top of page

Millican Dalton: A Sublime Midlife Crisis

The relevance of a 20th century cave-dweller to environmental aesthetics.

Wednesday, 23 December 2020

borrowdale pic 1.jpg

At the mouth of the cave at Borrowdale, May 2020. Photograph: Lewis Eaton.

On a swelteringly hot day in the North Western Fells of The Lake District, the gaping mouth of a cave offered itself as a refuge and swallowed us mercifully into its cool damp interior. Caves are otherworldly places. This particular cave, set into the hillside of Castle Crag, allows you to peer out at the gently swaying trees and glimmering daylight of the outside world from a viewing point void of light and sound. The daytrip itself had been to seek refuge in The Lakes; an attempt at replacing the stagnancy of a locked-down city summer with a more welcome, less claustrophobic, kind of tranquillity. We spent a few minutes scrambling around on the siltstone, marvelling at the height of the cave walls and exchanging the obligatory comments about feeling small in big spaces. On leaving, I noticed a large, flat stone covered in scrawlings. At the centre in neat, deeply-etched letters read ‘Don’t Waste Words, Jump to Conclusions’ with dozens of smaller sections of writing surrounding this. Each gave names and dates, with many faded with age and dissolving back into the stone’s surface. It was from a frantic Googling during the car ride home that I came to find out we had happened across a sort-of pilgrimage place for hikers: the cave in which a man had lived out his summers for over forty consecutive years.

In 1904, at the age of thirty-six, Millican Dalton gave up his life as an insurance clerk in London in order to dedicate himself to The Great Outdoors. Having spent part of his childhood in Nenthead, the North Pennines, he found life and work in the capital stifling in comparison. From then on Dalton split his year, spending the summer months in the cave under Castle Crag and winters in a canvas hut in Buckinghamshire. Far from your conventional hermit, Dalton was an active and sociable member of the community. He organised camping excursions for the outdoors novice which included teaching hiking, rock climbing, rafting and how to forage for food. What I found extraordinary for the time was that these excursions didn’t exclude women, with one of Dalton’s advertisements for a mountaineering course stating his views bluntly: “Ladies are welcome to the camp. There is nothing new in ladies camping, the custom being at least 10,000 years old.” This rare indiscriminate approach led to Dalton forging a long-lasting friendship with geologist Mabel Barker, who over the years consistently recommended Dalton’s courses to women students and friends.

Millican and Mabel.jpg

Dalton and Barker atop a needle, 1913. The Mable Barker Collection.

ARCHIVE

Take a look...

Find all our of old features and articles below...

Masculinity in Ancient Greece

Masculinity in Ancient Greece

The spectacle of the ancient Greek male body is as enduring and relevant now as it was in 500 BC. The ideal image of man, largely sourced...

The Magnificent Seven: The Birth of The Independent Group

The Magnificent Seven: The Birth of The Independent Group

This week, the face of British politics changed. Both Labour and the Conservatives were rocked by the creation of a new group in the...

Opportunity is Dead: A Galaxy of Misery

Opportunity is Dead: A Galaxy of Misery

Sad news this week (although it’s seldom but sad), as NASA has officially given up hope on their Martian robotic rover Opportunity. The...

Kitsch Cupid: Rococo and Romance

Kitsch Cupid: Rococo and Romance

There are numerous historical sources attached to St Valentine — the Catholic. Church recognizes at least three different saints named...

Cosmically Curated: February Art' Scopes

Cosmically Curated: February Art' Scopes

Valentine’s Day tends to dominate headlines in the February horoscopes. Far more important is the Lunar New Year taking place on 5th...

A Union in a State and Tusk’s Inferno

A Union in a State and Tusk’s Inferno

This week saw President Trump, the unhappy love child of a month-old satsuma and a poorly fitted suit, deliver his third State of the...

A Praying Prime Minister & a President Sent by God

A Praying Prime Minister & a President Sent by God

As the UK faces a big freeze the Prime Minister’s position on Brexit has thawed slightly – although the reception from the EU remains...

Dennis Severs’ House Review

Dennis Severs’ House Review

Here is a sensation I would like to bottle as a sal volatile for monotone days: that of emerging from a darkened movie theatre into the...

bottom of page