Things to add to Daniel Gumb

Linkinhorne church yard, here we watched a large brown owl hunt in daylight, it was after the young of the crows, which harassed it unmercifully.

 As I try to remember all the things we have seen, the one experience that comes strongly to mind is looking for Daniel Gumb, this man of the 18th century, living in a cave house under the Cheesewring with his large family. The village of Minions would not even have existed, the mining on the moors only came later in the 19th century.  He was born in a little village called Linkinhorne, or at least that was where his family came from.  When we visited cousin Sue, she remembered going to a big house where they had some papers of Gumb.  Apparently a local landowner had given him paper to write on, so when you look at the following slate gravestones, you will see a man well read in the 'Celtic' tradition.  

That he was famous there is no doubt, as his rock dwelling was almost destroyed by later quarrying, an uproar ensued from the government down, and all work was stopped in the quarry.  What we see today is only part, and is a reconstruction presumably in the 19th century, with the  stone at the side inscribed with the initials D.G. and the date 1735, which is supposed to be the date of his second marriage. The stone at the top with the mathematical equation is also badly worn.

The engraved initials

See how narrow it is with its capstone

The engraved 'Euclid' equation stone with the Cheesewring behind

The view out onto the moors

Earlier blog