№ 11Gorge · Staffordshire, England
Lud's Church
A hidden chasm so green and strange it may be the Green Chapel of Arthurian legend.
Photographs Iankelsall1 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · August Schwerdfeger (CC BY 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
In the woods above the River Dane, the ground simply opens: a deep, narrow chasm where a hillside slipped apart, every wall of it furred with moss and ferns that drip long after the rain has stopped.
Persecuted Lollards are said to have worshipped here in secret in the 1400s, and scholars argue it is the Green Chapel where Sir Gawain came to keep his appointment with the Green Knight. Stand at the bottom on a dim afternoon and the argument settles itself.
The knowledge
- Getting there
- Walk in from Gradbach, on the Staffordshire side of the Peak District — about a mile and a half through Back Forest, signed for Lud's Church.
- Best time
- Late spring to early autumn for the full green; after rain the moss glows, but the rock steps get slick.
- Local tip
- Combine it with the Roaches ridge for one of the best half-day walks in the Peak.
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