(c) Wizzy Park Photography 2023

(c) Wizzy Park Photography, 2023

As a student of Traditional Craft I have long been an advocate for completing our workings and Rituals out in the woods at night, and also that to celebrate certain Rites at some of the more special places – sites of the Ancients and places of power – is something that enables us all to achieve deeper results than staying put and working within the normal space that we inhabit every day. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that working in the home is not effective – nor that I do not utilise it when there is a need – but instead that taking the time to prepare and undertake a journey to a special working site, and to work in a place that is removed from the mundane, adds another complete dimension to what it is we are doing. Indeed, even the journey to the working site – the effort needed, and the walk into the dark woods at night – can become a part of the whole Ritual and experience, a walking meditation and pilgrimage that helps to prepare us for the journey we are to undertake and the working that is to be done.

For myself, and the Hearth of Albion that I work with, we are fortunate to have an ‘old craft’ working site – the woods and mines of Alderley Edge – within 15 miles of home, which makes it an ideal location for our Rites, there are other sites we have also worked – some as far away as Orkney – but in the main working a local site is perhaps the best option for ourselves. To use a site regularly, to get to know the nuances of the energy and spirit of place, and to build a legacy of past Rites that culminate in an ‘otherly’ awareness cannot be surpassed.

I have been working the ‘Edge’ – as it is known to those familiar with it – for about 20 years now, both as solitary and as a member of our Hearth. Strangely enough I had never known what it was about the ‘Edge’ that drew me to it, until after years of research I managed to trace my paternal ancestry back to 1544, and to find that my ancestors had lived and farmed in the area for over 300 years, perhaps an ancestral calling is what has drawn me back to the place in modern times – note I am not claiming any of my ancestors were Witch or pagan, nor that they worked the Edge in an occult manner, but merely that they lived in the area itself, my validity comes not from claims of ancestry or passed down lineage, but instead from who I am and what I have done, alone and with others, we reap the rewards or the consequences of our individual actions, as it should be.

The town of Alderley Edge itself is a small and wealthy village, about 10 miles south of central Manchester, on the edge of the Cheshire Plain and the Derbyshire hills, the town is filled with the ‘hoi polloi’ of South Manchester, footballers and millionaires aplenty, and the woods that are above the town atop a 350 foot high sandstone ridge are their playground during daylight, but at night the woods change, they awaken, and revert to something older… The woods of Alderley Edge have been inhabited and mined for copper for over 2000 years – the Lindow Man bog body is from no more than 5 miles away from the Edge – and the area has an interesting occult history, beloved of both Alex Sanders and also of Bob Clay-Egerton, and used by many of the occult groups of Manchester and the surrounding area for many years.

As part of our research and working of the Edge we were aware of the 20+ miles of mines that honeycomb the area, and of the Derbyshire Caving Club (DCC) that look after the mines for the National Trust. We attended one of the DCC open days and got to go underground into one of the most spectacular mines – Engine Vein – both loving the feel of the place, and soon after we joined the caving club, finding a few likeminded folks who appreciate the lore and history of the area as much as we do. As members of the DCC we have access to the mines whenever a keyholder is on site, so have spent many hours exploring the mines, travelling miles underground and deep down 350 feet into the womb of the earth, enjoying not only the peaceful atmosphere and the historic location, but also of sensing something beyond the mundane, the echoes of past rituals completed underground and the shadowy footsteps of the miners of old. Truly it is a special place indeed, also evidenced with the use of the Edge and the mines by Alan Garner as the setting of his bestselling book ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen’. The only part of the mines we had not explored was the ‘boat ride’ a canoe trip inside a flooded level of almost a mile, 300 feet underground, that travelled from one mine to another.

Above ground there are several ‘working sites’ that we use, some have been popular in the past – such as the ‘Druids Circle’, a reconstructed stone circle on the site of an older Cromlech – and others are less widely known, including a waterfall, various crossroads and other more private ‘sites’ that we have used ourselves, but apart from some quiet personal rites we had not worked any specific formal rituals underground, the option of working underground always seemed a little difficult to arrange, during the day there are often folks visiting the mines, and at night, well, there are some insurmountable Health and Safety issues with accessing them at night, along with the issue of trying to persuade a keyholder to be there in the dark…

However, all that changed when I was gifted with an experience unlike any other by members of our Hearth and friends in the caving club. A few years ago I managed to come by a copy of the book ‘‘Coven of the Scales – The Collected Writings of A R Clay-Egerton’, inside which were some details of known Initiatory Rites and Trials that had been used in the past, specifically at Alderley Edge, Bob does not say exactly who had used these ‘Rites’ but as one who always seeks to push the boundaries and to go deeper and experience more I talked through the lore and information with members of our Hearth, mentioning how wonderful it would be to face such an initiation – although faced with such a trial they all blanched white and told me their own Initiatory journey and experiences above ground at the Edge had been ‘quite enough thank you very much!’

