The Stairway to Heaven

The ‘Stairs’ was, in my day, a climbers pub. After a long day on the hills, someone said, “Fancy a pint?” there was only one place to head for, The Stairway to Heaven. Set at the head of a valley on the edge of an old quarry it was an imposing building. Originally a private house, it was now a pub with rooms. Why the name? The name refers to a narrow set of steps that had been cut into the quarry wall leading from the quarry floor up to the front of the old house. The steps ended quite dramatically leaving about seven metres of sheer rock up to the old front of the house. A tradition had grown up that if you climbed the gap free-style to knock the old front door you were 'entitled' to a free pint.

I had managed to get a holiday to spend a few days doing a few routes in the hills with a couple of friends in preparation for a long-planned summer trip to the Alps. I had planned to drive north overnight and meet up with my friends for breakfast at the Stairs on the 25^th of May. As things turned out a puncture, that was not repairable with the miserable repair kit provided these days in place of a spare tyre, meant that I had to wait for a garage to open to buy and fit a new tyre. So, it was early afternoon by the time I finally arrived.

Stepping out of the bright afternoon into the dim light of the bar left me half-blinded but as my eyes adjusted to the low light, I noticed just one fellow drinker tucked into a shadowy corner nursing a half-pint glass. I nodded briefly in his direction and looked around for the barman as I was by now in sore need for a drink.

"Best get your own. The landlord is gone out to the cash and carry.”

I did not need to be told twice and soon I was holding a pint of best bitter. I raise my glass in the direction of my fellow drinker who returned my greeting. As he lifted his glass, I could see that it was empty and I motioned to the beer pumps to get a refill for him but he just placed his hand over his glass in a silent gesture of refusal. Glass in hand I walked down the stone-flagged room to gaze out of the two small arched windows on either side of the stout oak door at the end of what I presumed would have been a hallway in the old house. There looking out through one of the windows was one of my favourite views. Out across the moors with the hills beyond in a purple haze. Then by standing on tiptoe and pressing my nose against the glass pane I could look down to the floor of the old quarry. The edge fell away so sharply that I had the feeling that the house was floating.

I must have sighed for my fellow drinker gave voice to my unspoken thoughts.

“Aye, a grand view that. Mind that was what the Master had in his head when he built this house. In those days you could walk through that door and stand on a grand little terrace. Neat it were, surrounded by an iron railing, with a gate set between two iron pillars."

Now my curiosity was well and truly aroused. In all the years that I had been coming up here, no one had able to tell me why the door opened onto such an abrupt drop. It had not been intended when the house was built but no one seemed to have any information as to what had happened. Plus, the Stairs was not a place for locals. Indeed, until that day, I could not recall meeting anyone who might be considered local. Even Tom who ran the place was an old army man whose voice had never lost its southern roots.

“The main thing was that from that terrace he could see all over his quarry, that’s what he wanted, to see and to be seen watching.

“How’d you mean, to be seen watching?”

I questioned him as I craned my neck and, even from my limited perspective through the little window, I could see almost all of the old workings.

“His men, of course. They did know that he could see them all from out there. That’s how he made such a good go of this place. Always kept control, tight control.”

“You seem to know quite a lot about this place then?”

I asked as I watch the bright helmets of a group of youngsters under instruction, moving against the dark rock.

“I know it as well as any man might," he replied.

It is odd now as I think back to that afternoon but somehow that softly spoken man with his rather old-fashioned accent, made it seem that all of what he talked about was in the recent past and certainly within his lifetime. I have little knowledge of the history of this part of the world but I knew that some quarries had been working right up to start of the War. Plus, I then had a youthful measure of what was old. Anything or anyone over the age of thirty I used to consider old.

“He came from a family of ironmasters. Youngest of three sons were Samuel Arkwright but ironworking was not for him. He took after his mother's side of the family. Miners and quarrymen, they were and it was the rock that interested Samuel. When the father died, Samuel took his inheritance and bought this land for a quarry. He had secured a contract to supply half-dressed stone for a fancy civic building in a local town. He undercut other bidders by paying some clerk to tell him what the others had bid then he undercut them to get the contract.”

I drained my glass and again I motioned to the shadow figure if he wanted a refill but again his hand rose in refusal. I refilled my glass and I pulled up a chair into a shaft of sunlight and leaned back.

“Of course, it nearly broke him. He’d had to shave his costs right low and this is where his true self showed. It is said that he had a heart of stone and he would give work to the sweeping from the jail. That is if they could stand the pace, and work for the pittance that he paid. From sun up to sun down he drove them. Men, women and wee bairns, it made no difference to him. Get sick, have an accident then he tosses you out there and then. He cut the shelf for this house with that first contract and he survived. Little by little, the business grew but any money he made he used to buy out the other small quarries round here. Then folks hereabouts had no choice. It were starve proper or half starve on Arkwright's pitiful pay.”

The tone was bitter but the words were softly spoken, almost as if he was talking to himself rather than talking to me. Still, I must admit some understanding and sympathy as I had brushed up against one or two employers who, even today, would behave in the same way to ratchet up their profits.

"Still, for a short span, things got a little better. Master Samuel got married to a right pretty lass and she had him start work on this house. But he made the men working on his housework on half-pay. Building a house had no profit in it. Then he started on that dammed stairway so that he could walk out of his door and walk straight down to the quarry floor. When the lass got pregnant, he bought a barrel of beer for the men. First and only time that happened. Anyhow his wife gave birth to a bonny wee girl and all looked well but then his wife took sick and died within the week. Arkwright was beside himself with grief and rage. He shook his fist at God, turned his back on the Good Book and the Chapel. He took to hunting on Sundays with a pack of hounds. The top dog he called Satan. People did say that that if those hounds found anyone alone on the moors then it was God help them.”

