Twisleton Scar Archives - Scribble by the Ribble

Where time stands still in the Dales

Of all Yorkshire’s Dales, Kingsdale probably makes me feel the most relaxed. It’s such a peaceful place; small but perfectly formed. Kingsdale doesn’t belong in the 21st century and is much the better place for it. With Gragareth rising steeply on the west and Whernside to the east, this most secluded of dales can seem very lonely on a darkening winter’s eve. But on bright autumnal days with sun shining on the limestone, and glistening on the beck as it cackles over water-worn pebbles, Kingsdale is heavenly.

I have a well-read phamplet that was printed by the Craven Herald in the 1930s, called Kingsdale the Valley of the Vikings. It was written and published by Frederic Riley of The Book Stores, Settle. In it are many photos of scenes which if I captured again today would not look any different whatsoever.

One day this week I parked in a lay-by on the narrow road from Thornton-in-Lonsdale to Dent where there is a classic view of Kingsdale. Should I head to the west of the dale and walk up the steep path through loose rocky limestone, or go east up the gentler slopes of Twisleton Scars? Thinking that my old knees would handle the latter much more comfortably I headed for the path up which I’d not been for more than 40 years, towards Whernside. Years ago, probably during a Duke of Edinburgh Awards hike, we’d camped in Ingleton and walked up Twisleton Scar and along the spine of Whernside (pictured above) before camping again somewhere near High Birkwith. No such trek today as I wandered around the fabulous limestone pavement where a few stunted trees leaned with the prevailing westerly wind towards Ingleborough. Here, odd weathered stones balance precariously which along with the trees present some classic (or should that be clichéd?) shots of the surrounding dales landscape. A lovely walk with extensive views over Wenningdale towards the Bowland Fells.

My granddad’s brother, Reuben Hepworth, survived the horrific battle fields of Flanders only to be killed in action exactly one month later on 11th December 1917 while on duty in Italy. He was just 24 and single. His mother Hannah, already a widow and with four children, received £105 10s 2d in April 1920 when the government finally sorted out his will. While we rightly remember those who died fighting for their countries we should also bear in mind the trauma felt by families back home.
I have Reuben’s Memorial Plaque – sometimes known as the Death Penny or Dead Man’s Penny. They were issued after the First World War to the next-of-kin of service personnel killed as a result of the war.

Like me, you were probably totally surprised to hear this week that some rich people get richer by avoiding tax. What shocking news. They’ll be telling us next that there are people on benefits who shouldn’t be – and folk driving round in cars that haven’t been taxed. Ah well, life just wouldn’t be the same in Little England if we couldn’t go ‘tut-tut’ about something, would it?

Dales churches

This week’s church is in the Mallerstang valley in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. St Mary’s chapel at Outhwaite has been around since the 14th century. The small low building contains a 13th century bell. Above the porch is a stone recording the restoration of the church by Lady Anne Clifford, who owned the nearby Pendragon Castle and lived in Skipton Castle, no doubt avoiding tax.

Ribblesdale, Lambs, Goths & Romans

One grey day this week I motored up Ribblesdale and stopped off at St Leonard’s in Chapel-le-Dale. I’d made a mental note to return to see the snowdrops in the churchyard and on neighbouring land. Snowdrops here are usually a little behind those elsewhere but my timing was perfect. The beck had totally disappeared underground, and the moss-covered limestone and walls hereabouts created an other-worldly feel.

The little chapel’s entrance faces mighty Ingleborough as if in defiance. Its graveyard spills over into nearby land having had to cope with the deaths of more 200 souls who worked on Ribblehead Viaduct between 1869-76. The building mostly dates to the late 17th century although some parts are older. A chapel of ease (built for the local community who found it difficult to travel the eight miles or so to Bentham) is recorded as being here from the late 16th century. There are 18th century alterations and it was restored in 1869. The chapel wasn’t know as St Leonard’s until the 1940s.

I took the narrow former Roman road down into Ingleton. You hope not to meet anything large coming the other way. Alas… living in the Dales you get used to reversing a quarter of a mile. There are very few places to stop and admire the scenery and interesting topography but I recommend a walk along this part of the dale and on nearby footpaths which run alongside Twisleton Scar. Ingleborough always looks impressive from this angle. Good to see the tea van back at at Ribblehead. I only live a few minutes down Ribblesdale but always enjoy a cuppa while staring at the Three Peaks.