Initially things were planned for my 49th Birthday, but one of the key people involved was diagnosed with cancer a few weeks beforehand, so a delay was agreed until he had undergone treatment and recovered, and the experience was then organised for Samhain a few days after my 50th Birthday in 2017.

As I said, I knew nothing about what was planned, but after we returned from a holiday in Scotland the day after Samhain, my husband then surprised me by telling me I had to be at the entrance to Engine Vein Mine at the Edge for 1pm the following day, to be in caving gear and to bring wellington boots and some of our ‘old coins’ with me! The next day he then left me at 9am with me trying to work out what was going on…

On arrival at the Edge I was then presented with an opportunity to physically take a journey I have taken spiritually many times, to cross the Styx in the company of Chiron, the ferryman, aboard his boat and then to travel through the underworld, meeting some of its denizens, before a rebirth and return to the land above, an experience influenced and inspired somewhat by what I know was used by some of the other Traditional Witches that have used the Edge in times past…

At 1pm I arrived, in caving gear and wearing wellies at the entrance gate to Engine Vein, on stepping through the gate I was met by the black robed and hooded figure of Death, complete with scythe, who also got a few funny looks from the mundane walkers passing by… Death bid me come forward with a wave of his thin and bony hand, he then handed me a card, printed upon it in olde script was ‘Tempus Est – It is time’…. Death then motioned to the mine entrance, and swung open the creaking door to the mine, closing and locking the door behind me with a finality that had some serious symbolism….

In front of me the downward shaft was lit by candles every 10’ or so, the atmosphere was warm and humid, dark and silent, as one would expect from the very entrance to the Underworld… I had been here in the physical spot many times before, and yet, it was strangely changed and unfamiliar…

Death then handed me the next card ‘Mors non Loquitor – Death does not speak’, followed by another card that said ‘Omnia Terminus Tum Incipit – Everything ends, then begins’, and then finally ‘Hac iter ext tibi – This Journey is Yours’!

I was then bid to move forwards, which I did, with death following me, I was painfully aware of his scythe behind me! We travelled down, through twisted tunnels that descended ever deeper towards Hades, lit by candles to lead us onwards until we arrived at the deeper shaft, and the ladders that led steeply down… We descended, 5 or 6 metal ladders until we reached the bottom of the mine 350+ feet below where we had entered. Faced with one tunnel, and a choice of 2 directions, one blocked by mine wagon and 3 candles, the other direction lit by candles disappearing into the distance, it was evident which was the way to go, so we turned to the left and follow the tunnel deeper underground….

After about a quarter of a mile forwards the tunnel is flooded, with cold dark water, my way forward was blocked, yet a light was coming from across the water filled tunnel. As I stood there the light moved towards me, revealing a boat, paddled by a tall and thin figure dressed all in black, his face not visible, as though not there at all… As he neared the shallows Death then handed me the last card, ‘Memento Mori – Tel: 0800 Don’tcalluswe’llcallyou’ and then ushered me towards the boat.

The Ferryman stood and bade me to come forwards in silence to the boat, which was lit by red lamp and a candle in a jar at each end and nothing more. Chiron – for it is he – held out his gaunt skeletal hand and asked for payment, 3 coins – some old 1940’s pennies that are no longer legal tender – are passed over, one for each eye and one for the mouth, and once paid I was motioned to take my seat in the back of the boat….

Chiron pushed us off and paddled us into the dark in absolute silence, an eerie red light from his lamp and the 2 candles at stern and prow the only illumination, we moved swiftly forwards, through caverns and tunnels, over water as clear as crystal, further and further into the stygian total darkness for about 10 minutes, occasionally I had to duck under some of the low roof, sometimes we were drenched by water tumbling or dripping from the roof and occasionally our direction changed, skilfully managed by the Boatman.

