stocks reservoir Archives - Scribble by the Ribble

Misty Dales and foggy promises

More cloudy and foggy Dales weather doesn’t mean we retired folk just lie on our settees drinking hot chocolate and watching Homes under the Hammer every day. I managed a few pleasant strolls in the misty Dales this week. One was alongside the River Wenning from near its starting point where the becks of Clapham and Austwick join together. There’s an old saying about ‘when gorse blooms, it’s kissing season’ … the inference being that the lovely yellow flower blooms somewhere in the UK 365 days a year so you’ve no excuse not to be kissing. There was plenty of blooming gorse in this part of Wenningdale, even on a miserable, cloudy January day. Sadly, no blooming kissing.

By Friday I was itching to get out again and drove along the single track road up to Bowland Knotts. I walked across the squelchy, peaty commons to the trig point, which stands at 1,114ft on Crutchenber Fell, in the full knowledge that visibility would be very poor. But it’s a dramatic landscape whatever the conditions. I could just about make out the Three Peaks in the distant mist; Stocks Reservoir was barely visible. The surrounding brown, brooding moors looked formidable. Unseen over the first brow is the River Hodder, the traditional ancient border with Lancashire.

I’ve ‘collected’ quite a few trigs in my time but never recorded my visits. There are folks who do, and like some train spotters they are meticulous in their attention to detail. Out of interest I looked up this one on the interweb-thingy and found this anorakic description:
“Pillar completed 25th September 1949 costing £17.15s.10d. Computed as tertiary triangulation station SD96/T8 in 1951. Levelled for height in 1953. Last maintained by the OS in June 1976. Pillar in good condition. Spider centre plugged with tar. Flush bracket faces northwest, ~329°. Vented through three sight holes, SW face plugged, pillar bolt photographed. Full 360° panoramic view includes Whernside, Ingleborough, Pen-y-Ghent, Pendle Hill and Longridge Fell.”
Well there you go.

Dales sadness

Sad news about Gayle Mill (see link below). My late brother Peter, who lived in Gayle, helped with the restoration. I hope for his memory the necessary work can be carried out and that the important Dales project is not strangled by red tape.

Gayle Mill to close just ten years after £1.2m restoration work

Interesting that the Tories are choosing now to make political promises about the environment – perhaps they fear the eloquent and intelligent Green Party leader Caroline Lucas more than any other opposition. You’ll notice that they have guaranteed nothing immediate and that they are reluctant to commit anything to the statute books. I don’t think they’ll want us to look too deeply into their ‘northern forest’ idea. The cost of this 25-year project they claim to be around half a billion pounds but what they haven’t shouted about is the fact that government will only be contributing £5.7m and expect the rest to be raised through charities. They don’t tell you either that their High Speed 2 rail folly project will destroy around 100 ancient, irreplaceable woodlands, or that permission to destroy other precious woodland for fracking exploitation has been granted despite much local and national opposition.

I also wonder if the proposed woodland across the M62 corridor will include reforesting the swathes of land denuded by the landowners who over decades have purposely prevented trees from growing so they can preserve their shooting estates? This action has helped cause devastating flooding in nearby villages and towns for many years and created a totally unnatural and unbalanced landscape. Good piece by Patrick Bamford here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/08/promised-northern-forest-diversion-hs2-shale-sherwood-forest

I took a financial risk yesterday and invested £2 in a lottery ticket. I lost. Money I’ll never see again. Lots of better-off people took a risk buying shares in Carillion – who just so happen to win a contract to build HS2 – hoping to rake in loadsa profit for doing nothing but gambling. But it’ll be ok for them, the taxpayer will probably help them recoup some of their brass. Investors should not be bailed out but those who work for them should.

Sorry to go all political. Here are some odd-ball pics taken this week to lighten my mood:

When we had an outside loo, Mum told me not to be afraid of the spiders. Don’t think she had this one in mind (at Malham Tarn Field Centre).

Dales the place to be whatever the weather

What a wet week in the Dales. But there are a lot worse places to be when it’s chucking it down, so mustn’t grumble. One of my favourite perching places is on Bowland Knotts where the Western Dales can be seen in all their glory. On Tuesday, while sitting on this gritstone outcrop at around 1400ft above sea level, I took this layer-cake of a photo. The Lakeland Fells weren’t visible this time but the Three Peaks were.

The above photo shows bleak Clapham Common from the same spot. Clapham is a few miles away but the smallholders from the parish were (maybe still are?) allowed to graze their stock here. The area was probably once forested and as I sat here I thought this would be the perfect kind of land on which to plant much-needed native trees.

