Solidity

To all those out there in the blogosphere who thought that my "Alvin the Avenger" story was true, I have a confession to make. It was all pure, unadulterated fiction! The tyrannic reign of King Blabbermouth is not over. In fact, he has just invaded Switzerland. Sorry.

This afternoon I needed some self-therapy after all that fictionalising. With the afternoon brightening, I drove over to Stanage and parked close to the little car park  at Dennis Knoll.

At this time of year, summer swathes of vigorous green bracken have been replaced by dead and fallen vegetation that is rusty brown in colour. One advantage of this scene of death that is simply waiting for springtime is that you are better able to locate abandoned millstones.

The millstone industry probably began at Stanage Edge in the fourteenth century before peaking in the seventeenth century. The millstones were all laboriously hand-carved and were mainly used in flour production though some were used for grinding metal. They were exported far and wide.

The industry petered out at the beginning of the twentieth century when many perfectly fine millstones were simply abandoned. It was no longer cost-effective to hand carve them. They could be created with machinery instead and besides the millstone grit of Stanage Edge had been overtaken by the finer grained French "chert" which did not leave tiny grains of silica in the now fashionable pure white flour.

The result of all of this is that dozens of never-used but timeless grindstones can be found in the undergrowth below Stanage Edge. To me they are almost as evocative of times past as the famous moai statues on faraway Easter Island.