Early farmers, about 4,500 - 5,000 years ago, used caves like Reynard's Cave to bury their dead. The valley has been used continuously since then. Caves in the Dove Valley were used as shelters by hunters during the last Ice Age, about 14,000 years ago. Reef limestone can be seen in the steep, spear-like Chrome and Parkhouse hills at the northern end of the Dove Valley, Raven Tor, Pickering Tor and the Tissington Spires in the middle and further south, the shapely reef knolls of Bunster Hill and Thorpe Cloud. These were left standing as hills and peaks while the less resistant rocks around were worn down by erosion of wind and water. Some of the limestone formed very hard reefs, like those round tropical islands. Water erosion formed caves (such as Dove Holes and Reynard's Cave) which were left dry as the river cut an even deeper course. At the end of each of the Ice Ages (during the last 2 million years), vast quantities of melting water, carrying rock debris, cut through the layers of limestone, like a knife through butter, to produce the steep and craggy gorges of the Dales. Natural erosion gradually removed the layers of shale and gritstone leaving the limestone dome exposed. Movements in the earth's crust pushed the rocks upwards and the River Dove was formed, flowing off the moorland. The sands and mud washed down by the river former the gritstone and shale rocks which lie under the northern part of the Dove Valley. Over the next 50 million years, the Peak District became part of a vast river delta.
This rock forms much of what is now Dove Valley. The fossilised remains of sea creatures and corals make up what we call limestone. Around 350 million years ago, the whole of what is now the Peak District was covered with a shallow tropical sea, with deep lagoons fringed by coral reefs. The Dove is most of all a walker's river, with its tantalising curves unfolding to show steep wooded sites and white rocks carved into fantastic towers, caves and spires. It follows a meandering course, past Longnor and Hartington and through a series of spectacular limestone gorges, Beresford Dale, Wolfscote Dale, Milldale and Dovedale. For much of its course, the River Dove runs with one bank in Derbyshire and one in Staffordshire. The River Dove (from the old British word dubo meaning dark) rises on the high moorlands of Axe Edge and its clear tumbling waters run southwards for 45 miles to join the River Trent. Raven's Tor is the first startling feature of Dovedale as one enters the gorge from Milldale and marks the gateway into the dale.
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