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...

The Sackler Research Forum: A Useful Research Platform

The Sackler Research Forum: A Useful Research Platform

The twinkling fairy lights dangling in the Sackler Research Forum are surprisingly alluring; it looks cozy and ambient. I am sure that...

Ian McKellen on Stage: Tolkien, Shakespeare, Others and YOU!

Ian McKellen on Stage: Tolkien, Shakespeare, Others and YOU!

After queuing for an hour on a cold morning with other theatre enthusiasts, my sister and I managed to get two seats (for as little as 10...

The 5 Podcasts You Need to be Listening to Right Now

The 5 Podcasts You Need to be Listening to Right Now

Brush teeth. Pack bag. Grab key. Put on the same playlist as every day and walk out the door. REWIIIIIND. Brush teeth. Pack bag. Grab...

Staging Schiele: Celebrating the Abject Corporeality of an Austrian Artist’s Sickly Subjects

Staging Schiele: Celebrating the Abject Corporeality of an Austrian Artist’s Sickly Subjects

Choreographed by Shobana Jeyasingh and performed by her eponymous contemporary dance company, Staging Schiele is a kinetic celebration of...

London's Courtauldian Approved Art Events for November

November’s here and you know what that means, Winter is coming. When it’s cold out, who doesn’t want to be inside exploring the most...

Björk is Dead,Long Live Björk

Björk is Dead,Long Live Björk

Split into many parts Splattered light beams into prisms That will reunite ~ The Gate (Björk/Arca) For anybody vaguely aware of music as...

Modern Love: A Declaration of Love in all its Forms

Modern Love: A Declaration of Love in all its Forms

Warning, this is one for the sentimental. For the people who love Nora Ephron, Love Actually and the Metro’s ‘Rush Hour Crush’ column....

An American Marriage: A Book Review

An American Marriage: A Book Review

An American Marriage tells the story of newlyweds Celestial and Roy. At first glance, they embody the American dream; a young business...

Gettin' There: Chapter One

Gettin' There: Chapter One

Illustration by Izzy White As life itself does, it started with the body. The physical move from a warm and casually familiar place to a...

Deconstructing the Private View

Deconstructing the Private View

The private view is a curious affair. An open invite to those in-the-know, it’s a chance for the oppressive and invisible gallery rules -...

28

bottom of page