Peter’s Stone in the upper reaches of Cressbrook Dale

One of the most unusual landscape features you will come across in Derbyshire’s White Peak is Peter’s Stone, a massive, dome-like block of limestone that sits near the head of a dry valley in the upper reaches of Cressbrook Dale.

There are lots of dry valleys in this part of the county because limestone, being permeable, cannot support surface streams, but permits water to pass through it to the bedrock, where it flows in underground rivers.

However, the unexpected presence of a great mass of rock in the dry valley of Cressbrook Dale is much more difficult to explain.

Drystone walls forming patterns on the White Peak Plateau Photo: Mike Smith Some geologists have accounted for the curious position of Peter’s Stone by suggesting that it became detached from one of the cliffs on the side of the valley in a landslip, which brought it downhill on a bed of clay to the floor of the dale. It has remained there ever since, like an uninvited guest who has refused to leave.

Whether or not they accept this mini-avalanche version of Peter’s Stone’s relocation, geologists are unanimous in believing that the limestone rocks of the White Peak originated as the skeletal remains of creatures who swam in the tropical sea that covered this region 350 million years ago.

The writer Sue Clifford, who says she has ‘always been impressed by Peter’s Stone’, has described the rock as ‘a coral-reef knoll as big as a church’ – a description that may have been prompted by the widely held belief that the dome-shaped top of the rock bears some similarity to the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

The dry valley in the upper reaches of Cressbrook Dale Photo: Mike Smith Peter’s Stone is also known as the ‘Gibbet Rock’, because the body of a young man called Anthony Lingard was chained to it after he had been executed in 1815 for the murder of Hannah Oliver, the tollkeeper at nearby Wardlow Mires.

Although the execution took place at Derby Gaol, Anthony’s body was put on public display (a practice known as gibbeting) close to the scene of his crime, as was the custom when gibbeting sentences were carried out. The corpse would remain chained to Peter’s Stone for the next eleven years!

This gruesome practice, which had been sanctioned as a post-mortem punishment under the 1752 Murder Act, was not abolished until 1834, but the gibbeting of Anthony Lingard on Peter’s Stone was the last one to be carried out in Derbyshire.

Litton’s village cross Photo: Mike Smith WHAT’S NEARBY?

Litton, located less than half a mile away from Peter’s Stone, is one of the most picturesque villages in the Peak District.

Consisting of pretty limestone cottages built around a large green containing stocks and a village cross, it has retained all those traditional ingredients that characterise any place that can claim to be a ‘proper’ village.

Litton’s popular traditional country pub, the Red Lion, dispenses real ales, serves homemade food and provides en-suite accommodation.

The former village smithy contains a post office and a community-run shop, which offers a wide range of products, including basic groceries, gifts, greeting cards, and local produce, such as fresh milk, free-range eggs, ice cream, beers, home-made cakes, and meat from a local farm.

The village has two churches and a highly rated village primary school, whose pupils contribute to many of the traditional village events, including well-dressings and maypole dancing.

Approached from the limestone plateau of the White Peak, Litton appears to be trapped in a spider’s web of drystone walls. Constructed to mark field divisions, the walls make complex geometric patterns on the plateau, which is also incised with shallow valleys rich in wildflowers, especially orchids.