The Iron Gates
Approximate Location
OS Grid Reference: SJ 8599 7790
Latitude: 53.17.52N Longitude: 2.12.42W
Fundindelve is the fictional creation of Alan Garner but it is based on the cave of the sleeping knights as relayed in The Legend of Alderley. We first encounter the main entrance to the cave during Garner’s version of the Legend, which acts as the preface to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. In this text, it is clear that the entrance is located near to Saddlebole, an area on the northern slopes of Alderley Edge:
“By Seven Firs and Goldenstone they went, to Stormy Point and Saddlebole. And there they halted before a great rock embedded in the hillside. The old man lifted up his staff and lightly touched the rock, and it split with the noise of thunder.”
Garner, A., 1960 (1989 edition), The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. William Collins / Lions. London. p10.
During their flight from the Svart-Alfar (Weirdstone, Chapter 3: Maggot-breed of Ymir), the children almost certainly ran past the relative safety of the entrance to Fundindelve – known as the Iron Gates – which was probably located behind a landmark spotted by Colin:
“About a hundred feet above them and to their right a tooth-shaped boulder stood against the sky : its distinctive shape had caught his eye when they had walked past it along a track coming from Stormy Point!”
Garner, A., 1960 (1989 edition), The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. William Collins / Lions. London. p31.
There is not a lot of geospatial evidence for the main entrance to Fundindelve in the first two books of the Weirdstone Trilogy. Its apparent that when the farmer in The Legend of Alderley left Fundindelve he was close to Stormy Point and it is to that specific location that Colin and Susan return after hearing the tale from Gowther (Weirdstone, Chapter 3, Maggot-breed of Ymir). When leaving the Iron Gates with Cadellin, the children again find themselves at Stormy Point after walking a short distance uphill (Weirdstone, Chapter 4: Fundindelve).
The rock which inspired Garner is probably located downhill to the north-west of Stormy Point on the slopes to the west of Saddlebole. The most detailed description of the landscape around the Iron Gates comes towards the end of Boneland when Colin guides Meg Massey via Goldenstone to Stormy Point:
“The broad way took them to Stormy Point. Across the waste a hollow path led back into the trees… They were at a ridge, and the ground dropped to the plain. It was a beech wood, and the trunks were twisted green flames above brown fallen leaves that let nothing grow… The rocks stood over the path. One was much taller than the others, tapering to a wedge of sandstone. There was a shelf in front.”
Garner, A., Boneland. Fourth Estate. London. p.131.
Alan Garner confirmed the location of the Iron Gates in The Edge of the Ceiling documentary. Many years after writing Weirdstone, Garner discovered that during the Anglo-Scandinavian period the rock was recorded as “The Gate Guarded By a Spirit“… eerily appropriate!
A second entrance to Fundindelve existed at Holywell.