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...

Goddess of the Hearth

Goddess of the Hearth

The lack of classical art history at The Courtauld is surprising to say the least. Besides the few classical lectures during Foundations,...

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS – THE COURTAULDIAN ISSUE 20

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS – THE COURTAULDIAN ISSUE 20

We are now accepting submissions for the next printed issue of the Courtauldian! This issue will again be loosely centred on a theme....

Seen on Screen: Somerset House

Seen on Screen: Somerset House

Goodbye Somerset House, hello Vernon Square! As our former home becomes a distant memory I thought I’d reflect on how this Neoclassical...

Dyson Sucks & a Power Vacuum in Venezuela

Dyson Sucks & a Power Vacuum in Venezuela

Illustration by Rhiannon Powell Every week I look over the headlines, read the comment pieces, and follow the analysis to bring you a...

Leather Bikini: An Eames Revolution

Leather Bikini: An Eames Revolution

Early Eames DKW-2 with Leather Bikini Cover c.1950, Ray and Charles Eames and production by Herman Miller (photo:...

Cosmically Curated: January Art 'Scopes

Cosmically Curated: January Art 'Scopes

A New Year, a New You? For some of us, the pressure to transform in January is unappealing or overwhelming. Astrologically speaking, we...

Through the Looking Glass – Brexit Madness

Through the Looking Glass – Brexit Madness

“Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast,” says the White Queen in Lewis Carroll's Alice Through...

The Favourite: Duck Racing, Voguing and Sapphism in the Court of Queen Anne.

The Favourite: Duck Racing, Voguing and Sapphism in the Court of Queen Anne.

It’s a Tuesday night at a cinema in Peckham, we’re sat in Screen 4. The atmosphere feels giddy with anticipation for what we’re about to...

Donald The Builder - Can He Build It?

Donald The Builder - Can He Build It?

Welcome to 2019, and what is sure to be another 12-month bonanza of chaos and misery played out here in the UK and across the...

bottom of page