The Roaches is a gritstone ridge that spans across 10 miles of the Staffordshire Moorlands, its name simply a development of the French word for rocks - “La Roches”. This is a very popular area for walking, climbing and mountain biking but aside from its undoubted natural beauty each individual feature of The Roaches stands on its own as a place of interest and mystery.
Beginning at the eastern end of the ridge, one of the few actual “peaks” arises in the form of Hen Cloud. Its name is interesting as it is thought to derive from the Old English “Hon Clud”, literally meaning “hanging cloud”, a romantic phrase and typical of the way the Anglo-Saxons described the world around them. Our modern word “cloud” came out of this term, and while the Norse folk who might have lived near for a time gave us the word we now use for the sky, the Saxons called it “heofon” - heaven.
Walking down off Hen Cloud and over to the next part of The Roaches a curious stone lies off to the right, supported by three smaller “legs”. It's tempting to call this a dolmen but it isn't, it appears to be a “placed stone” put into position for some unknown purpose. It is known as the Bawd Stone and again, there's a probable Anglo-Saxon origin for this one. “Board Stan” - simply the Board Stone. The Welsh “Bwrrd” means the same thing so even if the Anglo-Saxon explanation is off, the Brythonic one isn't. A tradition used to be observed here that saw the people of the surrounding villages gathering at the Bawd Stone each May Day for a special ritual, where the sick, the infirm and the very young were passed under the stone to gain some sort of healing from their ailments. The stone was whitewashed for the occasion and the custom went on until the 1940s.
Moving along the ridge and the choice is to go up along the top or down in front of the cliff face. Downwards takes one to the door of Rock Hall Cottage, although currently a centre for rock climbing its previous residents have been quite colourful to say the least. This castle-like building was actually converted from a natural cave, built for gamekeepers working for the Brocklehursts who owned The Roaches prior to the Peaks Authority taking it on, and it is here that history and folklore entwine. A woman known as Bess Bowyer lived in the cave, adapting its natural confines into a home of sorts with wooden planks and curtains. A stream ran through the cave and Bess gained a reputation for being a “cunning woman”, dispensing potions and advice for everything from rheumatism to being targeted by witchcraft.
Behind some boards was a hole in the rock through which a person could slither, and this is precisely what often happened when local poachers and army deserters would arrive at Bess's door. She would let them pass through the gap and up onto the moorlands above, while pursuing gamekeepers could only scratch their heads in wonder at where they had disappeared to. It's not hard to see how the old wisewoman gained a reputation for magic, seemingly being able to make men vanish. Bess had an adopted daughter, a beautiful young woman who “sang in a foreign tongue” and would walk the ridge while calling out musically to some lost love. One night a couple of unknown ruffians seized her, leaving poor Bess alone, never to see her again.
When the last of the gamekeepers moved out, one Doug Moller moved in with his wife Annie, in 1978. The self-styled “Lord of the Roaches” soon fell into dispute with the Peaks Authority as well as just about every walker or climber who came anywhere near his home, but while he may have been a confrontational and bad-tempered resident at Rock Hall he had good reason. There was no running water, power or sanitation in his home, the couple existed within its plain, damp walls on their wits. As time went on relations between Doug and the walkers and climbers became more cordial, with most people coming away with a good memory of their encounter with the Lord of the Roaches. Doug and Annie moved out ten years later, into a cottage supplied by the Peaks Authority and rented to them for a nominal payment, where they lived contentedly until Annie passed away in 2003, with Doug going on until 2022.
Back up onto the ridgeline then and the next feature of The Roaches, a rather lonely stretch of water known as Doxey's Pool. It is claimed that the pool has never dried out, even in the hardest of droughts, and that it is haunted by a female spirit called Jenny Greenteeth. They say that Jenny will appear as a beautiful young woman in the centre of the water, beseeching any long young man who passes to come out to her. As he does, she changes to a malevolent monster who pulls him down into the hidden depths forever. This is a popular folklore motif across Europe, with other examples of “Jenny” hauntings in Yorkshire and parts of Scotland, but perhaps this one is a result of the disappearance of Bess Bowyer's adopted daughter, haunting The Roaches?
