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Fairies Chapel

& Witches at

Healey Dell

Well-known for its nature and beautiful told them he never wanted to leave, so there he still
surroundings, Healey Dell’s almost mystical setting stands. The dwarf was said to be the size of a small
carries its own rich folklore and legends. Visiting its child with a huge ginger beard, always dressed in
hidden nooks and secret niches, it is not hard to green and brown checked trousers and a white shirt
envisage how the area lent itself to stories of magic rolled up at the sleeves.
and supernatural mischief, involving fairies, dwarves,
witches, elves and evil spirits. If you want to find fairies in the Dell, one good way is
to imagine the many small creatures that live there as
Perhaps the best known of these is the ‘Fairies’ carrying their spirits, such as the bright blue
Chapel’, once clearly visible in the ‘Thrutch’, a narrow kingfisher or the grey wagtail.
gorge in the heart of the Dell, until it was submerged
by a great flood in the summer of 1838. It was said to The Healey Dell Heritage Centre & Tea Rooms at
contain a pulpit, reading desk and seats, carved from Dell Road, Rochdale OL12 6BG is open on Thursday
the rock by the relentless force of rushing water. The to Sunday and is a good starting point. Here you will
old Spodden Bridge and many of the surrounding find maps and further information on the Fairies’
mills and other structures were destroyed or Chapel and other interesting points. These photographs have been
damaged in the flood, and the ‘chapel’ disappeared taken by local amateur
into a fissure of the rock.
photographer Mark Chrimes.
In one version, the ‘chapel’ was created as a place of
banishment for witches and evil spirits by the King of Mark was born in Rochdale and
the Fairies. He had freed Robin Hood, who in earlier enjoys all types of photography
versions of his story originates in western Yorkshire,
of their bewitchment. On the King’s advice, Robin including wildlife, motorsport
dropped a magical ring into the witches’ cauldron and people.
from a tree on a cliff above the gorge. The cauldron
exploded in a thousand pieces with a clap of thunder.

Another legend concerns Lady Eleanor Byron, an
ancestor of the poet Lord Byron, during the reign of
Edward IV (1461-1483). A local fortune-teller and
communer with the Fairy Queen, Mother Bagden,
whose son owned the ‘Owd Mill i’ th’ Thrutch’, had
predicted Lady Eleanor would become a bride and a
widow on the same day. Indeed she did. Her groom,
Oliver Chadwick, was killed in a feud with the
rivalling Trafford family on his wedding night.

Dating back much further is the legend of the
‘Healey Dwarf’, a small stone sentinel in the middle
of the river. He cavorted with the fairies there and

Thanks to Mark Chrimes for his photograph and David
Lowe for his contribution to this article.

REAL ROCHDALE - SPRING 2020 34