Searching Peaks And Dales

I was the last of three generations to farm our tiny 120 acre Peak District hill farm which nestled into the side of Wallcliff Hill 1200 feet above sea level. In fact, the tiny hamlet, of which it was a part, was filled with various family members including mum and dad, aunties and uncles and my brothers.

 

- Kevin Critchlow

Ironically the family began to run out of names for our farm. Our place was in the middle, and the one opposite owned by a family friend affectionately known as ‘Dill’ had already claimed that name so my farm was known as Upper and Lower farm. You need to be imaginative to make up a name like that! Of course these picturesque little farming hamlets are pretty common in the Derbyshire Peak District inhabited by just a couple of families. The scenery is stunning but the living, particularly for a farmer is very hard.

So it came as a real surprise to me when my dad, then suffering with multiple sclerosis and limited to his armchair by the fire, told me the story of how he had found his very own hoard of treasure.

Dad was a pragmatic soul, he worked hard on the farm all his life, battling the elements and eking out a living from a few sheep and a small herd of Frisian milking cows. When he was just 12 he set off across the fields to fetch the horse for his dad.

This was before the time when everyone had a tractor and the horse was needed to pull the cart ready for hay making. The field he trekked across was no smooth piece of verdant pasture; it was punctuated by hollows and mounds the reminders of a time when lead mining was the main occupation here. He was trudging along and he was suddenly overcome with the strangest urge to start digging with his bare hands in one of the hollows. There amazingly, he found eight gold sovereigns, all stacked one on top of the other. He rushed back home and returned with a shovel and dug frantically in the hope of finding more treasure, but that was it, no more coins were found.

To this very day I still have my share of that same treasure; two sovereigns dated 1884 and 1894 which he left to me when he died (Fig.1).