August 5 - Day 110 - 'Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men?' Shakespeare

Just as I begin the long climb out of Baslow, there are now temporary traffic lights which has meant I have had to stop. Starting uphill from standing still is definitely not easy! Anyway, waiting there this morning I started thinking about place names again.

Baslow (Basselau) appears in the Domesday Book in 1086 and then changes gradually in records from Basselawa in 1156, Basselewe, Basselow(e) in 1215 to Baslow(e) in 1392. Its orginal name Basselau is derived from the word hlau (burial ground) of Bassa, who is believed to have been a chieftain around AD 600. There are many important remains on the moors above Baslow which show in the Bronze Age, there were huts, stone circles and burial and clearance mounds. It is amazing to think that many of these features would have been put there over 3000 years ago.

What you might be asking at this stage is what does this have to do with the Shakespeare quotation used in the title. Well… the whip found in a glass case in St Anne’s Church, Baslow is to me even more intriguing than the prehistoric features. It belonged to the church’s dog-whipper paid to keep order among parishioners’ dogs left in the churchyard.

Because money was tight, dog whippers were often given other duties, including the ‘sluggard waker’. If any of the congregation fell asleep, his duty was to wake them up. To do this they are said to have knocked on heads with a long wooden pole or poked people with a fork attached to its end.

So, next time I’m struggling uphill or thinking I need a rest, perhaps a sluggard waker could be re-introduced to keep me focussed on the cycling and make sure I move off from the traffic lights with a bit more vigour.