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...

Join the Search Party

Join the Search Party

Illustration by Ellen Charlesworth The 24 year old Londoner George Mpanga, better known as George the Poet, is a socially motivated poet,...

Hello

Hello

Illustration by Claire Mead Hello, welcome to my cliché-ridden review of Adele’s new tune. The queen of breakup songs, and generic...

Desert Island Disks: Thomas Bodinetz

This weeks Desert Islander, and head editor of The Courtauldian, is Thomas Bodinetz. Top 3 Albums? BB King, Live at the Regal, 1965 The...

Subverting The Avant-Garde: Nudity and Inferiority in Hussein Chalayan’s Spring/Summer 1998 Collecti

Hussein Chalayan’s Spring/Summer line was met with critical acclaim during London’s Fashion Week in the autumn of 1998. The Guardian, a...

Kanye, Juergen & Kim: A Review

Kanye, Juergen & Kim: A Review

‘Kanye, Juergen & Kim, Château d’Ambleville’ on display at Phillips Auction House For ten days in mid-November, Phillips Auction House...

Yeezy 2.0

Yeezy 2.0

Illustration by Tomiris Shyngyssova Not content with dominating the spheres of hip-hop and award show rants, New York Fashion Week saw...

Thatcher: A Style Icon?

Thatcher: A Style Icon?

Illustration by Tennessee Williams Margaret Thatcher's (1925-2013) are due to be sold as a collection in an auction held by Christie's....

Quantum of Boredom: Does Spectre mark the end for Bond?

This article is rated S for spoilers. Going into a Bond film, one has to expect a certain level of retro chauvinism, post war masculinity...

'Isis Threaten Sylvania': A Response to the Censored Work By Mimsy

'Isis Threaten Sylvania': A Response to the Censored Work By Mimsy

Illustration by Tennessee Williams On the 10th December, 1945 the United Nations granted a generation of people ‘the highest aspiration...

Humanity > Eurocentrism

Humanity > Eurocentrism

Illustration by Lottie Handley After receiving the BBC News notification informing me of the Paris Attacks, November 13th, I naively...

60

bottom of page