Lud's Church (sometimes written as Ludchurch) is a deep chasm penetrating the
Millstone Grit
Millstone Grit is any of a number of coarse-grained sandstones of Carboniferous age which occur in the British Isles. The name derives from its use in earlier times as a source of millstones for use principally in watermills. Geologists refer to ...
bedrock created by a massive landslip on the hillside above Gradbach,
Staffordshire
Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...
,
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. It is located in a wood known as Back Forest, in the
Dark Peak, towards the southwest fringe of the
Peak District National Park Peak or The Peak may refer to:
Basic meanings Geology
* Mountain peak
** Pyramidal peak, a mountaintop that has been sculpted by erosion to form a point Mathematics
* Peak hour or rush hour, in traffic congestion
* Peak (geometry), an (''n''-3)-d ...
about west of the A53 between
Leek
A leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of ''Allium ampeloprasum'', the broadleaf wild leek (synonym (taxonomy), syn. ''Allium porrum''). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of Leaf sheath, leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a "s ...
and
Buxton
Buxton is a spa town in the High Peak, Derbyshire, Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, in the East Midlands region of England. It is England's highest market town, sited at some above sea level.Alston, Cumbria also claims this, but lacks a regu ...
. Over long and deep, all but the upper third of the slope has slipped forward towards the River Dane. It is
moss
Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...
y and overgrown, wet and cool even on the hottest of days.
Geological origins
Lud's Church is formed within the thick bed of coarse
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...
sandstone known as the
Roaches Grit which here dips northeastwards into the Goyt Syncline. The rocks of this area are traversed by numerous roughly northwest-to-southeast-oriented
faults and fracture planes. In addition, weak layers of mudstone exist within the sequence. It is along such lines of weakness that a large mass of the Roaches Grit bounding the northeast side of the rift has slipped slightly downhill into the
Dane Valley resulting in the open rift. The age of the movement is unknown but is likely to be post-glacial.
History
The area has a place in Christian history: the
Lollards
Lollardy was a proto-Protestantism, proto-Protestant Christianity, Christian religious movement that was active in England from the mid-14th century until the 16th-century English Reformation. It was initially led by John Wycliffe, a Catholic C ...
, who were followers of
John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe (; also spelled Wyclif, Wickliffe, and other variants; 1328 – 31 December 1384) was an English scholastic philosopher, Christianity, Christian reformer, Catholic priest, and a theology professor at the University of Oxfor ...
, an early church reformer, are supposed to have used this as a secret place of worship during the early 15th century, when they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs.
Lud's Church may have been named after Walter de Ludank or Walter de Lud-Auk who was captured here at one of their meetings.
A wooden ship's figurehead from the ship ''Swythamley'' formerly stood in a high niche above the chasm, placed there by Philip Brocklehurst, then the landowner, around 1862. It was called 'Lady Lud' and was supposed to commemorate the death of the daughter of a Lollard preacher.
A number of climbing routes up the sides of the chasm were pioneered during the 20th century, but climbing is now discouraged to protect the lower plants that have colonised the damp rockfaces.
In legend
Scholars spent many decades debating the dialect of the medieval poem ''
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' is a late 14th-century chivalric romance in Middle English alliterative verse. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best-known Arthurian stories, with its plot comb ...
''. Shortly after they came to a consensus that the dialect was that of the North-West Midlands on the Staffordshire/Cheshire/Shropshire border, Lud’s Church in the Staffordshire Moorlands was suggested by R. W. V. Elliot as one of the key settings for the climax of the poem's story – "The Green Chapel" – in May 1958. Elliot went on to give a scholarly modern explication of most of the local landscape elements in a series of essays in scholarly journals. These various essays were later collected in his book in 1984. His general claim that "The Green Chapel" must be somewhere in this district was supported by other scholarly work suggesting the location as Nan Tor cave, above the former railway station at
Wetton Mill.
In fiction
Lud's Church / 'Ludcruck' is a location in
Alan Garner
Alan Garner (born 17 October 1934) is an English novelist best known for his children's fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. Much of his work is rooted in the landscape, history and folklore of his native count ...
's ''
Boneland'', the final book in the Weirdstone Trilogy. It is also the central location in the book ''Dark Peak'' by
Marcus Sedgwick,
which references the Sir Gawain legend.
References
External links
{{Commons category
Lud's Churchat cressbrook.co.uk
at nothingtoseehere.net
How to Get to Lud's Churchat dor.ky via archive.org
Caves of Staffordshire
Landforms of Staffordshire
Tourist attractions of the Peak District
Staffordshire Moorlands
Canyons and gorges of England