BEFORE I WAS BORN

KNOT LOW (Millers Dale)

The rounded hill in the centre of this picture is known as a Toad Stone, there are several of them three within a five mile radius of this one. They are volcanic and are Basalt, same stuff as Fingles Cave and the Giants Causeway. Some three or four hundred million years ago Derbyshire lay just south of the equator and was a shallow tropical lagoon. As the creatures died and settled to the bottom of the lagoon they formed the carboniferous limestone from which this area gets it's name. It is almost beyond comprehension that tiny crinoids, a sort of jet propelled worm have built up deposits which are over a thousand feet thick.

During this period volcanic activity from a large vent in the lagoon deposited these Toad Stones, and the hydro thermal activity deposited the Galena, lead sulphide, which has been mined in the area since Roman times.

MAGPIE MINE (remains of a Derbyshire lead mine)

HAY MAKING (Knot Low is far left)

Included this photograph as it's rare to see grass mown for hay anymore, mostly bagged as silage or hayledge.

FROGATT EDGE

This is Gritstone, a sedimentary rock which was deposited over the limestone, the lagoon had by this time become the Derbyshire equivalent of the Amazon delta.

MAM TOR

Yet another example of deposited stone in this case shale and site of a large land slip some twenty or thirty years ago. The main road from the Hope Valley to Manchester used to traverse this hill. it no longer exists.

Very humbling to think all this went on within five miles of my front door. to be precise my only door, I don't have a back door. All the best.