Widdale Archives - Scribble by the Ribble

Perfect Dales drives

There’s a fabulous 360-degree Dales view from Stone Rigg at the head of Barbondale. If ever you want to know why more parts of this area have been roped into the revised Yorkshire Dales National Park then this is the place to go. Standing on the small rocky outcrops at the top of Stone Rigg – just a short walk from the steep, narrow road from Dent – you see the Howgills to the north. The lower end of the Howgill range is already in the park but further north towards Ravenstonedale is rightly being included later this year. Swinging right you stare across at Aye Gill Pike and down Dentdale to Great Knoutberry, then on to the western slopes of Great Coum and Crag Fell.

Dales barbonhow — Looking north to the Howgills

Dales barbondent1 — From the head of Barbondale down Dentdale to great Knoutberry

At 180 degrees you’re looking down Barbondale itself with the steep side of Middleton Fell glaring down on your right. I’ve been here several times before and never tire of the all-round beauty. Further down the narrow dale heading towards Barbon is a little boundary stone which signals the end of the current park. The lower slopes of the dale become thickly wooded before it opens out to reveal some glorious views along Lunesdale.

Later in the week I also revisited another part of the new park, heading up Mallerstang and stopping off at the enigmatic 12th-century Pendragon Castle. The view down towards Wild Boar Fell was, as always, a pleasure to see.

From the castle it was on towards Nateby. Gypsies were camped ready for the final part of their annual journey to Appleby – it seemed an appropriate spot for their camp and surely much more of a pleasure for the horses than beside the busy A65 (where they’ve been causing enormous traffic jams). I love the journey between Nateby and Keld through Birkdale. Here is a very different Dales character to my normal Ribblesdale habitat: bleak and rough; fewer walls and tougher sheep. But you’re soon into a greener Upper Swaledale; enclosed by steep sides but gentler, with the young Swale dancing over exposed browned bedrock. A grand drive over Buttertubs Pass to Wensleydale, up Widdale and home via Three Peaks country of Ribblesdale. I might not be exercising my legs much at the moment but my eyes are certainly active.

Dales birkdale — The bleak and lonely moors of Birkdale

I wonder, had Kirby Misperton fallen within their land, if the Dales National Park would have allowed last week’s fracking fiasco to happen? Seven councillors who are supposed to represent Yorkshire on matters of planning, ignored the 92 per cent of locals and instead pandered to what the government wanted them to do – a government which is currently keeping secret a report on whether fracking causes climate concern. Hell, even Lancastrian councillors had the sense to boot out the get-rich-quick fracking cowboys. Hang your heads, seven shameless Yorkshiremen.

Which brings me on to another whinge I have, stirred up by this week’s ‘news’. There’s a decline, says a study, in the humber of people using regional accents. It seems we are all starting to sound like we come from the south east. That certainly won’t do. And some teachers have been told to change the way they speak to children by cutting down on local accents. Sometimes I listen to people in their late teens/early 20s, using that very boring generic university accent, in which almost every sentence seems to end with a question mark, and I thank mi Mam n Dad for teaching me to speyk Yorksher.

Talking of moaning – an acquaintance was moaning about pot-holes in Ribblesdale’s roads the other week. This week he is moaning that ‘they’ are closing the roads throughout the region to mend those potholes. Now I’m moaning about him moaning.

Bridge of Sighs

I was very saddened to see that someone had a go at demolishing the pretty packhorse bridge over the Ribble at Knight Stainforth this week. Obviously, the person didn’t go out to deliberately wreck the ancient structure – whether it was caused by someone using a sat nav instead of a brain cell, or by careless driving, I don’t know. But it’s going to be costly to repair the National Trust-owned bridge. The original stonework is going to have to be recovered from the river before it is washed away, and the bridge will probably not look the same when rebuilt. It wasn’t meant to take motorised traffic. I realise this will inconvenience a few local users but I think the current diversion via Stackhouse Lane or Helwith Bridge should be made permanent and the bridge left for cyclists and pedestrians only. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that during the Bank Holiday weekend, which brings all kinds of folk to Stainforth Foss, we don’t see more damage or accidents.

Better Dales news

After all that misery I should finish on some high notes. The British Mountaineering Council, through its Mend our Mountains campaign has raised more than £12,000 for the Yorkshire Dales National Park authority project to help improve footpaths on Ingleborough. More details here
http://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/living-and-working/how-we-can-help/press-office/news/recent/crowdfunding-boost-for-three-peaks

It’s been a pleasure hobbling around Ribblesdale this week while spring really blossomed. By the Ribble in Langcliffe were thousands of rampant ramsons like riotious football fans charging down the packed terrace, hopping over the fencing and spilling on to the pitch.

