Christopher Somerville

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Meltham and Marsden Clough, West Yorkshire

Mar 302013

Snow flurries were scudding across the sedgy fell sides above Meltham as we started up Royd Lane towards the open moor.First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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This part of West Yorkshire, the very northernmost tip of the Peak District National Park, is centred in ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ country; but if Compo, Clegg and Foggy had been out and about today, they’d have needed their caps and comforters. This was the Yorkshire Moors at winter’s end – bleak, harsh and compelling.

Royd Lane gave way to Magdalen Road, a noble name for a rugged old horse track that hurdles the low hill between Meltham and the twin reservoirs of Marsden Clough. Moor farms stood hunched along the lane, their windowless backs to the weather – Fox Royd, Upper Royd, Ash Royd. A ‘royd’ is a piece of land cleared of its roots, stones and trees for agriculture, but a lot of the royd land on these hills is going back out of keeping. One by one the hill farms are being abandoned in the face of pickings too slim to survive on.

Curls of snow still lay in the lee of the stone walls. A stray bullock was wandering in the lane, but when he caught sight of us he plunged with a twang straight through a barbed wire fence and cantered off to join his chums.

Beyond the Holmfirth road we dropped into Marsden Clough by way of Springs Road, a walled track whose beautifully cut sandstone paving-slabs had been grooved to guide the wheels of quarry wagons. Down along Nether Lane the stone-built farmhouse stood empty, solid old dwellings each in its own strip of fields – Goodbent, Bartin and Greaves Head.

Our ancestors did not always build solidly and well. Before climbing out of Marsden Clough and on back to Meltham, we leaned on the wall and looked down over the twin waters of Bilberry and Digley Reservoirs. When the poorly constructed embankment of Bilberry Reservoir collapsed in February 1852, a fifteen-foot-high wall of water rushed down the valley and devastated Holmfirth, ‘throwing a four storey mill down like a thing of nought, tossing boilers about like feathers, and carrying amongst the wreck of houses, mills and other buildings, men, women and children.’

Rural tradition says that the cries of plovers are the lamentations of lost souls. The upper air was full of them today, wailing and piping us away from the lakes and that dark old tragedy.

START: Royd Road, off Holmfirth Road, Meltham HD9 4BE approx. (OS ref SE 104102)

GETTING THERE: Bus 335 (stottscoaches.co.uk, Holmfirth-Meltham), 911 (wymetro.com, Honley rail station-Meltham) to Royd Road bus stop (at foot of Royd Road)
Road – Royd Road is off B6107 Meltham-Holmfirth road on southern edge of Meltham.

WALK (6 miles, moderate, OS Explorer OL1, 288): Walk up Royd Road. In ½ mile pass Fox Royd; in 200m fork right (100094, ‘bridleway’ fingerpost), past Royd Farm and on for 1 mile to A635 (094078). Right; in 50m, left through gate, down track (Springs Road) for ⅔ mile. At gate with ladder stile (086073), don’t cross, but swing left along Nether Lane; follow it for ¾ mile past Goodbent Lodge and Bartin to Greaves Head farmhouse (098074). In another ½ mile, turn left (106075) up grassy lane, over stile by gate (yellow waymark). On up between walls to road (106077); left to cross A635 (103080); ahead for 1¾ miles along Harden Moss Road (track), then Royd Road to B6107.

LUNCH: Plenty of pubs/cafés in Meltham

ACCOMMODATION: Durker Roods Hotel, Meltham HD9 4JA (01484-851413; durkerroodshotel.co.uk)

INFO: Holmfirth TIC (01484-222444); yorkshire.com
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk
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Roseberry Topping and Captain Cook Monument, N. Yorks

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Oct 132012

A pale grey, windy sky streamed south over the North York Moors. Well wrapped against foul weather, Jane and I followed a bowed but sprightly old lady up the lane to Aireyholme Farm.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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Cows lowed, a spade scraped on a stone floor and barn doors banged. Captain James Cook would have recognised the sounds that echoed round the buildings; it was here that the farm foreman’s son spent his boyhood in the 1740s, dreaming of the sea and faraway places.

