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...

Patrick Keiller’s ‘London’ and Homosexual Reminiscings

Patrick Keiller’s ‘London’ and Homosexual Reminiscings

By Eve Reid “For Londoners, London is obscured. It’s social life invisible, its government abolished […] there is nothing but a civic...

Returning and Remembering: A Review of Good Morning, Midnight

Returning and Remembering: A Review of Good Morning, Midnight

By Mariam Pari Edward Hopper, Automat, 1927. Oil on canvas, 71.4cm x91.4cm, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines. Digital photograph...

Charting the Evolution of British Political Satire

Charting the Evolution of British Political Satire

By Millie Grainger Political satire, a time-honoured tradition of humour and critique, has been an indispensable force in British arts...

I Know Where I’m Going! A Powell and Pressburger Classic Returns to the BFI

I Know Where I’m Going! A Powell and Pressburger Classic Returns to the BFI

By Minna Church “When Joan was only one year old, she already knew where she was going. Going right? Left? No, straight on. […] She’s 25...

From Da Vinci to the Dancefloor: Why are songwriters so fascinated by the Mona Lisa?

From Da Vinci to the Dancefloor: Why are songwriters so fascinated by the Mona Lisa?

By Katie Gillespie Picture the Mona Lisa. Now picture her again, except the refined features of the Italian noblewoman, Lisa del...

Horoscope predictions—November 2023

Horoscope predictions—November 2023

By Alexis Nanavaty and ‘The Guides’ During the Renaissance, astrology was a course taken by many university-educated individuals, some of...

In the Pink of Health - The Antiheroine in Contemporary Fiction

In the Pink of Health - The Antiheroine in Contemporary Fiction

By Michelle Hui Unknown, Portrait of a Young Woman in White, 1798. National Gallery of Art. Photograph taken from...

The Aran Knit: A Humble Masterpiece

The Aran Knit: A Humble Masterpiece

By Fran Osborne What comes to mind when you think of the place where art and fashion meet? The sartorial elegance of a diaphanous Dior...

The Human-Divine: Julene Robinson’s The Night Woman

The Human-Divine: Julene Robinson’s The Night Woman

By Maria Cicala Below the basement of the Barbican Center is a small black box theatre where art manifests magic.From the 19th to the...

Why I am a Tracey Emin apologist.

Why I am a Tracey Emin apologist.

By Lucas Ind Look, I get it, she’s not to everyone’s taste. In fact, I remember when I first joined The Courtauld, I chose Tracey Emin’s...

7

8 9

bottom of page