Thor’s Cave is one of the Peak District’s most impressive structures – and the river that flows nearby has its own stories too.
When people think of caves in the Peak District, their minds will turn to the world-famous tourist hotspots Blue John Cavern and its neighbours in Castleton.
But there’s a mighty cave, down on the Staffordshire side of the Peak District, that’s often overlooked.
This is Thor’s Cave, a huge natural cavern located in a steep limestone crag.
Its structure dominates the horizon, but it’s the view from inside the cave itself that makes this well worth the drive.
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Once you scramble into Thor’s Cave – and the rocks can be icerink-slippy, so take care – its limestone walls create a picture frame looking over the Manifold Valley.
Thor’s Cave is in the Staffordshire side of the Peaks, a little further afield than some parts of this beloved national park.
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It’s around an hour and a half’s drive from Manchester itself to the village of Wetton, or less if you live on the south side of the region.
But it’s well worth the trip.
It’s believed that this ancient structure was occupied by early humans in the Palaeolithic period, after remains, tools, pottery and bronze items were found here by archaeologists.
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If you’re thinking the cave looks familiar too, you might recognise it as the cover image of The Verve’s debut album, A Storm in Heaven, and from their music video for Blue.
A 7.5km circular walk from Wetton village will take you all along the course of the River Manifold and pass by Thor’s Cave, and other caves in the valley.
The river itself has been nicknamed the ‘disappearing river’, for good reason.
Unless there’s been particularly wet weather, the river vanishes around Wetton Mill and doesn’t reappear until Ilam Hall, about six kilometres away.
It’s all down to the limestone riverbed, which is pockmarked with sinkholes and underground channels and caves.
Speaking with Maggie Rogers before her spellbinding stripped-back set at Gorilla
Danny Jones
Every now and again we’re fortunate enough to get the opportunity not only to see a big name but to experience them in a smaller, more intimate setting for those special one-offs that people go on to talk about for years to come — that’s how we got to see Maggie Rogers at Gorillaon Monday.
Better still, we were incredibly lucky to be offered time to speak with the American singer-songwriter just a couple of hours prior to her all-acoustic set at Gorilla and just before she and her band set off to tour her new album, Don’t Forget Me, which drops next month.
Manchester being the first of these up close and personal pre-album launch shows here in the UK, of which she listed just four, it’s always an honour to be picked for the start or the end of an album cycle but it was immediately clear she had a lot of love for our city.
Arriving in 0161 on Sunday just in time for the Paddy’s Day chaos and to watch the FA Cup final between Man United and Liverpool in a local pub, our conversation started with simply: “That game!”
The interview
After meeting and greeting the line of people already queuing up for the 500-cap Gorilla show, we walked backstage for what ended up being a laid-back chat about live music, relaxing into herself as an artist and an album process that was recorded in a whirlwind five days.
Touching on the upcoming third album and that beautiful title track, Maggie said, “It feels like coming home. In a lot of ways, it’s like a return to a lot of the style of songwriting and production and arrangement that really got me into music in this place when I was like 16/17.
“It just feels really relaxed and my friends keep saying that it sounds like the version of me that they know. I think, after doing this for quite a while, I’m finally relaxing into it.
“I think it’s always been authentic but I think music sort of takes some of the most sensitive and intense people and puts them in really high-intensity situations… It’s not even that I wasn’t being authentic before, I think it’s just that my guard was a little bit up yeah. I was a little scared — I still am, you know, but I think that’s normal.”
Describing how it felt her last LP Surrender had the punchiest and most contemporary rock approach of her music to date, we then moved on to where her style is at currently and the difference between the studio listening experience and live performance.
“I mean, my undergrad was in production engineering but that record was really designed to be played live, especially in a time like the pandemic, where all I was thinking about was coming back to touring and really missing it.
“I got really into British rock and, at least during the Surrender era, I was like fully like in Oasis mode, but you guys are responsible for some of the best music and pop culture.”
Chuffed that she dropped in the Burnage boys so early in the conversation, she went on to say that although she was “discovered in a moment of experimentation” — that old Pharrell meme (yes, that is her if you’ve never put two and two together), her “songwriting has always been the same at the centre.”