Moving onwards one encounters large rocks shaped like a dog's head, a bear and a lion, before walking through a group of gigantic boulders that resemble futuristic helmets from a sci-fi film. The ridge “pauses” here, the way forward now through a field, but it's time to veer off slightly to visit something very special. Heading right, or to the north, a path runs down through the heather towards a wood. Nestled here by the confluence of the Dane river and Black brook lies a “secret” place, easily walked past save for the steady stream of visitors making their way down to it. Lud's Church is a deep chasm, around ten feet wide at its bottom and at least 100 feet deep, formed by a geological fissure thousands of years ago. It drips with greenery, ferns and vines not seen in the rest of the woods around it, evidence of the fact that Lud's Church actually has its own micro-climate. It is very cool and damp at the bottom, and one year snow remained in one corner unmelted until June.
The name Lud's Church is thought by most to derive from the Lollard sect, a chapter of whom used to meet in the chasm to hold service. Their priest was one Walter Lud-Auk, so Lud's Church is an understandeable development of this. Folklore tells how, during the reign of Henry V, the Lollards were raided as they worshipped in their “church”, with the granddaughter of Walter being killed during the chaos. She haunted Lud's Church, known as “The Lady of Lud”, and her mournful singing would echo around the chasm. During the early 1900s Lord Brocklehurst actually mounted a wooden statue in an alcove in one of the cliffs in her honour.
Lud's Church is also thought to be the inspiration for the “Green Chapel” in the Arthurian medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It was here, after entering through a portal in a burial chamber, where Sir Gawain arrived to receive his death blow in response to the Green Knight's “jest” a year previously. The long lost Delacrois Abbey once stood nearby, and it is thought that a monk there may have written the romance, after analysis of the dialect in the lines.
Lord Brocklehurst actually attempted to demolish one end of Lud's Church with dynamite, trying to create a fully enclosed feature of his own making, but something happened before this which makes one question his motives. A pamphlet from 1910 claimed “a distinct race of beings” were known to live in a cavern underneath Lud's Church, emerging out of the bank of the Dane to forage. This may sound a little far-fetched but around this time a group of young men attempted to navigate a pothole which had actually been discovered at the northern entrance to Lud's Church, sending one in while the others held onto a rope tied around his waist. He claimed to have felt a set of distinct steps leading down to a very large cavern and called to his friends that he was going to go in, but a storm broke out and the mission was aborted. He left a newspaper and some coins as evidence of his visit but before they could revisit – Brocklehurst struck, destroying the entrance to the cavern.
After Lud's Church there is still the Hanging Rock to see, a strange formation with dedications to a Brocklehurst and one of their dogs carved onto its face. Then – all that is left to do is plod back the way one came. Other “attractions” are the sites of air crashes during World War II, both German, and both leaving bullet casings and other bits and pieces still on site, a “seat” carved into the rock for the Princess of Teck, Queen Victoria's cousin, to sit on during an official visit, and some incredible views across the Staffordshire Moorlands. Look out for the curious stone in a field next to where the road cuts the Roaches in two, near a derelict old barn. It has a cut engraved deeply into its face, and is thought by some to have been some sort of old sacrificial stone.
Nature expresses itself all around, the Roaches is a habitat for curlews, red grouse and pipits, while rare species of butterfly such as the green hairstreak flutter by.
A highly recommended visit for anyone capable of walking ten miles, but for others it is entirely possible to visit most of these places along The Roaches individually to save the walk – although the going can be a little unsteady. Ramshaw Rocks is “next door” with its Winking Man and Toad Stone formations, as well as Blakemere pool and Three Shires Head a couple of miles away. Arrive as early as possible and enjoy this treasure trove of mystery and natural beauty.
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