The Baslow Monuments to Nelson & Wellington

Two rustic monuments to Britain’s two most famous Napoeonic war leaders in a fittingly impressive location.

Nelsons Column in Trafalgar Square, was completed in 1843 (the battle of Trafalgar, where Admiral Nelson was killed, was in 1805). It is famous the world over but  fewer people  will know of the, much earlier, Nelsons Monument atop  Birchen Edge ,  near Baslow  in the Peak District National Park in northern England .

The monument is about 12 feet high and was erected in 1810 by a local businessman John Brightman. The monument  was not the first to be dedicated to Nelson. The Nelson monument in Dublin, for example, was erected in 1809 (but destroyed by the IRA in 1966) but the monument at Birchen Edge is, at least one of, the earliest still standing, and unless you are a lover of cities, it is, arguably, in the most stunning location of any. The monument is a gritstone obelisk with a ball on top. The three isolated rocks just behind the edge near the monument, called the Three Ships, are named Victory, Defiance and Royal Sovereign, all ships which took part at Trafalgar with their names engraved on the stones.

Birchen edge is a popular rock climbing site and many of the climbs are named with the Nelson or naval theme in mind e.g. Horatio’s Horror, Trafalgar Crack, Powder Monkey Parade and (the absolute classic) Topsail. The edge is not particularly high and all the routes can be climbed as a single pitch climb but, popular as it is with beginners, it also has some very challenging routes. The obelisk is often used as an anchor point for beginners who are learning to abseil (rappel).

In sight of the Nelsons monument, across the valley to the northwest, on Baslow Edge, is another monument in gritstone, which is dedicated to the, equally famous, Duke of Wellington. The Wellington Monument, a cross some ten feet high of cemented gritstone blocks, was erected by a former soldier. It carries the inscription: “Wellington, Born 1769, Died 1852, Erected 1866 by E.M. Wrench, late 34th Reg’ment”. Some say that it was erected as the army man’s response to the prominence of the naval hero’s memorial at Birchen Edge

These two gritstone edges are at the southern end of a series of gritstone escarpments, called the Eastern Edges, which for many rock climbers, from the both Manchester and Sheffield areas, represent the birthplace of their love for the sport. In the days when climbing was a solely outdoor sport some of the great British names in climbing did their first rock climb on Birchen Edge.

Some very important classic gritstone routes are found on these edges but from all of the Eastern Edges  (Stanage, Burbage,  Frogatt, Curbar, Baslow, Birchen , Gardom’s and Chatsworth Edges) the views to the west are as much a part of the days sport as the climbing itself. Watching the sun go down from any of these edges at the end of a day’s climbing or walking   should not be missed.

Whatever the reason for the placement of these two memorials they are in locations where the natural splendour is a fitting tribute to these two British hero’s of the Napoleonic Wars.