With forests on my mind I drove down to Gisburn Forest and Stocks Reservoir for a few more photos and a stroll through the woods where the colours are rapidly changing.

Hoping in vain for another day without rain, later in the week I headed up Wenningdale to High Bentham and attempted the town’s Heritage Trail. A couple of miles in I had to turn back such was the rain and boggy ground. Another one to add to the list of dry-day walks.

Referendum for Yorkshire?

Talk this week about Yorkshire becoming a self-governing country got me
wondering if all of us who voted to remain in Europe would also vote for our county to remain in GB should there ever be such a referendum. What would our stance be over immigrants from Lancashire and the North East? There would be no problem about passports for Yorkshire folk, as we never leave the county anyway, but would we allow people from London and the South East safe passage through to Scotland for their skiing or golfing trips, or even let them cross our air space? The Dalesman has a test to see if you qualify as a Yorkshire person – take it here. Ashamedly, for a former editor of the magazine, I only got 11/12 (I know nothing about films – had that question been about Yorkshire football I’d now be a fully qualified Tyke. More revision required.).

The Ribble was a bubbling cauldron at Stainforth Foss one evening this week. I tried to capture the violence and chaos – and a rainbow.

Also, here’s a short video of the scene…

Dales churches (again)

Adding to my collection of Dales churches are these two – St Leonard’s at Chapel-le-dales and St Batholomew’s at Barbon.

Gold medal days in the dales

Although it’s been a mixed weather week in the Yorkshire dales my photo diary shows several golden moments. I walk with Romans, drive the border and a cow takes the wee-wee.

I did it byway

Dales IMG_4599 — Top photo shows the Roman road stretching down Wensleydale.

I popped over into one of Ribblesdale’s next-dale-neighbours to follow in the footsteps of the Romans on Monday. The ancient route to Bainbridge, which I picked up at the top of Sleddale, offers some fine views up and down Wensleydale and Raydale. Although it wasn’t the crispest of days for long-distant shots, Semerwater, Pen Hill and Addleborough helped paint a good picture. It didn’t seem worth ploughing a way through the peat bog to the top of Wether Fell as the view across Wensleydale can be enjoyed just the same along the path which circles around the hill like a necklace.

Dales IMG_4573 — Looking down Raydale towards Semerwater.

Dales IMG_4578 — Someone having an even better view of the Dales than me.

Dales IMG_4585 — Above, the flat top of Yorburgh with Wensleydale beyond.

Dales IMG_4591 — If my bearings are correct that’s Sedbusk seen from Wether Fell

Golden days and nights in the Dales

A late stroll from Langcliffe to watch the sunset was well worthwhile. Here several shots in no particular order:

dales IMG_4661 — Last light, nearing home

Dales IMG_4632 — Ingleborough in the distance (note the ‘sun dog’ – part of the Sun’s halo).

Dales IMG_4610 — Looking across to Penyghent on my outward journey.

Dales IMG_4624 — In low-level light looking down on the Ribble

Dales IMG_4617 — Evening shot of Ingleborough and Smearsett Scar from the Malham road out of Langcliffe,

Along the border

For a change of view of the sunset, the following evening I took a trip along the Yorkshire-Lancashire border …

Dales IMG_4690 — Stocks Reservoir looked serene just as the Sun was disappearing over the horizon.

Dales IMG_4685 — Is this cow taking the p*** out of my attempts to capture a rural sunset?

Dales IMG_4704 — On my journey back home the full Moon glowed brightly over Settle. I was on the lookout for werewolves.

Dales IMG_4674 — The grouse moors on the borderlands took on pretty patterns in the low light.

Dales IMG_4671 — On the way up the bleak moorland road from Bentham to Slaidburn the purple heather was soaking up the last rays of sunshine.

Dales IMG_4699 — Sheep settling down for the night near Gisburn Forest.

Dales IMG_4665 — Do not adjust your sets … I tried to get as much fading light as possible in the shot. The colours turned out weird but Ingleborough still looked majestic.

Dales IMG_4679 — From this angle, near the source of the River Hodder – part of which forms the traditional Yorkshire border – Gisburn Forest looks incredibly dense.

Ribblesdale & the Dark Side

Summer sauntered into Ribblesdale and the rest of the Dales this week, bringing colour and wildlife to enrich our already beautiful area. The number of natural wild flower meadows has decreased in the Dales over the previous 50 years or so with the changing of farming methods. Subsequently, the fields, although green and pleasant, have become less vibrant. But over the last decade efforts have been made to change this, and the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust have contributed greatly with their Hay Meadows Project. Visit http://www.ydmt.org/programme-details-hay-time-14609 where you’ll find a selection of lovely walks.