Sitting here listening to the birds and a gently trickling river was simply beautiful. However, one youngster licking its lips as it approached me was a little disconcerting…

Light fantastic in Yorkshire

This week’s Yorkshire Dales photo diary is jam-packed — with pictures rather than comment. The Yorkshire light can be particularly good at this time of year and even though I’ve been busy with other things, I’ve managed to get out for the odd hour or so to capture some superb conditions.

The sun and the cat got me up early Monday so a quick stroll around the village beckoned. The frontages of three-storey cottages on Langcliffe’s green glowed in the early morning light – it was chilly but bright. On the mill pond two ducks danced in the sun and an abandoned boat conjured up a Famous Five adventure.

In the afternoon I took a short journey into my past. In my early 20s I’d tried some caving and potholing – I wasn’t particularly taken by the sport… views are more thing. Anyway, I walked up to Alum Pot and Long Churn caves near Selside to jog my memory of some of those early underground exploits.

I’d not remembered the stunning views to be had from this spot. The sound of water echoing inside the black holes out on the lonely moors does nothing to entice me into taking up the sport again.

Anyone else think that the dead tree looks like one of those things from a Pepperoni advert trying to escape over the wall surrounding Alum Pot?

The evening promised a good sunset so I visited Winskill. I wasn’t disappointed. There are good silhouettes of the folding hills to be seen here, and the trees growing out of the limestone offer some special foregrounds.

The Yorkshire twilight on Wednesday was gorgeous, too. These trees – on the old road between Clapham and Ingleton – caught my eye as they glowed vividly in the low red sun.

As the sun began to set Moughton took on a red tinge, then it disappeared somewhere over Lancashire behind Robin Procter’s Scar.

Yorkshire drive

I needed an hour away from the computer on Thursday so I headed up to Newby Head for a quick walk up the Pennine Bridleway which follows one of the former drovers route to Coal Road, with branches off to Arten Gill and Widdale.

Looking from here it’s tempting to assume that the name Widdale stems from it being a ‘wide dale’ but that would be wrong. The name means ‘wood dale’ for it was once covered with trees. The trees were gradually stripped out for grazing. Many will remember the dale being replanted with conifers but most of these have gone, too, apart from a few pockets which help with the spread of red squirrels across the area. New native trees are being planted now and future generations will be able to see Widdale nearer to how it was hundreds of years ago.

One hour turned into two as I stopped to admire the views in all directions… towards Dent, across Widdale to Dodd Fell and down to Wensleydale, and also to Penyghent and Ingleborough. Fine Yorkshire Dales all round me. That distant purple mist never really burnt off to leave a clear blue sky – but that can also be magical (see first pic in blog).

Peewits flying overhead, trying to guide me away from their nests, were making the only noise I heard.
Sadly, that’s all I had time for this week but mustn’t grumble – I could be stuck in the middle of London.

Owt good on telly tonight, Dickie?

Test your Yorkshire, rural ruins and weather woe

Heading out of Ribblesdale over Newby Head into Widdale you’ll find this old Yorkshire barn, now in a sorry state. I’ve noticed its gradual deterioration over many years travelling along this route and I guess there’s not much hope for it now.

Stuck at home during one of the many wet days this week I trolled through my photo archive to see if I could find an earlier picture of the barn but instead dug out several other shots of sad-looking farm buildings, all located in Ribblesdale. I hadn’t realised I’d taken so many – they do make interesting foregrounds, and subjects in themselves – nevertheless it’s a shame such fine structures have been allowed to fall into unusable condition. The reasons behind their decay are many and varied, and here in my little photo-blog is probably not the place for an in-depth report on the condition of buildings within the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

I believe that my little cottage in Ribblesdale was once part of an 18th-century barn. It was converted into three small houses for mill or lime workers some time during the early 1800s … a good example of reusing old buildings to suit conditions at the time. Today, planning rules would be restrictive – especially within the National Park – and 21st-century needs would probably prove too disruptive for reusing the more isolated buildings. And many of our rural villages no longer provide work, schooling, shops, pubs etc to make it viable for the redevelopment of the more accessible deteriorating buildings. In urban areas these old structures would just be considered a hazard or an eyesore, bulldozed and the land bought by developers who will erect some boring ‘boxes’ thus lining their pockets with a fat profit.

I read an interesting blog on the subject of rural house building here https://cpreviewpoint.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/the-housing-bill-bad-for-villages/
I had to twice read this section to make sure I’d understood it correctly … “One senior Tory told me that no one has a right to live in a village any more than someone brought up in Mayfair has a right to live there. Someone may have grown up in a village and work in it, but if they cannot afford to buy a house in it, they should move to the nearest affordable town.”
In other words, if you’ve got money you can live where you want; it doesn’t matter whether your ancestors have lived there for generations or your family and friends still live there; it doesn’t matter if you can’t afford to travel to work or that there isn’t any transport… etc etc. So basically, he’s saying if you’re poor, you’re not allowed to enjoy a life in the countryside and must go live in a town.

