Few people are mythologised in their own lifetime, but Doug Moller, the self-styled King and Lord of the Roaches, who has died aged 89, became so among the townsfolk of Leek and the neighbouring districts.
Beneath a wooded ridge of millstone grit called the Roaches in the Staffordshire moorlands is a tiny and primitive castellated dwelling, Rock Hall, built in 1862 as the gamekeeper’s cottage on Swythamley estate. Doug lived there with his wife, Anne, in frugal simplicity for more than a decade.
Both were lovers of nature. They talked to passing birds and fed the feral wallabies that had escaped decades earlier from the estate and survived on the moors. But far from the country idyll imagined by the pair when they moved in, they found themselves in a busy outdoor recreational beauty spot. Doug was initially frustrated at the close proximity of weekend climbers and walkers, and on one occasion brandished his felling axe as a warning gesture.
After this he wrote to the Leek Post and Times, and to Downing Street and Buckingham Palace, to enlist understanding and support, eventually writing a book, The Wars of the Roaches, which was published in 1991. Thus, hearsay and legend took root.
Doug was born in Liverpool. He had four brothers and two sisters but, after his father’s death, they were split up and Doug lived in an orphanage in Durham with his brother Fred throughout his early childhood. By the late 1940s Doug was employed as a labourer on local farms, coalmines and in a shipyard, before enlisting with the Royal Engineers to serve in Kenya. When his tour was complete he stayed in Africa for several years working on railway construction gangs in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
In July 1969 Doug, back in the UK, married Anne, and they moved from Liverpool to the Clwyd valley. They purchased Rock Hall in 1978, expecting to refurbish its interior, but soon realised the cost was beyond their means, which left them to dwell within its cold rock walls, bare earth floor and cave-like cavities without sanitation or power. They took spring water in buckets from beneath a nearby boulder and shopped for food in Leek market, with help from the local postman.
As time went on Doug transformed into a friend of the rock-climbing community, which is how I got to know him. He gave advice on the technical skills required to ascend the cliffs safely, and collected up tourists’ litter to “keep his garden clean”.
However, one winter, Doug began gathering wood from surrounding trees and fell into dispute with the estate owners, the Peak District National Park Authority. Michael Dower, the visionary director and chief executive of the authority in the early 90s, invited Doug for lunch to discuss his plight. At Doug’s request, beans on toast was served and an amicable solution was secured.
Rock Hall was turned into simple bunkhouse accommodation under the management of the British Mountaineering Council. Doug and Anne were given tenancy of a refurbished remote cottage at Knotbury End for a peppercorn rent. As a gesture to Doug’s style, the couple made their final departure from Rock Hall in a white Rolls-Royce.
They lived at peace with the surrounding nature, within sound of the snipe and the tumbling River Dane, at Knotbury Farm Cottage from 1989. Anne died in 2003. Doug remained at the cottage for the rest of his life, journeying once a week by bus to Leek to visit the market and to meet friends, who numbered in their hundreds.
