top of page

Screen Shot 2021-11-01 at 6.28.42 PM.png

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...

Colouring the Past: Homer, Soane & Klein

Colouring the Past: Homer, Soane & Klein

Yves Klein, Blue Venus works on display at Blenheim Palace, 2018 (Photo: Vogue) Colour is a concerningly abstract and amorphous concept...

Sticker Shtick

Sticker Shtick

All of my visits to Tate Modern have been a hit or miss. There’s a very inorganic feel to it as an institution. Maybe it’s the multitude...

'Into the Mind of the Coloniser': In Conversation with Adelaide Damoah

'Into the Mind of the Coloniser': In Conversation with Adelaide Damoah

On Thursday 28 March, British-Ghanaian artist Adelaide Damoah will present ‘Into the Mind of the Coloniser’, in the Virginia Woolf Room...

Sacking Sackler & May’s Civil War

Sacking Sackler & May’s Civil War

BUMPER END-OF-TERM EDITION Illustration by Rhiannon Powell This week I begin with a story that has been bubbling away for some time now,...

Division, Derision, Diversions, & Delay

Division, Derision, Diversions, & Delay

As promised, last week was a big one for Brexit. In my last column, I outlined what was planned, in this one I’ll recount what actually...

The Unifying Power of Jewellery

The Unifying Power of Jewellery

With the ongoing Brexit debate over whether to stay or leave - a metaphor for divorce reoccurring in newspaper headlines; the unifying...

Midnight in a Perfect World - DJ Shadow's 'Entroducing'

Midnight in a Perfect World - DJ Shadow's 'Entroducing'

It’s midnight. I’m walking home, I see nothing but dark buildings and orange streetlights. Traffic goes by nearby, I can hear the wind in...

Courtauld Careers Alumni Networking Event

Courtauld Careers Alumni Networking Event

We are incredibly proud to announce that last Thursday’s Careers Networking Event was the most successful to date, with 46 careers...

Cosmically Curated: March Art 'Scopes

Cosmically Curated: March Art 'Scopes

March always goes in like a lion, but this year particularly so with a Mercury retrograde near the beginning of the month. That means...

A Clear Path Through the Brexit Fog?

A Clear Path Through the Brexit Fog?

I’m sorry everyone, but this week it really is unavoidable, I’m going to have to mention the B-word. The fog of Brexit is obscuring all...

1

2

bottom of page