For a long moment, he paused and as he resumed his story his voice caught and he stumbled over his words.

"There be things and forces older than we shall ever know in those hills. It has no name that we know but it is evil. Quiet it is for the most part, quiet and unseen and generally unfelt. But it can be roused. In his grief and rage, Arkwright must have roused it. But at that time no one knew. All that seemed to happen is that everything that Samuel touched turned to gold. But it was not gold that interested Arkwright. No, he wanted power and the respect of other men. The oddest thing was that the more Samuel had, the less he felt he had, and he craved for more.”

“But what happened to the daughter?” I asked in a feeble attempt to turn the old man from this oddly sinister tack that his tale had taken and for a few moments I thought that I had succeeded as his voice lightened and he seemed brighter.

"Ah, now there was something, there was something else indeed. Rose was her name and she poor mite was the only bright light in this gloomy place. Not that she was seen much, you understand, as Samuel kept his treasure safe and secure. Locked away from the likes of you and me. Then for many a long year thing ran on with Arkwright getting richer, more respected by his fellows more powerful and yet more miserable. But for all his bitterness folk did marvel and remark that he did not seem to age. His face was smooth and unwrinkled and his hair never turned grey like most men. I guess Rose must have been about sixteen or so when Arkwright took on a young engineer, a young lad fresh out of mining school to manage the quarry when business took Samuel away. The main task for this lad was to organise the black powder blasting. The powder store was at the foot of the stairway and the key to the store was kept in a cabinet just inside the house door. So when Arkwright was away the lad would have to climb the stairs to get and return the key. In doing so he was, in a manner of speaking, bound to bump into young Rose. What, with one thing leading to another, they fell in love. It was soon pretty clear what was going on and that is when the stairway got its name. The quarrymen joked that it was 'The Stairway to Heaven."

“What on earth did Arkwright make of this? Surely he would be non-too pleased?"

The old man laughed,

"No, you don't understand. Arkwright knew nothing about it until he returned early one afternoon and caught the pair kissing and cuddling. He fell into an almighty rage and having beaten the lad half to death with his cane in front of the girl he went to fetch his dogs to finish him. Folk all over the quarry could hear the commotion as Arkwright kept screaming over and over again as he beat the lad.

“She’s not for you, she's promised." Over and over the self-same words "She's promised"

While Arkwright went for the dogs Rose helped the lad to his feet and they had just managed to get to the top of the steps when the dogs burst through the door. Urged on by Arkwright the dogs made straight for the pair at the top of the steps. Satan leapt up and took hold of the boy’s face with Rose hitting the dog with her small fists. The other dogs piled in and they all went flying down into the quarry. Girl, boy and dogs in a swirling mass dropping as Arkwright scream followed them."

“She’s not for you, she’s promised”

"The folk in the quarry say differing things but most said that it was as if he had never seen them fall until he stood at the little gate with his hands on the pillars. He then gave vent to foul and awful curses hurled at the remains of the lad and the little stairs that he has used to steal his daughter's heart. What happened then, is not clear. Most folks say that he was struck by lightning, which is what the inquiry accepted as storms can blow up suddenly in these hills. Myself, I think that he paid his debt. But the powder shed took light and the blast took out the terrace and the top of the stairs. The odd thing is that when they cleared the rockfall they never found any remains of Arkwright or his dogs but they found the boy and the girl clasped together almost unmarked except for the mark of the dog's teeth on the lads face."

“My God, that's awful.”

I could think of nothing more appropriate to say and just at that moment and in the ensuing silence, I realised that the two pints of beer had worked their way through and I was in urgent need of the gents.

“Look I have to nip out to the back. I won’t be two ticks. Excuse me.”

With that, I scuttled around the bar making for the Gents. As I went, I heard a chair scrape on the stone flags. Glancing back over my shoulder I could see that the old man had risen from his chair and was walking towards the old door. To this day I am convinced that as the man walked into the shaft of sunlight he did not look as old as his voice sounded and as his face half turned towards me, I could swear that his cheek was scarred. As I ran down the passageway in my rubber-soled boots I can still recall the distinctive sound that metal studded boots make on stone floors.

When I returned the man had vanished and although I searched, I could find no trace of him. When I finally sat down with another beer it was not long before the night drive and the warmth of the day caught up with me and I dozed off. I was awoken by the returning young climbers from the quarry and slightly dazed and befuddled I wondered if I had a bad dream brought on by the lack of sleep and the alcohol.

However, there is a sequel to this tale. The next day my two friends and I arrived back at the 'Stairs' early and full of high spirits and bravado we decided to claim our free pints by climbing up to the door at the top of the stairway. The following day we were in the middle of a difficult pitch on our climb when there was a sudden storm and the wet rocks became treacherous and we fell still roped together as our safety line came free. My two friends died but I was ‘luckier’ with both legs badly broken and my hip and spine damaged. Nothing that wouldn't mend with time and metals bits and pieces but it ended my climbing days. But recently other events have taken me back to that particular Mayday. I had been tracking long absent friends and other climbers. So far as I can tell all the climbers that I know who had climbed the Stairway to Heaven had met with serious or fatal accidents and all the reports speak of sudden unexpected and freak storms as the main cause.

Yes, Samuel Arkwright did exist. I checked the old County Records and there is a copy of the inquest into his death. It is given that he was struck by lightning and his body was incinerated leaving no remains. His daughter and an unnamed quarryman were killed in the gunpowder store blast that followed. I have seen Rose’s tombstone in the churchyard in the town but, I can find no record of where her sweetheart is buried. The date of Rose's death is given as Thursday 25^th May 1802.

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