After an unknowable length of time some candles and their reflection became visible in the distance, the boat approached swiftly and skilfully docked. A scaffolding board made a makeshift berth and I was bidden to climb out, 3 candles illuminated a blanket that lay on a raised area – a funerary platform – and Chiron indicated I was at my destination, he then paddled the boat away, soon becoming lost to me in the tunnels…

I lay down, finding a comfortable spot and closed my eyes. The light was distracting, so I extinguished all of the candles and lay there in the total darkness, the only sounds that of my breathing and of water dripping and falling into the Styx. I lay there as one dead, my mind stilled, visions and thoughts formed and came forth, a conversation occurred, a purely personal experience of a sort I cannot share, but that had deep personal meaning…. I lay there unmoving for what felt like a few minutes, but I am told was actually almost an hour, it is strange what sensory deprivation in such a situation does to the mind…

Then from the darkness, as though from a great distance, a deep voice quietly called my name, then again, slightly louder, I responded, asking who calls me, to be told to ‘Move towards the light’, looking around I saw a dim glow to my left, away from the water, and so I climbed up the slippery and muddy slope towards where the glow was coming from. I had to climb up a short 6’ ladder to then move further forwards, with each step the light was growing stronger, and then a log at waist height was baring my way, a glance over the top was to find a dirty wooden ramp, inclined at about 45 degrees downwards…

The light was beyond the ramp, which ended with an opening about 3’ from the floor, stepping over and sitting down I slid on the mud down the ramp and emerged into a new tunnel, candles lighting the tunnel ahead and a black clad figure before me, long black hair, a short gnarly frame and a face hidden by veil, no words were spoken, but I was ushered to move forwards from the past and along the muddy and wet tunnel.

Onwards, ever onwards I moved, the tunnel changing from lofty chambers 20’ tall and wide to low enough to bend me double, the floor uneven and often filled with water up to 8” deep, illuminated by candles with candles every 30 or 40 feet – I had my caving helmet and lamp with me, but chose not to use the light when I could manage without it. About a quarter of a mile and another figure, clad in black, long black robes and long black hair underneath a black veil, again ushering me forwards, from present into the future and further along the tunnel…

Again another quarter of a mile, the gap between the candles getting longer and the way more perilous with every step taken, then the third and final figure, short, powerful, masked, ushering me forwards this time into a tunnel that was dark ahead, into the future…. Perhaps the 3 figures were 3 of my friends, or perhaps they were the Nornir, the Fates of Norse mythology, or perhaps 3 faces of the darker Goddess… It matter not, what matters is the effect it had upon my psyche, the experience was all encompassing…

The tunnel became triangular, the faces of the walls polished smooth like the scales of a serpent and getting smaller and smaller like the final opening of a womb…

At last a ladder appeared ahead of me as the tunnel came to an end, time to climb up, and at last a place I am familiar with, a chance to move forwards and climb higher, to leave the realm of Hades and climb back up to the light, after 4 hours plus of descent and journeying over 2 miles throughout the Underworld.

Upon emerging into the final chamber it was to find my friends awaiting me, a feast then followed, a dram of whisky and a chance to talk, it seems that this whole experience had been planned by the 5 people present plus another 2 friends, who were to have taken another part, but unfortunately were unable to make it, so it was left to me to experience and understand those other aspects of this underworld journey and the rebirth for myself…

I am not claiming that this experience was the same as our forebears experienced, but instead it is a hybrid Ritual journey, crafted by my kith and kin using inspiration and lore from the past and formed as something special for me to experience, a priceless gift given in perfect love and trust…

I share this not to brag or to seek acclaim, for my part was not premeditated, I was just the fortunate recipient of the thoughtfulness and work of others, but instead I offer it in the hopes that it provides inspiration to others. In taking the journey I experienced something magickal, a gift beyond price, and something I can now return to at any time that I feel a need to. It was intensely personal, but also deeply moving, and the fact that my friends had spent such time and effort into giving me an experience like no other – indeed they spent 3 hours lighting over 1000 tealights to light the mines – all of which had to be collected on their way out – truly it brought home to me how our practices, although personal, can be enhanced when we are in the right Companie and when we work in Gyfu, in true service to one another…

Within the Craft we often talk about defining experiences, and of the format that initiations can take – although rightly so such information is often closely guarded lore, as to share it would reduce the impact of the Rite and negate some of the personal learning for the Dedicant – yet with this Rite being neither a formal Initiation (our Hearth Initiation takes the form of a Ritual journey at night travelling across the woods of Alderley Edge with multiple ‘encounters’ along the way) or being something that is oathbound I am afforded the chance to share it. Perhaps all the better to provide common understanding or to explore the symbolic death and rebirth of the journey we each take.