Roseberry Topping was a whalehead of a hill above Aireyholme Farm back then. Now it takes the shape of a tsunami wave in a classical Japanese painting, a convex green back rising to tip suddenly over at the summit in a great vertical cliff face of rugged broken rock. It was a giant landslip in 1912 that sent the western half of the hill crashing and sliding into ruin.

A yellowhammer in the hedge broke out with a wheezy request for ’a-little-bit-of-bread-and-no…. cheese!’ We followed a zigzag path, well patched with stones, steeply up to the crest of Roseberry Topping and one of the best views in the north of England – the long escarpment of the Cleveland Hills pushing out their ship-prow profiles one behind the other into the great wide vale of the River Tees. A mess of chimneys lazily emitting coils of smoke showed where Teesside lay, still a heartbeat of industry in the north-east.

We followed the Cleveland Way down off the hill and up again to skirt the edge of sombre dark Great Ayton Moor, all the way south to where the thick sandstone needle of the Captain Cook monument rose on its ridge. ‘A man in nautical knowledge inferior to none, in zeal, prudence and energy superior to most,’ eulogised the inscription. ‘Long will the name of Capt. Cook stand out among the most celebrated and most admired benefactors of the human race.’

We drank to that in bottled water as we sheltered under the obelisk and watched the moors and hills smoking under a rolling sea of cloud.

Start & finish: Great Ayton Station, TS9 6HR (OS ref NZ 574108)

Getting there: Rail (thetrainline.co.uk) to Great Ayton
Road: Great Ayton is on A172 between Gainsborough and Stokesley. Follow High Street, then Station Road for 1 mile to station.

Walk (5½ miles, hard, OS Explorer OL26. NB: online map, more walks – www.christophersomerville.co.uk): From station, cross bridge; on up road. Left at White House Farm down lane (577110); in ⅓ mile, nearing Aireyholme Farm, left over stile (578115; ‘footpath’); over next stile; ahead with wood on left. Ignore stile on left; over stile in corner of field (576115); right on path towards, then up Roseberry Topping. From summit (579126) follow Cleveland Way/CW pitched path east, down and up to gate at edge of plantation (588127); right (blue, yellow arrows) on CW for 1¾ miles to Captain Cook monument (590101).

Face back the way you came up CW, and take next path to left, aiming to go between 2 prominent gateposts. Follow path (yellow arrows) down through Ayton Banks Wood; cross track near bottom (585104); continue down out of trees to angle of wall on right (584104). Right along sunken lane. In ½ mile, nearing Dikes Lane, left down stony track (578108; ‘Fir-Brook’); in 200 m, right through gate; cross field to farm track (576107); left to station.

Conditions: Steep climbs up to Roseberry Topping and Captain Cook monument. Steep descent through Ayton Banks Wood.

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: Chapters Hotel, Stokesley, N Yorks TS9 5AD (01642-711888; chaptershotel.co.uk) – welcoming place with good food.

Information: Gainsborough TIC (01287-633801); yorkshire.com
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk

Reeth, Swaledale and Arkengarthdale, North Yorkshire

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Jul 072012

As we drove into Reeth at seven in the evening the quoits players were out on the village green in front of the Black Bull, getting in their game before the forecast rain arrived. First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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The solid clink of the hefty horse-shoe quoits, the joking voices of the players and the sunset view beyond the pubs and houses of Reeth to the high bare bulk of Harkerside Moor were just as Dales as could be.

Next day, looking out of the big windows in the Burgoyne Hotel above the green, we saw that the weatherman had got it plumb to rights – mizzling, drizzling rain moving through Swaledale. But what the hell? Jane opted for a coffee pot and laptop morning, and I got into everything waterproof I could find and went out into the damp day. The rain didn’t deter the blackbirds from doing their Eleanor Farjeon stuff among the wet gardens of Reeth, nor the hatless, coatless, careless schoolchildren carrying out a survey of the village with incredible cheerfulness in the drizzle.