“What I love about making albums is the world-building part of it, and I’ve just gotten to build different worlds. I always think about where the albums are designed to be listened to and Heard It in a Past Life was really designed for headphones, Surrender was really designed for stage and this is really designed for a car — like a Sunday afternoon drive”.
As she puts it, the debut was lots of synths, the sophomore was “drums and distortion” and the star of Don’t Forget Me is the acoustic guitar. “There’s definitely different forms of energy”, she said, adding: “but this is more on the stripped side and the whole record was kind of designed as a live album. Almost everything was a first take and this record was made in five days”. Some achievement in its own right.
Credit: Maggie Rogers
Having the most fun on stage
After touching on that internet moment from back in 2016, we then talked about how seeing her for the first time at Victoria Warehouse back in November 2022 (which she described as “so sick” and one of her favourite venues here in Manchester) was the real ‘wow’ moment for us and realising just important it is to see her live. Maggie puts a lot of it down to the band.
“I think that on stage what I love is that it’s different every night. I’ve worked really hard to be excellent at something that I really love and I get to play with some of the best musicians around and my band is just so f***ing talented.”
“It’s sort of like I hope the audience is having a good time too but also if they’re not I’m just having a really good time anyway.” She definitely was too; jumping ahead a little bit, one of our favourite moments from the gig was when she stopped between songs to laugh and say, “I just love playing music”.
She said similar about the creative process this time around too. Although there’s a lengthy newsletter post describing how the album came to be on her Instagram, she summed up it by saying, “Creativity, often comes from some of the most essential and sometimes childish or playful senses.
“Like, it’s called playing music and I think keeping that like sense of playfulness alive is so inherent to keeping my creativity alive, and in the studio making this record I was just having so much fun and was just feeling really playful, so we sort of made a record by not trying to make a record.”
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Again, you could see that “contagious joy” she talked about written on her face and everyone else’s.
She was having the most fun and, believe us, so was everyone who managed to get a ticket for Maggie Rogers’ sell-out Gorilla show.
The show
Moving on to the show itself, Maggie said she was most looking forward to playing the likes of ‘Drunk’ which they’ve been doing live for a while now, as well as a track she called “devastating” with just the keys and a guitar entitled, ‘The Kill’ — and she wasn’t lying.
She set up the song by promising “It’s such a jam” with a full band but the stripped-back version fittingly killed us off in the crowd and the same could be said for a lot of the versions we heard on the night. From ‘Begging for Rain’ to an almost ethereal take on ‘Alaska’, you really get to appreciate just how incredible her voice is in this kind of scenario.
Bigging up British and Manchester crowds in particular because we “know culture and [we] care”, insisting, “It’s crazy how important those two things are”, her audience certainly lived up to the billing. She said there’s no “half-assing” it with us and she was right. We were emotional and so was she.
The set naturally closed with ‘Don’t Forget Me and a few teary faces (we didn’t dare film that moment as we wanted to be present) but nothing summed up the night better than when the Manc Maggie fans pretty much turned Gorilla into a congregation for ‘That’s Where I Am’, perfectly harmonising and clapping like a gospel choir.
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We’re already looking back on the show and thinking of it as going down as one of those ‘I was there’ moments and we think we speak for everyone when they say they won’t forget the time they saw Maggie Rogers at Gorilla with nothing more than a guitar and her piano player — also incredible, by the way.
Don’t Forget Me releases on Friday, 12 April and we already can’t wait to hear not only how the rest of it sounds but how the tracks we heard sound fully-fledged.
‘That’s Where I Am’ – Maggie Rogers, live at Gorilla (Credit: The Manc Audio)
Featured Images — The Manc Group/Press Image (supplied)
Feature
A Manc’s guide to: Prestwich, the Bury neighbourhood with brilliant bars, restaurants, green space and more
Daisy Jackson
Prestwich has become a magnet for young professionals in recent years, a slightly more affordable cousin of Greater Manchester suburbs like Chorlton and Didsbury.
But it’s not just the house prices that draw people to this neighbourhood in Bury.
It’s the green space, the blossoming food and drink scene, the easy-peasy transport links, and the community.
