Whose quarry? Whose landscape?
A Peak District dilemma peaks

Issued by the Sacred Sites project, 13 February 2004

A storm is brewing on Stanton Moor - an area of natural beauty famed for its wildlife and its archaeology, in the Derbyshire Peak District, where quarrying proposals and spiritual and ecological concerns meet head-on. A protest camp, an application to reopen quarries, and aristocratic landowners all seem part of the plot. 'It's yet another example of conflicting interests and values in today's Britain - where land use permissions and rights to mineral exploitation meet intangible ideas of heritage and spirituality, how do you judge the issue?' says Dr Jenny Blain of Sheffield Hallam University.

Dr Blain and Dr Robert Wallis of Richmond University in London direct the Sacred Sites, Contested Rites/Rights project, based at Sheffield Hallam. Their project recently had Economic and Social Research Council funding (grant number RES-000-22-0074) to look at how alternative and pagan ideas of landscape may conflict with Heritage management concepts, with implications for management practices. But in this case, conservation organisations and pagan/alternative groups are in some agreement: they don't want the quarry. 'Landscape' and its uses are at the heart of the situation.

A new application by Stancliffe Stone Ltd (a subsidiary of Marshalls PLC) is forcing matters to come to a head, with the Peak District National Park Authority pressed for a swift decision. The history has spanned at least 5 recent years (though human use of the Peaks has spanned thousands). In 1999, Stancliffe Stone submitted an initial application to reopen dormant Endcliffe and Lees Cross quarries on the moor, near the scheduled ancient monument of the Nine Ladies stone circle. Conservation agencies, spiritual site users and local activists have campaigned - diversely - against the threat of renewed quarrying on the land for the past four years, with a protest camp illegally occupying part of the area: the application is based on a 1952 permission which pre-dates the PDNPA, and in 1952 the importance of 'landscape' for heritage and local culture was not evident. Today things have changed and 'landscape' is in vogue within heritage and archaeology - and in popular TV programmes. The landscape of the Peak District is famed, with the Peak District National Park hailed as the World's second most popular park (after one in Japan).

With the new application the company is making plain its intention to work the site in the very near future. The protest camp is preparing for imminent eviction - they are illegally on the land. A decision on the future of the site is forthcoming. The PDNPA have called for community and individual comments until mid March, and is consulting English Heritage and English Nature, among other organisations - in addition to the archaeological remains on the moor, there are tree-preservation orders in place and the area is home to two protected species of bat.

Blain says: 'The company is basing its application on the old permission, and attempting to show how they will quarry with reduced disruption to the surrounding areas - and the people of neighbouring Stanton Lees. Incredibly, there are doubts about whether this should be considered a 'dormant' or an 'active' quarry! But the protest camp say that they are challenging the landowner - the Haddon Estates, associated with the Duke of Rutland - to protect the land.'

She points out that her project's interests are in how people connect with the land around them, and why 'landscape' - especially sacred landscape - is important to them. But as for landscape - when the Nine Ladies stone circle stands so close to the quarry area, what will remain of its value for tourism or spiritual heritage when its landscape is quarried away?