In the meadows along the River Swale, rain-pearled Swaledale sheep watched me go by, their curly horns twisted each side of their heads like a wartime telephonist’s hairdo. Swallows dipped low over the wide Swale, and the barking of a dog up at Riddings Farm high on the fellside came clearly down to me. I found a lane in the hamlet of Healaugh that took me up round the back of Calver Hill, out onto the moor where everything except the creaky-voiced lapwings was silent and still in the rain seething in from the west.

Out on the moor an ancient hut circle lay pinpointed on the Explorer map with the OS’s customary accuracy. It measured just seven strides across. Who knows how many inhabitants it sheltered from the rain all those thousands of years ago?

The path dipped over the saddle and wound down into remote Arkengarthdale, the dale sides scarred with creamy mounds of lead-mining spoil, the moor tops empty and magnificent. By West Raw Croft and East Raw Croft I found the homeward path, through narrow stone stiles and along the rushing Arkle Beck. It never stopped raining all day; and I wouldn’t have missed one moment of it.

Start and finish: Reeth village green, near Richmond, N. Yorks DL11 6SZ (OS ref NZ 039993).

Getting there: Bus Service 30 (Richmond-Keld).
Road: A1; A6136 or A6108 to Richmond; A6108 (‘Leyburn’), B6270 to Reeth.

Walk (8 miles, moderate, OS Explorer OL30. NB: online maps, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk):
From Reeth village green, take alleyway just to right of chapel, beside Holmlea. At T-jct opposite Heatherdale Bungalow (038991), right along lane. In ¼ mile, left down walled lane (034991, ‘Harkerside & Grinton’). At River Swale, right (034990) along bank path. Pass end of Reeth swing bridge (032989 – don’t cross!); on along north bank of Swale. In ¾ mile, right (021988; ‘meadowland, single file’) to B6270 (020991). Left into village.

By three stone troughs, right up lane (019990). Steeply up to Thirns farmhouse (012995). Tarmac end; forward on stony lane. In about 200 m, fork right uphill (010996) on a clear stony track. In 150 m, wall on right makes right-angle turn uphill. In another 50 m (008997) look for small cairn of stones on right; fork right here up grassy track between angle of wall and lower stony track. Follow grassy track (fairly clear, occasionally cairned) for 1 mile, over saddle (004004), past hut circle (005006 – detour) to meet a stony track (004009). Right for ½ mile to road (010015). Right; in ½ mile, left down gravel track (018012; fingerpost) to West Raw Croft farm (023016).

Don’t follow stony track in front of house, but keep right of wire fence, through gate. Bear half right up field, aiming for right end of line of trees. Through stone stile (yellow blobs/YB); follow stone wall on your left. At end of field go through gate (025012); over stream, past rock with YB; on through 2 more stiles, then left down farm track (027008, ‘Fremmington’ fingerpost) to cross Arkle Beck. Up farm track; bear right to go through gate just to right of Castle Farm House (030008; YB). Cross garden in front of house; through opposite gate/stile; on through fields by stiles (YB).

In ¼ mile, nearing Arkle Beck, follow ‘bridleway’ sign uphill (035005). In 250 m go through stone wall (037004); in another 250 m, through another wall (039003) and slant right downhill to track below. Turn left along it, through gate; follow fence on right downhill above Arkle Beck. At bottom, right through stile (040997; fingerpost); left along field path parallel with Arkle Beck. Through wall gaps and stiles for ½ mile to B6270 (042992); right across Reeth Bridge into Reeth.

Conditions: Moor path over Calver Hill is not advisable in mist

Refreshments: Picnic: many pubs, cafés in Reeth

Accommodation: Burgoyne Hotel, Reeth (01748-884292; theburgoyne.co.uk) – immaculately kept and run

Information: Reeth National Park Centre (01748-884059); yorkshire.com
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk

Waterfalls Walk, Ingleton, North Yorkshire

Walks No Responses »

Mar 172012

People have been doing the Waterfalls Walk since the days of stovepipe hats and crinolines, and this steep, tree-hung circuit of the two moorland rivers that rush together in Ingleton village to form the River Greta continues to be one of Yorkshire’s prime outdoor attractions.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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I’d always assumed that any walk so popular must be a bit tame – but not at all. The twin gorges of the River Twiss and Doe may be well-trodden, but they’re far from commodified. The combination of thick woods, waterfalls, churning narrows and thread-like paths exerts as much magic on today’s walkers as it did on Victorian holidaymakers in search of swoonsome thrills.

