Millican Dalton 1867-1947......................................... "Professor of Adventure"

My favourite part of the English Lake District is south of Keswick and Derwentwater... Borrowdale.
This post is about someone who gave up his job as an insurance clerk in the city and lived his dream.

Millican Dalton 1867-1947.

In the early 1900's the self styled "Professor of Adventure" Millican Dalton lived in a cave on Castle Crag in the valley of Borrowdale.  He made his own clothes, rucksacks and sleeping bags out of salvaged materials, grew his own vegetables. baked his own bread and was known for his love of coffee and cigarettes.

As one of the early Lakeland guides he hiked and climbed the fells around Keswick for most of his life.

At the age of 36 Dalton gave up a stifling city job to embrace a life of adventure. as he told a correspondent of The Sunday Chronicle in 1933 "Forty years ago I was working as a clerk in a city office...Day after day I went to the office at the same time... but this was not the life for me. I gave up my job in the commercial world and set out to seek romance and freedom".

Millican Daltons cave is on the eastern flank of Castle Crag and consists of two inter connected split level caves formed by quarrying. 

Dalton inhabited the cave in for the best part of fifty years.

I first visited the cave in 2007 after a couple of previous unsuccessful attempts to find it.

All the colour images in this post are mine.

My son Craig and his now wife Eleanor at the cave in 2008. 

I took them on a walk around Borrowdale and later Buttermere... 'twas a lovely day for me.

It's a damp place around the entrance... it provided Dalton with a steady water supply.

A year later this pair did a trip backpacking around the planet... Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand (free fall sky diving and bungee jumping) Fiji and the USA.

I think even Millican Dalton would have been impressed by their adventure.

To this day Daltons legacy can still be seen at the entrance to the cave where he carved his own epitaph into the rock despite the efforts of vandals oblivious to this little piece of history.

It reads.

 "Don't waste worrds Jump to conclusions"

The view from the caves entrance... It's a beautiful scene to wake up to.

Millican Dalton "Professor of Adventure" in action

Millican Dalton in Keswick near the Moot Hall.
The buildings haven't changed the one behind him to his left (your right) is now Greggs the bakers.
Dalton spent his summers in Borrowdale moving south to the wooden shack in Buckinghamshire during the colder months. During the winter of 1946-47 Daltons hut burnt down so he moved into a tent.
This was too much for his 79 year old frame however and he contracted pneumonia and died in hospital on the 5th of February 1947.

The River Derwent flows through Borrowdale below Castle Crag and Daltons cave.
The area is now owned by the National Trust who discourage camping on the site... but many people still make the pilgrimage to spend at least one night in the cave that sheltered Millican Dalton.

Craig and his old man... I think I might be smiling?

We had climbed to the summit of Castle Crag a climb of only 951ft... but it's quite steep.
The view north from Castle Crag over Derwentwater towards Keswick has to be one of the best in the whole of the lakes... I can so see what attracted Millican Dalton to make this place home.

 Craig has spent his whole life calling the knowledge I have passed onto him as "Andrew facts" I think it's a compliment... hmm? well I hope it's a compliment.