had no idea you were able to pilot a helicopter. Look at you, a man of hidden talents obviously.
ReplyDeleteThe village looks fine but I can't imagine not have a shop nearby. That would make life difficult. The photos are beautiful and it is so amazing to see how ancient peoples lived, that what they built still survives in this day and age.
The closest shops are three miles away in both Buxton and Chapel-en-le-Frith. Now I must get out into the garden to polish my helicopter.
DeleteYou are such a renaissance man, zooming around in your helicopter while simultaneously snapping photos. That IS an interesting circular henge. It's hard to imagine what people from back then would think of our crazy modern age.
ReplyDeleteI have the strong sense that they were more at home with Nature and the landscapes they inhabited than modern people are. We lost many things along the way.
DeleteI thoroughly enjoyed this post without being able to determine why. We do not have henges or crop circles in Canton, Georgia, although there are Indian burial mounds in several places scattered around north Georgia.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you can go and visit one or two of the Indian burial mounds, research them and then blog about them on your illustrious blog. I am sure that I would not be the only fan of RWP who would enjoy such a blogging project. And it would pay homage to the original inhabitants of northern Georgia.
DeleteAt least the surrounding landscape with the old henge looks nice... Whether a henge can make up for having no shop in the village I dare not say (being a spoiled city dweller myself).
ReplyDeleteIt is not too far to shops in the nearby town of Buxton but elderly people or young mothers or unemployed residents may not have access to cars.
DeleteI am continually amazed to see the henges and burial mounds in your country. The sense and feel of life so long ago is made all the more special by these places. Thank you for showing us this.
ReplyDeleteYou are very welcome Bonnie. I notice that there are very old Native American burial mounds in the state of Missouri at Cahokia Mounds. Have you been there?
DeleteI am familiar with the Cahokia Mounds but I have not visited them. There used to be many ancient Indian burial grounds in this country. Many of them are now, unfortunately, covered by modern day buildings and roads.
DeleteThe skeletal remains of a mammoth that lived 500,000 to 1 million years ago was found just a few miles from where I live. They say it was a prehistoric elephant and it is now in an area University where is has been studied. I would love to dig around the area where it was found but it is on private property and not open to the public.
At least some of America's native heritage remains. Many important sites in Britain were also damaged or obliterated in past centuries.
DeleteI've visited several of the mounds here in Ohio; Serpent Mound especially. There were mounds in northeastern Ohio, too, where I lived for many years. Fortunately these are maintained by the state of Ohio, not the Federal government. I believe the latter would Disneyfy them.
ReplyDeleteYour "mounds" are a good two thousand years older, neolithic. Ours are just ACE.
Though I spent eight months of my life in Ohio I never got to see any mounds. In those days - in my early twenties - I guess that I wasn't yet into such wonders.
DeleteI view those surveys with a jaundiced eye, I'm afraid. So much of the results depend on the wording of the survey questions, the focus of the questions, the interpretation of the answers to the questions, and, more often than is admitted, the intentions of the body doing the survey.
ReplyDeleteI like those mounds. They make me think with awe of the folks from so long ago who were responsible for building them, and wonder what their lives were really like. It takes vision to build something so lasting when daily life is a struggle all by itself.
You are of course right to be cynical about surveys and their conclusions.
DeleteHenges are places of great mystery, they may have had a religious function, but could have been a corral for animals. A place where gatherings and feasting took place, and what was the three joining henges of Thornborough all about?
ReplyDeleteI am going to have to research Thornborough Thelma.
DeleteYou mean to tell me that there is not a grocery or a pub or a place for a quick meal? Amazing in this day and age with a population of any amount. Where are the nearest stores and such?
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