Weather or not

I was due to show some friends the delights of the Dales during the week but the atrocious weather put a stop to that, and after their caravan almost blew over in a gale they abandoned ship and headed home. Hope this doesn’t leave a lasting bad impression on them, but we should realise it is winter, and that this is the Pennines not the Med. For their benefit here’s a few things they missed which are worth returning to see: above, Ashley Jackson’s frame at Brimham Rocks www.framingthelandscape.co.uk/ ; below Pecca Falls, Ingleton, the view from Buttertubs and from Winskill

Yorkshire twang

We got into a discussion about dialect and agreed that when we are with close friends and family we often speak in a kind of lazy ‘shorthand’ which we all understand but probably wouldn’t use in general speech. So I set my friends this teaser to see if they could translate. I call it Yorkshire Teatime – a working class Yorkshire family discussion over the tea table. See how much you can read (it’ll blow the mind of any auto-correct software)…

Twin 1: Wotwehavinferusteamam?
Mam: Thalavwotyergeean.
Twin 2: Duwiattergerruzandsweshed?
Dad: Thalgitnowtifthadunt.
Twin 1: Eh?
Dad: Thawansterweshthieeroilsahtanall.
Mam: Weerztabin?
Twin 2: Avbinlaikinart.
Mam: Amtalkintothidadnotthee.
Twin 1: Passustbutta.
Twin 2: Thamungerritthissen.
Twin 1: Giuzit.
Dad: Astleclouttheebuathifthaduntgiower.
Dad: Avbintotclub.
Mam: AstasinarrJim?
Dad: Aye.
Mam: Oowurreewi? Wurreeweeizsen?
Dad: Eewersatonisoowen.
Mam: Azzibintomimams?
Dad: Eesezeeazburraberreeant
Twin1: Istherowtofinishoffwi?
Mam: Therzakitkatintin.
Twin2: Tintintin.
Mam: Whosettenit?
Twin1: Iamptadit.
Twin2: Twantmee.
Dad: Aditfermisuppalassneet.
Mam: Thazzagreedybeggar.
Twins 1&2: Awwdad!

A blog about those two bright days in the Dales

(Bear with me during this lengthy blog – the sun’s gone in now and I’m reminiscing for my own amusement about the week just gone)

Two fine days in a row last week – or, what we in these parts call summer – saw me out and about with the camera once again. The pastures beneath Stainforth Scar shone like gold lamé carpets. They brought out the poet in me and I penned the following verse – but re-reading it now I wish the poet had stayed inside and had another glass of something strong.
Choose me! Choose me!
Plead the buttercups to a bee.
Come by! Come by!
Hears the languid butterfly.
Hopeful hosts of gold —
Such a sight to behold.

Further up the dale, Dry Beck Farm, which I must have photographed a hundred times, lured me in once more. I made a mental note to put together some kind of time-lapse sequence showing the shot through the seasons … one of those jobs I’ll probably never get round to. There’s a splendid beech tree in one of the fields – its fresh foliage looked vibrant against the meadows, limestone walls and bright blue sky.

Horton was busy with Three-Peakers – must be the time of year for charity fundraisers. Even fans of my footie team, Huddersfield Town, had groups out on the fells raising cash to help deprived youngsters in the Kirklees Community. I thought of those walking the 24 gruelling miles to raise a few pounds to help the under privileged while their idols were idling away their time on a beach somewhere earning up to £??k a week.
I stopped near Selside, close to the spot – a notorious bend on a hill – where a motorcyclist had sadly died after crashing into a road sign just a few days earlier. Last year a few hundred yards away, I came across another accident where a biker was killed. Dales roads weren’t meant for thrill seekers. I mentioned this on Facebook where locals added words of sadness for those involved, their own grief at witnessing and encountering these scenes, and also their annoyance at not being able to get home because of the road closure.

I’m not sure what the collective noun for train photographers is (an Orak, perhaps?) but when I saw a gathering at Ribblehead I presumed something important must be imminent. Here it is. Anyway, nice view of Whernside. I took in the exhibition at Ribblehead station while I was there – I’d been before but failed to notice the stained glass windows on previous visits. There are several depicting old railway names and emblems plus this one which lines up nicely with Ingleborough.

