The Three Ships stand on the ridge above the Robin Hood Inn,
on the Baslow road. I know them well, since my mother used to
live near here at Eastmoor. Right next to the Ships is the Nelson
monument, which commemorates the Trafalgar victory of 1805,
and the carved names on the stones clearly date from the same
time.
Three Ships,Gardom’s Edge
Stepping onto Gardom’s Edge
the peopled land, the farmed land falls away.
Skylarks unstitch it from the air.
Sudden, but solid as cheeses,
innocent as cows;
the Ships.
Three stones at rest in heather,
three ship-shaped stones
unmoved by winds.
A climber’s mile from field wall,
landlord, voice.
Three settled shapes.
Steadfast, snub-nosed,
holding the land to its unwieldy past
like great grey buttons.
ROYAL SOVERIN
chiselled on a gritstone bulk.
DEFIANCE. VICTORY.
The names marked out for Nelson.
The sides lined thickly as a tired brow
in places: but in other spots, as finely
as the back of my hand.
Sometimes a love of place will fill you
like a kite lifts from blown heather: like a sail. .