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...

Collecting Beautiful Moments: A Reflection of The Small Pleasures of Life by Philippe Delerm

Collecting Beautiful Moments: A Reflection of The Small Pleasures of Life by Philippe Delerm

By Mariam Pari Vanessa Bell, A Conversation, 1913-1916. Oil on canvas, 86.6 x 81cm, The Courtauld Gallery. Digital photograph accessed...

Palissy and the Pre-Raphaelites: the classical artists that leave their mark on Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn

Palissy and the Pre-Raphaelites: the classical artists that leave their mark on Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn

By Katie Gillespie Warning: Spoilers ahead! Love it or hate it, Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn (2023) has been the topic on everyone’s lips...

Feline Fancy - Cats in Japanese Literature

Feline Fancy - Cats in Japanese Literature

By Michelle Hui Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Cats Suggested as The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, 1850. Woodblock print, 37.4 x 77.8 cm....

Tanks and Tutus: a glimpse into the strange affinity between pirouettes and politics

Tanks and Tutus: a glimpse into the strange affinity between pirouettes and politics

By Fran Osborne Moscow 1991 — as residents awoke on the 19th of August 1991, they’d have been forgiven for thinking it was a perfectly...

Poor Things and the Monstrosity of Womanhood

Poor Things and the Monstrosity of Womanhood

By Eve Reid Poor Things (2023) sets out on an ambitious cinematic expedition, attempting to unfurl a fantastical narrative around...

Daedalus Aloft Despite.

Daedalus Aloft Despite.

By Carys Maloney I am a Poet I am not A sculptor. I let life mould me That which gave me form In the first place. Open! Open! Open!...

The Life of Vinyl in the Material World

The Life of Vinyl in the Material World

By Freddie Bond I walked into my local HMV store just after Christmas. I was surprised its doors were still open as I thought HMV had...

bottom of page