Above: The two religious phrases are crudely inscribed on the left of the cutting as the old Roman road heads north towards Whaley Bridge.
The map on the right dates to the early 1900s and shows how close the cutting lay to the Wainstones.
Christine recently posted a couple of photos on the Goyt Valley Facebook Group showing an intriguing pair of roughly carved religious phrases she’d discovered on rocks beside the old Roman road between Buxton and Whaley Bridge near a spot known as Wainstones*.
This ancient road once formed part of an extensive network of Roman highways linking cities in the northwest such as Chester with other large settlements in the Midlands such as Derby. The clear, clean spa-water springs of Buxton, then known as Aquae Arnemetiae (meaning ‘the waters of the godess Arnetia’), offered an ideal resting place for soldiers and merchants.
There were two roads running north from Buxton. One crossed a ford over the River Goyt, where the hamlet of Goyt’s Bridge lay before it vanished under the waters of Errwood Reservoir. And the other headed more directly north, through where Whaley Bridge sits today, and on towards the Roman fort of Ardotalia, near present-day Glossop.
Above: The inscriptions are difficult to spot as they’re very weathered and usually in shadow. These photos were taken in mid morning and enhanced by increasing the contrast. (Click either to enlarge.)
The carvings are on the left of the road to Whaley Bridge, just beyond Whitehall Outward Centre. The first reads ‘GOD IS FAITHFUL’. The second is just a short distance further and reads ‘KEEP MY SABBATH’. I’ve tried to discover more about them but drawn a complete blank.
According to Alan Roberts in his book ‘Turnpike Roads Around Buxton’, the rocks were only exposed when the road was improved by blasting a cutting through the natural escarpment that ran across the route. (It’s still possible to see some of the drill holes used to pack the explosive powder – which may have come from the nearby Fernilee Gunpowder Mill.)
The inscriptions probably date to this improvement to the road, which I think would have been around 1725. Perhaps the workers objected to being forced to work on Sundays. Or just wanted to spread their religious message to those travelling the route.
I find the history of the turnpikes between Buxton and Whaley Bridge very confusing. As I understand it, the first turnpike between Manchester and Buxton was authorised in 1725 after local magistrates complained that the existing road was…
…very ruinous , and many parts thereof almost impassable in the winter season, and in divers places so narrow, that it is becoming dangerous to persons passing through the same.
The old Roman road seems to have been the first to be improved under the turnpike laws. But I think another two completely new roads were later built between the towns of Buxton and Whaley Bridge. The later one being the present A5004 ‘Long Hill’ road. And perhaps one of the two may have been plotted by the famous ‘Blind Jack of Knaresborough‘.
The lost Wainstones Cross
Another interesting feature of the old Roman road is that four ancient crosses once lay along the route. These may have been way-markers or boundary stones. One of the crosses was sited at Wainstones.
Above: The ancient Shallcross lost its cross in the dim and distant past. It probably dates back to the late 9th or 10th century and has been associated with the Viking invasion.
Only one of the four remains; the ‘Shallcross’, which was moved some years ago to a stone-walled enclosure beside the old Roman road as it reaches the outskirts of Whaley Bridge.
The nearby ‘Shallcross Incline’ formed part of the Cromford and High Peak Railway which once ran through the Goyt Valley, and provides another link to the area. (Walk 12 goes this way.)
*Wainstone is an ancient name derived from the Saxon word ‘wanian’, meaning to lament or grieve. So could well have marked the spot where an important chieftan was buried.