This is a suburb where you can walk for miles through fields and woods without crossing a road – but can be sipping a negroni just minutes later.
Despite its proximity to the M60, it’s not uncommon to spot deer strutting around just beyond the housing estates of the main village.
There’s plenty more going on that will sell the appeal of this booming little suburb, too. Here’s our guide to Prestwich.
Food and drink
Curry sauce on a Chips @ No 8 chippy tea. Credit: The Manc GroupChips @ No 8 in Prestwich. Credit: The Manc GroupChips @ No 8 in Prestwich. Credit: Chips @ No. 8 / The Manc Group
In the world of chippies, that’s a very big deal indeed.
With fish and spuds sourced fresh and fried in beef dripping, this place alone is almost enough to sell people on the pull of Prestwich.
They’re expanding into the unit next door too, where there’ll be more space to dining in as well as a bar where you can grab a pint while you wait.
But there’s plenty more to the neighbourhood’s food and drink scene.
Cuckoo, a neighbourhood bar in Prestwich, Greater Manchester. Credit: The Manc Group
Some of the frontrunners here include Cuckoo (a cosy neighbourhood bar hosting cinema nights and serving top-notch pizzas), All The Shapes (seasonal brunches and out-of-this-world Mexican food, plus loads of craft beers and cocktails), and the Crooked Man (a charming beer bar that feels like you’ve wandered into someone’s living room).
Hospitality businesses from elsewhere in the region keep heading here too, like Croma (which has now shut its city centre site but says Prestwich is thriving), Wine & Wallop, and Dokes, a pizza joint from the same team behind Elnecot in Ancoats. Rudy’s is also eyeing up a site in Prestwich for the first time.
More recent additions include Nonna’s, an Italian deli, The Pearl, a delightful neighbourhood bistro with a wine window.
There’s a phenomenal Middle Eastern restaurant scene in Prestwich, with Lebanese restaurant Remal happily rubbing shoulders with the always-busy Anatolian Grill and Istanbul Grill.
Dokes Pizzeria in PrestwichThe Pearl in Prestwich
A little further away from the main drag of Bury New Road is The Goods In, from the same team behind the aforementioned All The Shapes.
They’ve taken an old MOT garage and turned it into a sunny yellow hangout spot, serving loaded flatbreads, great beer and top-quality coffees right on the edge of Heaton Park.
And further towards the city centre is Osma, a Scandinavian-style restaurant fronted by Michelin-trained Danielle Heron which calmly marched its way straight into the Michelin Guide.
When you merge Prestwich with its neighbouring suburbs, you come up with the second-largest Jewish community in the UK – and that means this is the best place in Greater Manchester to come for bagels and deli goods.
Coopers Let’s Fress deliTriple B in Prestwich
Cooper’s Let’s Fress is one of the big players, drawing queues out the door every Sunday with its £6 bagel special (five bagels, with sides of smoked salmon, cream cheese, tuna mayonnaise and egg salad).
There are less traditional bagels too, with Eat New York’s Triple B now based in Prestwich serving cheeseburger bagels and buffalo chicken burgers.
Put the stretchy pants on before you come for a day out in Prestwich, basically.
Shopping
Grape to Grain wine shop in Prestwich. Credit: The Manc GroupGrape to Grain wine shop in Prestwich. Credit: The Manc Group
Prestwich’s high street isn’t one that’s necessarily been designed for visitors.
There’s not much in the way of achingly-cool boutiques or artisan bakeries.
But what it is is actually much better – it’s a rare example of a high street full of essential, independently-operated retailers.
There’s a bike shop, an optician’s, a hardware store, a pet shop, beauty salons, newsagents and gift shops with barely a big chain in sight (just don’t look over there at the Costa and Superdrug on the precinct).
Some of the most exciting shops you’ll find here specialise in food and drink, like Keg Cask and Bottle, where you can pick up a few cans of craft beer and sit in the shop to drink them – they recently expanded into the unit next door too, for extra drinking room.
Grape to Grain has a presence here too on the corner of Bury New Road and Church Lane, where, again, you can crack open your purchase and drink it on a seat by the windows.