Setting off from Ingleton along the narrow path that shadows the River Twiss, we were almost at once enclosed in the dark walls of a gorge, with the river running fast among mossy stones splashed with dipper droppings. Beside the path lay a money tree, its hide as scaly as a lizard’s with tens of thousands of copper coins hammered into the boughs for luck. The trail climbed the wall of a canyon above swirling holes where the south-going river chased round and round before escaping, sculpting semi-circular hollows in the rock walls with a continuous swallow and gurgle. Its cold breath and smell of stone and earth came up to us as we crossed the gorge on lattice footbridges under which the peat-charged water sluiced as dark and frothy as a gush of porter.

A roe deer went bounding up the bank, its white scut bobbing a warning. A long view upriver showed Pecca Falls crashing down a staircase of slippery rock steps. Beyond the cascade the trail left the trees and followed a curve of the Twiss. A wonderful view opened ahead towards Thornton Force, pride of the walk, descending a series of rapids before hurling itself in a 50- foot freefall into a smoking pool. Above this thunderous weight of water we followed a walled lane into the mist. Unseen and offstage, sheep bleated, a farmer whistled and a quad went puttering over an invisible field by Twisleton Hall.

Below the farm the River Doe echoed and hissed in its own steep walled canyon, leaping down towards Ingleton and its confluence with the Twiss through S-shaped channels carved through the shale by the force of water alone. We crossed above potholes boiling with toffee-coloured bubbles, and skirted backwaters where the surface lay marbled with scarcely moving patterns of foam. Below the white wall of Snow Falls the path snaked past another money tree and on through mossy old quarry workings, to emerge at the foot of the gorge with the church and houses of Ingleton lying beyond, as muted and dreamy looking as any faded Victorian lithograph.

Start & finish: Waterfalls Walk car park, Ingleton, N. Yorks LA6 3ET (OS ref SD 693733)
Getting there: Bus – Service 80 (Lancaster-Ingleton), 581 (Ingleton-Settle). Road – M6 Jct 34 (A683, A687) or Jct 36 (A65) to Ingleton. Waterfalls Walk is signed in village.

Walk (4½ miles, moderate/strenuous, OS Explorer OL2): From car park follow waymark arrows up River Twiss, along lane via Twisleton Hall farm (702751) and down River Doe.
Conditions: Continuous slippery paths and steps.
NB – Online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk.

Refreshments: Frumenty & Fluffin teashop, Main Street, Ingleton (01524-241659)
Accommodation: Croft Gate, Chapel-le-Dale, Ingleton (01524-242664; www.croft-gate.co.uk) – quiet, friendly and immaculate B&B
Waterfalls Walk: Open 9 a.m. daily; £5 entrance/car park pp; £11 family; complimentary leaflet guide
More info: Ingleton TIC (01524-241049); www.visitingleton.co.uk; www.yorkshire.com
Readers’ Walks: Come and enjoy a country walk with our experts! Dates, info etc.: http://www.mytimesplus.co.uk/travel/uk/1867/times-walks. Next walk: Lake District, 8 April
www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk

Tophill Low, East Yorkshire

Walks No Responses »

Nov 122011

The flatlands of East Yorkshire, south of Driffield around the River Hull, are really tremendously flat – former ‘carrs’ or wet lowlands, now drained and intensively farmed, but retaining the bleak and magnetically compelling atmosphere that large tracts of level wet country always seem to possess.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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Nineteenth century drainage made this a fertile arable region, and 20th-century intensive agriculture reaped the rewards. Farms lie scattered across the carrs, which still obstinately continue to flood in some winters.