In Ribblesdale I’ve been captivated by the fields of buttercups which have added an extra dimension to my landscape photographs. But if you look closer you’ll find some stunning wild flowers so typical of the limestone Dales. I’ve put a few together here, along with some flowers blooming around the village right now.

At Ribblehead on Tuesday I watched as a young family paddled in Cam Beck, and I recalled the time in my early teens when I would try to leap over the stream here. This is one of the Ribble’s main tributaries. The beck rises on Cam Fell – Cam meaning ‘a ridge of hill’ – which is crossed by the old Roman road from Ingleton to Bainbridge, once the main route over to Wensleydale before the road from Gearstones to Hawes via Newby Pass was built. On Bowen’s map of 1785 the Roman road was described as The Devil’s Causeway, the reason for this probably lost in history. The road passes Cam Houses, now considered a farmstead but which was once a hamlet housing several families. On one side of the settlement Cam Beck rises while on the other is the beginnings of the River Wharfe. One old story goes that a man from Ling Gill, near Ribblehead, who had lived into middle age with his mother, was looking for someone to look after his house after the old lady died. A friend at Gearstones suggested that he visited Cam Houses because he’d heard that a married man there was willing to sell his wife.
“What’ll ta pay for ’er?” the Cam man asked.
“Ah’s gitten five gold sovereigns,” said the Ling Gill man.
His offer was refused, so he promised to throw in a horse and cart with harness. Again his offer was refused, so he said he’d fill the cart with peat, and with that the deal was completed. It is said that the wife was quite happy with the outcome as ‘her purchaser was a good-looking man’.

On the dark side

I hope you are sitting down while reading this as I have to announce that I travelled through Lancashire this week. Wanting somewhere flat to exercise, I thought I’d try a couple of miles along the edge of Morecambe Bay at Hesk Bank. And it proved a treat in the sunshine, with grand views across the bay to Grange and the South Lakeland fells. The countryside and villages along the Lune Valley, the traditional border between the counties, look a treat at this time of year.

I also called in at Stocks Reservoir, Gisburn Forest (above). The water was very low and many of the walls of the drowned fields were once again visible. A peaceful place to listen to the lapping water and see and hear a great variety of birds.

Back in Ribblesdale

I’ve also spent quite a while trundling around my village of Langcliffe, capturing the first days of summer… there’s a selection, and I’ll leave the pictures to tell the story:

Ribblesdale bookends — For sale: adjustable bookends

Ribblesdale cat — Fed up with seeing dogs, sheep, cattle (and goodness knows what in the next picture) my cat insisted on appearing in this month’s blog

Ribblesdale animals — Settle, Giggleswick and an assortment of animals seen yesterday in Ribblesdale

Yorkshire walls of fame

Looking through the Yorkshire photos in my archive I shouldn’t have been surprised over how many shots feature walls and barns. Foregrounds, backgrounds or the main focus of attention, the skill of the stonemason is often on show. Perhaps there’s something in my genetic make-up – for in among my family history of weavers and farmers is also a long line of stonemasons. But I reckon the reason so many pictures include walls and barns is not down to genes or the volume in the area. It’s down to the fact that they look good: photogenic works of art. A perfect subject for that book I’m going to write or that exhibition I’m going to put on but both of which I’ll never get round to.

As mentioned in previous blogs, over my years of tramping the Yorkshire Dales I’ve seen an increasing number of barns being left to decay. I’ve noticed a lot more recently that are missing their stone-slate roofs. The slates are probably the most vital part of the barn – both from a protection point of view and that of value. Traditional slates are sold for large sums. Barns are being robbed of the slates by thieves, or sold by the buildings’ owners, or deliberately removed by farmers and stored elsewhere. I’m surprised it’s being allowed to happen, especially in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, as these crumbling buildings make the place look unloved and uncared for.

The Yorkshire weather’s been playing good cop/bad cop this week. Pea-sized hailstones clattered the car (pic below), and a wild lightning fork struck a nearby field as I drove down the Slaidburn road towards Clapham on Sunday. I’d been up to Bowland Knotts where I witnessed shafts of sunlight shining over Stocks Reservoir and blue sky over the distant South Pennines. The grouse moors all around changed colour like a kaleidescope, while snow remained visible in the crevices of Ingleborough and Penyghent.

Gorse is a feature in this neck of the woods and the bright yellow provided a lovely foreground for the view from a minor road towards both Ingleborough and Penyghent.