To achieve such a thing is all too often beyond the scope of many groups – I had once experienced a half-hearted initiatory rite within one group we once belonged to, completed in someone’s front room, with dedicants waiting in a porch to access the space when called forwards, which left me disappointed and unfulfilled – but how many of us actually get the chance to go out and to experience the underworld journey for real, or to face our fears in the dark? If you are charged with providing such an experience to others then please, do all you can to make it special for them, push the boat out, use all the bangs and whistles, do something extra in the hopes that those who receive such from you will then gift it forwards to others in the future…

I hope the tale of my experiences inspires, perhaps it will give some imagery that can be of use, and perhaps it may give a pause for thought, if you had the opportunity to gift another with such an experience would you? To do something so special for another without regard to payment or getting anything from it yourself, that is truly a mark of love…

Pre-release app images (Jan 2023)

What Lies Beneath

What lies beneath these paths I tread

Through these familiar trees

Whose branches seem to beckon

me through whispers in their leaves

I feel the sense of mystery

Of legends long since told

Passed down the years from man to boy

Inspiring young and old

The ground so firm beneath my feet

Hides secrets of its own

Carved out through years of toil and sweat

By chisel and hammer on stone

And as I step out of the woods

And drink in the vast sky

The Cheshire Plain spreads out beneath

A feast before my eyes

And I know now that I’ll return

Before the season ends

And share the spirit of this place

With family and friends

Photograph by project team, during app testing in Dec 2022)

Photograph by project team, during app testing in December 2022

Photograph by project team, during app testing in December 2022.

The Alderley Edge Station Volunteer Group recently commissioned digital artworks of the view from the Edge for display at the railway station. The work is by a local artist called Eamonn Murphy .

The choice of subject was selected by local residents as the one that most captured their imagination.

“Did I tell you Tony next door‘s got dementia?”

Yes we know, dad. You’ve mentioned it before. Many times. We always wonder when he’s going to mention it again. And how he met Joan. And the store on Reddish Lane.

“It must be awful – losing your memory like that. All your life just…gone…”

I’m aged eight

We stand at the entrance to Wood Mine on the Edge at Alderley. Dad’s brought me. He used to come here when he was a boy, cycling from Manchester with his mates.

Now it was time to show me.

The entrance is flooded

“Just stay close to me Pip. It’s dry on the other side”

The other side is just a big dark hole in the rock. Trees looming over. But I trust my dad, he knows this place. I’m excited about our adventure

People are emerging from the hole, kitted up. Helmets and headlamps, switching them off. Looking around at the woods anew. Taking it in, breathing the warm summer air

“Did I tell you how I met Joan?”

Yes you did dad. Many times. You’ve been together for 20 years after my mum died

But we listen as if it’s a new story. He needs to tell it again

The water doesn’t quite come up to the top of my boots but it’s deeper than I expected and there are slippery rocks. I grab his hand

We wade across. I stumble but he holds me up

Looking back, the entrance doesn’t seem too far away but we’ve already gone into a different world.

“Ok Pip! Turn your lamp on!”

Our lamps are bicycle lights fixed to our heads with wide Rufflette curtain tape that dad had brought home from The Mill where he makes it

He’d told me this was an old copper mine, worked since Roman times.

The tunnel is quite narrow, the roof low in places. It twists and turns. The air is different down here. I can smell water and rock

We come across grottos with stalagmites and stalactites formed over many thousands of years by water dripping through the cracks. Dad had told me about these. They aren’t as spectacular as I’d imagined, but still special close-up. Their smooth glistening surfaces. Not like the rough rock around us

There are sections of the old mine workings with ancient wooden supports. And beneath our feet fragments of malachite that had been the source of the copper

The light from our lamps lights these up

It was a different world under the ground. More than ancient. Geological timescales. I felt it but I didn’t know what it was

“I found this little store on The Lane. It’s really handy for picking up bits and pieces!”

He’s told us so many times. But always as if it’s new. Expects us to be surprised and delighted with his discovery. Waits for our reaction. We go along with him

The malachite is a vivid green, unmistakable once you know what to look for

“Did I tell you how I met Joan?”