Ribblesdale lambs

On Sunday I was still celebrating Huddersfield Town’s 4-1 mauling of Leeds United the previous day. All I captured on a short walk on a grey day were some lambs. The internet is a funny old world. Some people say it reflects the real world – I don’t, but that’s a discussion for a late night when too much booze has been drunk. Sometimes I post what I consider to be a stunning landscape photo on Twitter or a Facebook group and it creates a ripple of appreciation. This week I offered a simple, quickly snapped photo of a lamb with its mother and it prompted a tsunami of responses. Hundreds of internetters leapt for their like buttons and emojis and exclamation marks. They wrote gooey sentiments or humorous lines about mint sauce. I had to turn off the pinging alert on the computer. When I edited magazines I learned that the number one rule is to give the readers what they want – not what you, the editor, wants. If you don’t supply the right material then your regular readers will not continue to buy the magazine. I don’t have to satisfy accountants or directors now, however. I can post whatever I want (if the internet masters deem it appropriate) and if viewers don’t like what I post they can just move on. Not everyone feels able to move on quietly; some have an urge to voice their opinion no matter how crass, petty or vindictive it makes them sound. So, in the hope of satisfying my readers, here is a brief collection of lamb pictures. Coo away…

I was in Harrogate on Monday for the funeral of my sister’s husband Frank who was a lovely man and will be sorely missed by all the family. Everything went well apart from dreadful traffic all around the town. Will Harrogate’s road problem ever be sorted I wonder. Billions is to be wasted on shaving a few minutes off train journeys to London through High Speed rail, when for far less money local rail services could be improved easily to entice more people off the roads. I heard later in the week that the X75 bus service between Skipton and Harrogate has been halted because accountants say it is no longer viable, mainly due to government subsidy cuts. Once again the elderly, the young and the lower paid will be the ones to suffer most of all, while motorists continue to pollute and clog up the roads. Harrogate came out tops in the north-east section Sunday Times Best Places To Live guide (call me cynical if you like, but maybe it came out tops because more people read the Sunday Times in Harrogate than, say, Cleckheaton?). Anyhow, road congestion apart, it is a lovely place (so is Cleckheaton) – the flower displays were fabulous and weeks ahead of those in my part of the world in the Dales.

The cat and I both felt a little down about not being able to get outside due to some miserable midweek weather in Ribblesdale.

The weather picked up eventually and I got away from the Good Friday crowds with a morning stroll around the Eldroth area. The name Eldroth conjours up a sense of the Gothic – but it actually means ‘alder hill’ from Norse words elri + hofuth. It was recorded as Ellerhowyth in 1383. Here, west of the Craven fault line the millstone grit takes over from limestone. Rolling drumlins hide dozens of farms from view. Ancient paths and tracks join them all together like veins, criss-crossing the landscape in all directions. Farmstead names tell their own stories… Rigghead, Black Bank, Ravenshaw, Butterfield Gap, Howith and Accerhill Hall are just a few. I pass through King’s Gate to a hidden trig point at a height of just 207m.

For sale

There’s an old quarry near Eldroth where an abandoned vehicle of some kind is parked far from the nearest road. FOR SALE: one careful owner. Genuine mileage. Needs some minor attention.

Blimey, a quarter of the year’s gone already. Ribblesdale, and especially Settle, is gearing up (pardon the pun, given the impending cycle race) for a very busy season. http://www.visitsettle.co.uk/whats-on.html has details, as do several other sites.

Changing scenes, honours and farewells

I didn’t know until this week that someone could become a ‘honorary Yorkshireman’. The old notion that unless your Yorkshire lineage stretched back as far as the Viking invasion you were, and always will be, considered as an offcumden, seems to have been chucked out with the bath water. On Monday, a bloke called Gary Barlow was awarded the distinction of Yorkshireman at what appears to have been a very un-Yorkshire-like OTT event put on by the Welcome to Yorkshire tourist organisation. Apparently, this Barlow fellow was once part of a popular beat-combo ensemble called Take That, and his credentials for being upgraded from Ordinary Cheshire Chap to Honorary Yorkshireman is due to him writing songs about our Calendar Girls. Now I’m not knocking Welcome to Yorkshire, who do a splendid job promoting the county, but I wonder if they are overstepping their jurisdiction here. Just who has the right to declare someone as being ‘Yorkshire’? And surely a pie and pea supper followed by a bingo session at a village hall would have been a more appropriate occasion to bestow such recognition? I wonder if Mr Barlow (Hon Yks) is now advocating a change of name to ‘Teck That Pal’?

Top picture: a giant caterpillar crawls out of the mist over the Settle landscape this week.

I attended the memorial service to a real Yorkshireman on Tuesday when the folk of Settle and district paid their respects to the late Bill Mitchell at St John’s. Bill attended the chapel for many years and was also a lay Methodist preacher in the district. The place was packed – he will certainly be missed in these parts but thankfully he leaves a great legacy.

I was itching to get out into the Dales by Thursday, and with the forecasters saying there could be some sunshine in the morning I found myself heading up Penyghent early doors. Just a quick trip up-and-down the pointy bit, starting from Dalehead Farm on the Stainforth to Halton Gill road. The forecasters didn’t mention there would be intermittent sun/cloud, which led to scene changes happening every few minutes. I got all the way to the top without meeting another soul, and ate my chocolate digestives alone beside a very windswept and mist-covered trig point. Neighbouring Fountains Fell was completely enveloped by cloud, while the view down Ribblesdale offered little by way of photography. You can just about recognise distant Littondale in the above picture during a brief cloud break-up.