Lupo Caffe Italiano. Credi: The Manc GroupInside Lupo in Prestwich
Back down the road towards the city centre you’ll find Lupo, a brilliant Italian business that’s moved onto an industrial estate to sell its homemade doughnuts and pasta dishes as well as imported Italian produce.
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It’s a real local highlight, sitting outside Lupo in the car park with an Aperol spritz and a gigantic bowl of freshly-made pasta.
There are beautiful, antique-inspired homewares to be found in Rose & Lee, from stunning furniture to bunches of dried flowers.
And for those who call Prestwich home, there’s the holy trinity of supermarkets all in a row – an M&S Simply Food (for pay day), a big 24-hour Tesco, and an Aldi. Genuinely, what a treat.
Nightlife and hotels
Parklife festival. Credit: The Manc GroupFred Again at Parklife festival 2023. Credit: The Manc Group
As a densely residential suburb of Greater Manchester, Prestwich’s nightlife scene tends to wrap up fairly promptly around 11pm.
Very sensible.
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The star of Prestwich after dark is Take Me To Church, a clubnight laced with disco, funk and soul.
They say: ‘We’re not kids, but we still wanted to go somewhere that played the kind of music that we loved to dance to without having to wait ’till daft-o-clock in town for a cab home. We wanted somewhere local, but there was nothing – so we did it ourselves.”
There’s also Cape to Cuba, where Caribbean-inspired burgers and poutine are matched with a buzzing atmosphere, you’ll find a party that runs until 1am.
If you can make it through Cape to Cuba’s door without being handed a shot of rum, you’re a rare breed.
Then there’s events company So Prestwich, which whips up daytime events but also pulls out a banger of an Indie night.
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The Makers Market has also recently started holding artisan markets at Prestwich precinct, where locals can pick up freshly-made cakes and handmade gifts.
An, of course, the biggest party of the year takes place on Prestwich’s doorstep – Parklife festival.
80,000 people per day flock here every summer to party in Heaton Park, with this year’s line-up including Doja Cat, Disclosure, J Hus and Becky Hill.
In terms of hotels… erm… there’s a Premier Inn? Probably just stay in the city centre, to be honest.
Culture
Prestwich Clough through the seasons. Credit: The Manc Group
The biggest selling point of Prestwich has to be its green space – and it’s not just Heaton Park.
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The neighbourhood is bookmarked on the other end by Philips Park, Drinkwater Park, Prestwich Clough and Waterdale Meadow, all blending into one another.
This is the part of town where you can walk (or run) for miles without having to stop for pesky traffic.
There are mountain bike trails, panoramic views of the city skyline, fishing lakes, historic buildings and play areas.
You can spot the park’s resident heron hanging out, weirdly, right next to the M60, and say hello to the cows and horses who graze in the fields.
A Mark E. Smith mural that was part of Prestwich Arts Festival. Credit: Prestwich Arts Festival
Prestwich’s culture really does revolve around the great outdoors – there are tennis courts, bowling greens and basketball courts at St Mary’s Park too.
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This part of town has always hosted one of the suburb’s biggest cultural events every summer, when Festwich pulls up into town – this year it’s getting bigger than ever and moving to Heaton Park.
It’s the largest tribute act festival in the UK and brings fairground rides, live music, and surprisingly affordable festival beers to the fields every year.
Watch out for the Prestwich Arts Festival (a community art trail) and the phenomenal work left behind – like the hyper-realistic murals of Mark E. Smith and Victoria Wood.
Property
Much like the rest of the country, Prestwich’s property prices are on the up – but they still come in significantly cheaper than suburbs south of the city centre.
Properties in Prestwich had an overall average price of £266,646 over the last year.
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The majority of sales in Prestwich during the last year were semi-detached properties, selling for an average price of £283,494. Terraced properties sold for an average of £234,123, with flats fetching £143,959.
There’s a lovely mix of Victorian-era terraces, modern apartments and huge sprawling townhouses (Guest Road is goals).
Transport
Prestwich is an absolute doddle to get to by tram, with both Heaton Park and Prestwich tram stops only a 15 minute ride from Manchester Victoria.
There are regular buses too, including the express buses that will take you onwards to Ramsbottom and into Lancashire.
For those who drive, the suburb is straight off the M60 and M62 motorways. A breeze.