We go deeper into the cave

I’m trying to phone him but just getting the answerphone as usual. He’s probably having a nap on the settee

I try again

Cheerful automated message again, my dad’s confident voice

And again

Engaged!

Aha! That’s something!

Maybe he’s knocked the phone off its cradle in haste to answer. It’s happened before

I try again

Still engaged

Once more

This time he answers. Phew!

“Hi Dad!”

“Hi Pip! You’re very faint! The phone was just ringing”

He can’t hear very well. His hearing is shot from working in the Loom Shed, the constant barrage of noise

I speak louder

“How’s your eye today?”

“…Sorry?”

“How’s your eye? They said you told them it was blurred?”

“Sorry? You’re very faint”

“HOW’S YOUR EYE?”

“Sorry?”

“HOW…IS…YOUR…EYE?”

“It was still there last time I looked!”

I just have to smile

“IS IT STILL BLURRED?”

“Sorry?”

“BLURRED…YOU…SAID…IT…WAS…BLURRED?”

“Blurred? I’m blind in one eye. That’s why I gave up driving. The other one’s a bit blurred”

So here we are

In the deep

Not far from us the great dish of Jodrell Bank is gathering radiowaves from receding stars and distant galaxies. Dad had once told me this. Ancient data from light-years away from before the earth was made. Before stardust formed us. And in the rocks up high on the Edge are shells from an ancient seabed lifted above by tectonic shifts. Unfathomable.

And below the Edge the Wizard’s Well and the legend of the farmer and his horse and the sleeping knights, waiting. A different layer. Ancient memories embedded in local tales and stone.

And on top of the Edge the great slash of Engine Vein and hushed stories of trapped cavers and of the Devil carrying off lost souls

This warp and weft of cosmic science and ancient folklore, and

And inside the Edge we’re eating jam sandwiches

We’ve turned our lamps off to save the batteries. The candle makes flickering shapes all around us. We’re in a different time. It presses soft, enfolding

Then muffled sounds mumbling through passages in the darkness beyond. Other cavers

“Tony next door‘s got dementia. He didn’t even recognise me! He’s lost his whole life. It must be so awful Pip”

The soft sound of water drip dripping. Stalagmites

“Blurred? I’m blind in one eye. That’s why I gave up driving. The other one’s a bit blurred now. But I can still make out colours”

The vivid green of the malachite lit by our lamps

“Did I tell you how I met Joan?”

Echoing

Echoing

We’re slowly walking back, dim lamps on again, ducking in places where the hard roof is too low

And then the entrance ahead. A faint light on the path, on the rocks in front of us. Shadows behind. We don’t look back.

We switch the lamps off. It’s gradually getting brighter as we get nearer. Now the warm smell of trees, of a summer afternoon just ahead.

We get to the glare of the flooded entrance, eyes almost blinded by it. Just shapes

“You OK Pip?”

I’ve paused to take it in

The world before me. The world behind

And us

Between

Echoes

Warp and weft

Stardust

My world spins

Thrumming with the clack of looms

“Yeah! I’m OK dad!” I smile at him

He smiles down at me, glowing, gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze. I can tell he’s thrilled we’ve shared this adventure. My eyes are blurred and I wipe a tear. I can hear birds

“OK come on then Pip! Look at the time! Mum’ll have tea ready. She’ll be wondering where we’ve got to!”

Everything’s the same again now. But everything’s different

“Did I tell you how I met Joan?”

I take his hand and we wade through the flooded entrance

We’re going deeper into the cave

I was hugely affected and influenced by Alan Garner’s books and particularly those set on the ‘Edge’. I wanted to visit to seek out the locations in the book, Stormy Point, the Wizard Inn, the Wizard’s Well, Castle Rock, Holywell etc. They all seemed steeped in mystery. So I went with a friend and his father when I was about 11 or 12, and we actually camped on a farm just near the Goldenstone and not far from Stormy Point. I went with the same friend a few years later – we hitched from London, camped in a farmer’s field and roamed the Edge for a few days looking for all the locations. I actually had a broom handle with the secret word to open the gates at Fundindelve ‘Emalgra’.