In his lovely book, Summat and Nowt, Bill Mitchell says Penyghent from this angle looks like a marooned whale. He continues: “From the west it takes on the appearance of a recumbent lion with splendid mane. The nose-end enhances the view from the Ribble bridge between Settle and Giggleswick. A local philosopher spent so long contemplating this view that someone asked him what great thoughts had been going through his mind. He replied: ‘I was just thinking how much Penyghent resembles an upturned pudding dish’.”

I sometimes see the great hill as a partly-eaten layer cake. On Friday it looked like icing sugar had been sprinkled over (above). Last weekend those Met Office types had predicted snow on them thar hills by the end of the week. There was the aforementioned light coating on Penyghent and also on Whernside, but nothing on Ingleborough by the time I drove down Chapel-le-Dale.

Regular readers will know of my fascination for changing light in the Dales – and are probably fed up to the back teeth with me mentioning it – however, my passion was satisfied once more near Ingleton as the clouds parted and the landscape around Twisleton Scar briefly lit up. The spectacle is difficult to capture on a still photo and I wish I’d set the camera to video mode:

I continued my journey home through Clapham along the old back road to find the village’s normally sedate falls sporting a whole new persona following the heavy rain. This time I did switch to video – there’s a 23-second movie here:
https://youtu.be/r_gqtnNMke0
If you can’t be bothered with going to Youtube for a video then here’s a still…

As I take in the beauty and peace of the Dales countryside I often wonder who will look after it for future generations, thus allowing them to do likewise. Judging by the actions of some fellow human beings recently, I can’t help but think we are still too primitive a species to be left in charge of this beautiful, fragile planet. We kill each other indiscriminately instead of adequately pooling wealth, resources and knowledge; we exterminate plants, birds and animals which keep Nature in balance; we continually destroy and exploit natural assets for selfish gain. Does anyone actually know what – if there is one – the long-term goal is for humanity? Sometimes it’s difficult not to feel depressed about such issues. Thankfully I’m lucky enough to live in a peaceful part of the world and still have the freedom and ability to enjoy and appreciate its precious gifts.

Meanwhile, the rain continues to pour down here in Ribblesdale. Time to put on the waterproofs and see how my part of the world is coping…

Monoliths, aliens and a conflict of interests in the Dales

Standing on top of Great Stone of Fourstones, which marks the Yorkshire border with that other county whose name escapes me, you can enjoy one of the best ‘driveable’ views of the south-western dales. The Three Peaks, Gragareth, Howgills and the distant jagged teeth of the Lakeland Fells are laid out before you. The 16ft-tall glacial deposit is the only one of four large stone outcrops remaining on this spot on Tatham Fell, near High Bentham – the others probably having been broken up for buildings and tools. I wanted a view but not a trek on Wednesday and this monolith once again proved an ideal location. With a 200mm zoom lens I was able to make out the layered-cake effect of Ingleborough and capture Whernside looking particularly dominant above Twisleton Scar.

After writing last week’s blog on Sunday I wandered up Ribblesdale and on to Stainforth Foss where dozens of people were on salmon-leap-watch. I wondered whether there would be any conflict here today, as just a few yards down river from the falls were two anglers … salmon fishing? Poaching? I didn’t stop to find out, but headed further downstream to Langcliffe where the colours on the riverbank and millpond stood out starkly against a drab sky.

I reckoned this week would be one of the best for capturing the changing colours and I was right. On Monday I took a stroll around Malham Tarn – almost ignoring the tarn and concentrating on the surrounding bogland, shrubs and trees. The last time I’d been in this woodland I’d been startled by a deer but there was no sign this time.

The blue sky came out later and I got some good shots of the eastern side of Penyghent. I was also able to snatch some great scenes around home later that day in the evening sun.

St John the Evangelist in Langcliffe might not have the history or ancient architecture of older dales churches but it is certainly a pretty Victorian building within well-kept grounds and it looks a picture when caught in the evening sun.

At this time of year I like to raise my eyes above the area’s wonderful landscape and take in the ever-changing autumn sky. It’s been a treat this week with a variety of clouds, shades, and sunsets. On Friday I sat above Winskill and watched an invasion of aliens beaming up all before them … I woke up Saturday morning with ‘REJECT: Beyond Best Before Date’ stamped across my forehead.

Yesterday, after strolling by the Ribble in some glorious changing light, I drove up to the old road between Settle and Feizor to watch the sunset. I also waited as long as I dare for an unsteady hand-held night shot, to capture an outline of Ingleborough.

Tag: Twisleton Scar