The Fairy Dell (Buckden)

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fairy dell buckden

Unfortunately only the placenames and a vague tradition has been recorded: ‘In ancient Celtic territory [!], above Middleton Lodge, is a deep ravine, which so far as I can make out has always been known as Fairy Dell. The fairies had a strong dislike not [only] to Christian Churches, but also to holy wells (Speight 1900, 230). Middleton Lodge has proved difficult to locate but another postcard in our possession shows Friths Fairy Falls, presumably to be identified with Firth Fell on the map: note the cave at the base of said dell, a common feature of fairy sites. Speight goes on to talk in the vaguest possible terms of ‘the antics of these mysterious little people here and in the neighbouring gills’.

fairy dell buckden map

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