We were walking back to the camp site one day when I noticed trees were bending as if being blown by the wind but there was no wind and the sky darkened but it wasn’t late and there was no rain, and I remember how odd we both thought that was. I wrote to Alan garner and told him this, and he said that whilst we might not meet ‘svarts’ on the Edge, the ‘svartness’ or the evil intent was wrapped into the environment and that if we ever felt in danger we should be careful. He treated me seriously, which I think is the point.

The Scots pines, the fossil-bearing cliffs and high views of the Edge over the plain are one thing but the deep, hidden troves of silica sand are another. Each handful of sand is a fist of intricate crystal stars gleaming which, when thrown into the air, whirls and sparkles and seethes.

During lockdown a lot of people needed to ground themselves and feel a bit of release, and a lot of people were visiting the Edge to do that. So we had some of them breaking the rules as to how far they should travel for exercise and all the rest of it, but it obviously still had that draw for people. That in a time that was very difficult it made them feel better.

When I was a child, as a very little girl, I can remember being told the legend by my grandfather. And then I can remember my cousin walking me over the Edge and talking to me about it. Now I was very young when Alan Garner’s book came out, and the first time it was read to me was by a teacher in school, and I can remember sitting there and thinking ‘Wow, there’s somebody who feels about the Edge like I do; who can feel the magic; who can feel how wonderful it is, and what a special place it is’. So for me, I already had the feeling, and it felt like Alan shared it.

It’s interesting what you say about people getting lost, because that’s another theme that I have been aware of since I was a child. And it’s the idea that even though the Edge is a very small area, it does seem to confound people. I’ve often spoken to people and they’ve said, quite voluntarily, this is like my gyroscope and compass have malfunctioned.

I still, and I’ve been going up there for 50 odd years, I still find myself if not exactly lost, popping up in some areas and I thought how the heck did I get here, this wasn’t supposed to be here. But I’ve met so many people who go for a walk on the Edge who think they’re somewhere but they’re somewhere completely different, and they have no relationship with getting back to, say, where their car was, or where they started their walk on the Edge. And I always say to them, don’t worry, you’re not alone in this! People when they get on the Edge, they lose their sense of direction completely, and they get completely confounded by the landscape.

It’s almost as if the landscape is trying to trick people, or it’s rotating round them, or it’s playing games with them.

You may or may not remember this from the Weirdstone of Brisingamen, but Alan Garner puts a line in that one of the many strange things about the Edge is that you never hear birds singing or if you do, you only hear very few in proportion to the amount of woodland that there is. I took some friends up to the Edge on Saturday and they’d never visited the area before – they’re from the countryside in Montgomery – and the first thing they all said is, ‘Where are all the birds?’ There was virtually no birdsong and very few birds to see. I don’t know if that is a nature thing or a natural thing, but it has always struck me as being very odd. The woods should be full of birdsong but they never are.

There was one time when I was walking through the Edge, on not one of the most familiar paths that I’ve been on, misjudged the timing, and it started. It was in between light and dark sort of dusk, and I felt – I was on my own – and I felt a real sense of things closing in on me, and panicked to try and find a way out. I don’t know whether anyone else has felt that particular sensation, but it’s as if the Edge is saying, well, I’ve given you all the time I’m going to give you, now it’s my time – I don’t want any human beings around, thank you very much. Find a way out, quick!

I have been there, say, as a young person, as a teenager, at dusk, and then suddenly thought – the atmosphere can change. Nothing has physically changed but something has altered. And suddenly, and it may be a trick of the light as it gets dark, but suddenly the trees marching away into the dusk seem to take on a much more sinister quality than they did before and I can remember almost running down the side of Saddlebole just to get out of the trees and into the light again.

I felt that closing in. That being squeezed by something, and then I had to get out of there. I didn’t feel directly under threat by another human being, which actually probably would have been slightly less uneasy because that would have been more palpable, but this was something quite different, this was a need not to be there any more and just to get out into the light and get away from under the tree canopy.

Then there’s the geology and in fact the geology is quite significant I think because, although the Edge is a block of sandstone that’s been lifted up, out of the Cheshire plane in effect, and as a result, all the mines, pretty much all the mines, are above the water table which makes them accessible, and there are a lot of ways you can get in there and have been able to get in over the centuries, so it has been, what you might loosely call a playground for people – literally has been a playground for some people – but it means also that people can go in there, used to be able to go in there, quite easily, and still can in places as we’ve seen.

And that always is something we’ve talked about, the sort of the mystery of finding your way around somewhere.