I motored on through Widdale which seems to be rapidly losing its clothes. the pine and spruce forests planted during the last century are gradually all being replaced by the kind of tree species that once thrived here before Man brought his hatchet into the dale.
Hawes was waking up when I travelled through on Thursday, even the ice cream sales had not begun but the parking chaos had; delivery trucks haphazardly abandoned amongst dirty farm Landrovers and unwary tourists looking for a free spot. The first bus full of grey-haired visitors was attempting to barge its way through to Wensleydale Creamery.
My mission was to try get a decent picture of the Buttertubs. The pass was quiet apart from the sheep who despite having hundreds of square miles of perfectly good moorland to wander over, prefer to meander aimlessly down the middle of the road. The mums appear unkempt at the moment with their fleeces falling apart at the seams. Their ’teenage’ lambs stay a few paces behind looking embarrassed and thinking ‘Is she really going out looking like that? I hope I don’t see any of my friends’.
I was lucky to grab one of the few parking spots at the Buttertubs which were dark and cool and had only a minor fall of water echoing in its depths. I always fear for the road’s foundations here as it spans the chasms but perhaps it’s best not to ponder too long and instead head down into Swaledale. I’ll have to try again at Buttertubs as the pics didn’t turn out too well.

Muker was thrang as Throp’s wife; I was passing through to capture the hay meadows and barns. Mainly comprising buttercups and daisies at this time of year the pastures were nevertheless a beautiful sight which I never tire of seeing. Made a mental note to come back shortly for a greater variety of plants.

Parking near Low Row, I headed for the river on the Crackpot road where I once again gazed enviously at a lovely row of cottages which overlook the Swale and the smart bridge. There’s a delightful path (partially blocked at present due to work by Yorkshire Water) which runs beside the river. The path actually goes along the top of a wall for a 100 yards or so. I felt as though I needed one of those vehicles ahead of me warning oncoming traffic of a ‘wide load’. I’d no need to worry as I didn’t see another soul for the next hour. There’s a nature trail here; flora and fauna abound, there were rabbits, too, and I heard all kinds of birds accompanied by the sound a low, brown river cackling over rocks and mini falls.

There was a small market in Reeth and every parking spot with a mile radius seemed to be taken, even on the village greens. It’s a pleasant village but I needed a bit more solitude today and headed for one of the glorious passes between Swaledale and Wensleydale.

Don’t ask me to pick a favourite road between the two dales because they are all spectacular. On Friday I took the one from Grinton over to Redmire. The lonely isolated grouse moors are certainly not where I’d choose to be on a winter’s night but this day a wonderful place to get out of the car and sit, look and listen to the cries of curlew and lapwing cries and the wind rushing through the heather which was still brown but showing signs of budding in sheltered area.
The previous day I’d taken on the pass between Askrigg and Muker/Gunnerside where I came face to face with a car on a 1 in 4, 45 degree bend. The other driver looked terrified so I reversed blindly, praying there was nothing following. Last year I took the Satron road – more of a track really but it is surfaced – which runs parallel to, and joins on to, this one. It’s not signposted and feels like a private road to a farm but it is a public way (I think!). It’s scary and you require a gate-opening passenger and someone to mop your brow. The views of Wensleydale dropping into Askrigg are vast and I was lucky to capture a glimpse of Semerwater across the wide valley.

Heading back to Ribblesdale I was tempted to park up for a walk to Snaizeholme and see if the red squirrels would come out to pose for me but it was getting late. When I returned home my neighbour’s clematis was basking in the late evening light … sadly, I’ve not seen much of the sun since.

A red devil in the Dales

This morning, for the third time in around a year, I visited Snaizeholme, Widdale in the Yorkshire Dales, in a bid to photograph some red squirrels. There’s a viewing area overlooking a feeding station where I hung around for quite a while. Earlier, about 100 yards away from me, a red had crossed the track I was walking down and so I thought my luck might be in. Another one darted across some open land above the feeding area but it didn’t look like any were ready to perform where my camera was trained. I turned round briefly to watch a brightly coloured grouse only to see one of the little red blighters about a stride away from my feet! As soon as I moved to adjust the camera, the squirrel started having me on, jumping and dashing around like a… well, a squirrel I suppose. It peered around a tree trunk at me and I managed this slightly out-of-focus shot before it ran crazily around so fast I only captured one more half-decent shot. I smiled. I think we both had a bit of fun.

Dales barns worth saving

During my travels around the Dales I’ve noticed an increasing number of farm buildings being left to go to ruin. In most cases farmers can’t afford their upkeep and planners won’t/can’t allow permission for their redevelopment. I realise that reusing some of these ancient buildings as homes won’t go very far in solving any housing shortage but it could certainly help save many historic Dales buildings – and also maintain the attraction of the region. I wonder what a similar dilapidated barn to the one above in Widdale would fetch if it were for sale in the Cotswolds or Surrey?

Tag: Widdale

Perfect Dales drives

Bridge of Sighs

Better Dales news

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Light fantastic in Yorkshire