Thursday was one of the ‘good-cop’ days. Ribblehead was packed with sightseers and walkers. I headed further up to capture the view around Arten Gill – there’s never a train around when you want one to bring some action into a shot. Plenty of roofless barns to be seen, however, in these parts (see also third pic in blog).

Earlier, these sheep at Helwith Bridge mistook me for the farmer and headed towards me expecting to be fed. Yet another derelict barn here.

I stopped off for an hour’s wander around Selside and down to the river. There are some terrific old buildings in the settlement as well as great views up and down Ribblesdale and of the Three Peaks. Grade II listed Top Farm has a dated door lintel stating 1725 but parts of the building are even earlier. The postbox on the old shop bearing the former Settle-Carlisle railway station sign is an early Victorian-style box.

Around 60,000 walkers tackle the Yorkshire Three Peaks every year whether it be to raise funds for charity or just to say they’ve done the trail. The footfall has taken a toll on the iconic dales mountains, especially on the Swine Tail, the final climb before reaching the summit of Ingleborough from the north. Attempts have been made to fix the path but increased use and wetter winters mean that the best way of solving the problem is to lay stone slabs. It’s a costly business so the Mend Our Mountains campaign has started a crowd-funding appeal. Please help if you can – more details here: http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/campaign/mend-our-mountains

Twilight added a yellow glow to my stroll around Winskill. Picture shows the outlines of Smearsett Scar and Ingleborough – oh, and a wall.

Vibrant heart of the Yorkshire Dales

Settle is one of the most vibrant places in the Dales. The brilliant Settle Stories Festival has been on this weekend and later this month the cycling tour of Yorkshire heads this way. There’s much more happening throughout the summer so if you are a visitor or resident please take a look at the 2016 guide to the area – out now with a downloadable or screen version available free from here:
https://issuu.com/2015welcometosettleguide/docs/vibrant_settle_2016_completed.compr?e=15917722/34455846

Enjoy the views but pay the dues

Driving up out of High Bentham towards Slaidburn today I had to stop to admire this view back over Wenningdale towards Whernside and Ingleborough. It was such a change to see an all-too-brief glimpse of blue sky. Looking the other way (below) was also a pretty scene (even though I briefly dipped my toes in Lancashire). I called at Stocks Reservoir after Slaidburn and wondered why there were cars parked outside rather than inside the small car park. They’ve started charging, that’s why. For years United Utilities who ‘own’ the land boasted about what lovely people they were in allowing the public to enjoy ‘their’ facilities for free. But now it seems that the profit of £607m the company made last year, much of it through rates we pay for letting them utilise what was once public land given away by government, is not enough. What’s the betting that the next time I visit Stocks there’ll be ugly yellow lines down the country lane along with ‘no parking’ signs.

Let the woods embrace you

On miserable weather days like today I tend to dip into my photo diary to see what life was throwing at me during the same week in the past. In early October 2011 I was strolling through Gisburn Forest, near Stocks Reservoir, where I took this picture. Being alone in a large wood can feel eerie or other-worldly. Don’t get into that frame of mind – let it embrace and comfort you. At first, all seems deadly silent but if you stop and stay still for a few minutes you’ll soon become part of the forest. Listen to woodland birds chattering; you may even hear small mammals dashing here, there and everywhere. In light autumn winds the trees sway gently, leaves sink slowly to carpet the floor and branches from neighbouring trees caress each other. Yes, this can be a great time of year to crunch your way through a forest and admire the changing colours… but not today.

Flirting with Ashley's mistress

At the weekend I took this photo of a run-down farm high on the hills between Slaidburn and Bentham because the scene reminded me a little of an Ashley Jackson painting. It’s missing a dramatic glowering sky but contains several other elements of his enigmatic work… even down to the poles and power/telephone lines. The moors here are rough and windswept; the buildings show the scars from endless battles against the elements. This area above Stocks Reservoir has more of a feel of Ashley’s South Pennines than the limestone Dales further north, a bridge between the two distinct areas. If you swivel left of this view you can usually see Ingleborough peeking between the hills which guard the infant river Hodder in its steep sided valley. A minor road snakes through this dale like some mini Alpine pass. On clear days, to the west you can pick out the beginnings of the industrial areas of Lancashire… so the less said about that the better. Ashley describes Yorkshire’s moors as his mistress… hope he doesn’t mind me flirting with her a little here.
PS I can recommend a visit to Ashley Jackson’s Gallery in Holmfirth – see www.ashley-jackson.co.uk (and no, we’re not related. Although, come to think of it, we’re both short with grey hair… and my dad did have a bike…)

(I played around with the picture in Photoshop to create more of a watercolour effect.)

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