That can’t be done in the Peak District in anything like the same way, for instance, where you’ve often got to go down deep into very wet, cold, muddy, collapsing places.

The Rolls Royce Merlins (Creative Workshop – Discussion, April 2021)

A lady came up to me and said, ‘Do you know about the Americans?’ I knew about the Americans, you know, who were billeted, the American air force who were billeted, some of them in Alderley, in the war.

And she said ‘You knew it was the air force?’ Yes, I knew that. She said, ‘You know what planes they flew?’ This is where it gets creepy.

North American Aircraft Company, P 51 mustang.

And here we have, you know, the American air force coming to the rescue with their mustangs, and it gets better because I then found that as they were built P 51s are rather underpowered – they could do good low-level fighting, that’s what they were built for, but they couldn’t do what spitfires could do, which is high-level combat, so they were given new engines by a firm called Rolls Royce, and I’ll give you one guess as to what those engines were called.

They were Rolls Royce Merlin. Now you know, even when I tell this story for the umpteenth time, the hairs on the back of my neck are coming up. So that was in the 1940s, and it was very much alive, it goes with what the people in Alderley were apparently saying in the war – well it’s about time those knights appeared, but they’ll need white tanks not white horses.

What they got were white mustangs flown by Americans.

The Mustangs (Creative Workshop – Discussion, April 2021)

The mustangs. I was just coming through Alderley earlier and thinking, the number of horses, you see, on the front of the Ferraris, that roll up and down the village, through Congleton road, so the horses are still there. They’re on the, you know, super expensive metal going around the village, but they’re still there.

The Landscape and its Story (Creative Workshop, April 2021)

Even up on the Edge, it’s in the company of so many stories, but only that legend cuts through. You can’t expect a landscape like that to not have a story, though, a place where you can wander in your footsteps and wander in your mind. Get lost amongst the trees and lost in thought. Find the place of your own legend, the version that speaks to you. Ignore the tacked-on bits of King Arthur, if you want, they can serve to distract the day tourists, while you wander to find that hidden spot, the spot that speaks, reassures, and tells your own legend.

I came to Alderley as a southerner who had ventured north for a job, and I came with a childhood background that in some fundamental emotional ways was more German than in English. I guess that as far as I have any geographical roots, they are in Germany rather than in these islands. Yet I was born in England and grew up in England – Oxford, Winchester, London, Oxford again and then to Stockport and Manchester, where I have lived for nearly 50 years. I feel completely at home in England but am also very proud of being just slightly different. This may be less unusual in the multicultural society that England has become today but in the nineteen-forties and fifties it could set one apart: my parents – refugees from Hitler’s Germany – worked hard to blend into their new country but were nonetheless conscious and proud of the differences in their outlook from those of many of the people around them.

Thus what I find fascinating about the legend of Alderley (and it is a legend, not a myth) is its connection to this place, and thus to the people of this place. I have become totally absorbed in and by the legend and after all that time and effort spent working on the Edge, I feel a certain sense of guardianship, even of ownership, but only as an academic. It is not ‘mine’, and the ghosts of Alderley are not truly ‘my’ ghosts, even if I often wish that they were. I do not mean that they are in any way unfriendly ghosts – I have lived and worked in several places where there have been ghosts – Westminster School and the abbey, a farmhouse in Oxfordshire built over a deserted medieval village, places in Greece like Delphi, Calydon, and Mycenae where I have worked with the remains of the people who ruled the place in the Bronze Age and reconstructed their faces, but I have never felt that they were hostile ghosts for I came as a friend and I felt I was treated as a friend. I hope that in time the ghosts of Alderley will accept me too for I am surely their friend.

Dreaming of the Edge (Creative Workshop, April 2021)

My sisters and I were born of Alderley Edge.

Our lives went by as we dared ourselves to enter Devil’s Grave, as we collected green magical stone at Giant’s Mouth, as we knew – knew – that the knights slept beneath us. We were never lost because they would not let us be lost. Each man and horse dreamt of us as we bounded through our endless, knowing lives.

I have no doubt that the knights awoke to stand by my sisters as each drifted into long-time sleep. The first as a child, confident of protection. The second as an adult, herself armoured for hurting arrows.

Then later, my dad, who drifted away with his own sure myth of a loving God in Heaven. I hope so much he isn’t disappointed to now be sleeping beneath us, his head resting against a strong white horse.

The legend of Alderley Edge.