A chapel for the Devil

Lud Church (or Lud's Church) is a natural cleft in the rock, about forty feet deep, in the Peak District. A sort of small chasm. You can clamber down into it from entrances at both ends.

It is the supposed setting for the Green Chapel, which features in a scene at the end of the medieval poem, Sir Gawain & The Green Knight, which, it's thought, was written by an (anonymous) monk based at an abbey in nearby Leek.
It is an astonishing poem, and it would be sad to go through life never having experienced it.

On a gloomy day, the place can be very gloomy indeed. Sunlight never reaches certain parts of it ever, which is why the sides are covered in slime of moss.

Can this be the Chapel Green? 
O Lord, said the gentle knight. 
Here the Devil might say, I een,
His matins about midnight!

For more about Lud Church, click here and/or click here 

A most mysterious place

Lud’s Church – in the ‘Dark’ Peak District - is a very odd place.  It’s a natural rock chasm, about one hundred yards in length and fifty feet in depth.  Two people can just about walk abreast along it, and, as you can guess with such a narrow and deep cleft, little direct sunlight ever penetrates, so its sides are covered in moss.

There are all sorts of legends about it, including the fact that it might be the main setting for the medieval poem Gawain And The Green Knight, but, for me, it’s just the being there that is so impressive.

Mind you, if you do go there, I’d wait until it dries out. The constant rain of the last fortnight has turned its bottom into a quagmire.

Links: Gawain Poem / A Walk to Lud's Church and back