This superabundance of water feeds the city of Hull to the south, courtesy of Tophill Low Water Treatment Works, handsomely built with its two big reservoirs after the Second World War. The twin fleets of water at Tophill Low, and the scrub woodland and grassland that have been developed around them, make a superb resource for bird-watchers – and walkers too.

I started my walk in the Tophill Low Nature Reserve, making a leisurely circuit of the ‘O’ and ‘D’ reservoirs, ducking in and out of the hides to scan the waterfowl through binoculars – cormorants with wings akimbo, greylag geese flapping their wings in mid-preen, peewits with crests erect and wheezy complaining calls, tufted duck anchored in line astern. The waterworks gave off a strong whiff of old-fashioned industry with their cast-iron control wheels, tanks, sluices and stern admonitory labels – ‘Raw water bypass valve – must not be operated without written authorization from the Director of Operations.’

Musing on raw water, an image at once potent and sinister, I let myself out of the reserve through a gate and entered the wide, flat landscape of Watton Carrs. Fields of wheat and grass, heavy dark woods, drains, ditches and lonely farms. I passed the walled barnyard and poplar-sheltered house of Standingholme Farm, and the big battery sheds at Decoy House. Here wildfowlers once lured wild duck to the catch-net with the cries of tethered decoy birds, back when the carrs were a floody fenland and their inhabitants struggled for a hand-to-mouth living.

South to Easingwold Farm along the edges of bean and potato fields, on through thistly sheep meadows to find dozens of horses cropping the pasture around Wilfholme Landing. The River Hull sinuated north and south, a slow green flow edging the perimeter of Tophill Low Nature Reserve. I petted the soft muzzle of a chestnut mare, passed the time of day with a couple of young riders, and made my way back up a tunnel of trees where a sparrowhawk in brilliant orange, black and white flickered like a dream of beauty and wildness before me.

Start: Tophill Low Nature Reserve car park, near Driffield, E. Yorks YO25 9RH (TA073485)

Getting there: Tophill Low is signposted from A164 (Driffield-Beverley) at Watton. Follow ‘Nature Reserve’ signs to car park.

WALK (6 ½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 295):
Facing parking/permit ticket machine, go left through gate, then right round ‘D’ Reservoir. At north end (077495), right; in ¼ mile, through gate (079499, yellow arrow/YA); left over footbridge (YA), along field edge. In ⅓ m, at corner of poplar plantation, left through kissing gate (073501, YA); right along farm drive. Pass Decoy House farm (064497), in 250 m, left (fingerpost) down 3 field edges to cross road (065485). Up Easingwold Farm drive (fingerpost); over stile; bear left, then right between barn and farmhouse, over stile and on with fence on left. In 100 m fence curves gently left; in another 50 m, it turns sharp left; keep ahead here, curving right to go through gate near pylon (063478). Left along Starberry Drain. At top of slope at Wilfholme, through gate (062473); immediately left through gate (blue arrow); left along River Hull. Through gate; in 100 m, fork left at Nature Reserve sign (064473), away from river along right bank of drain. Continue for ¾ m to road (070483). Right into Tophill Low water treatment works. Right along road (brown ‘Tophill Low’ Reserve sign). Round left bend; in 100 m, by wheel on concrete plinth, right across footbridge. At ‘O’ Reservoir embankment, right (070481) to make circuit of reservoir and hides. Back on waterworks road, right to car park.

LUNCH: Picnic

ACCOMMODATION: Star Inn, Nafferton, near Driffield, YO25 4JW (01377-255548)

TOPHILL LOW NATURE RESERVE: www.yorkshirewater.com/tophill

Information: Beverley TIC, 34 Butcher Row (01482-391672); www.visithullandeastyorkshire.com
www.LogMyTrip.co.uk
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com

Gordale Scar and Malham Cove, N. Yorks

Walks No Responses »

Feb 262011

Show me a more photogenic or perfectly set village in the Yorkshire Dales than Malham, and I’ll personally jump with a pair of water wings from the top of Malham Cove.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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This gorgeous sunny morning laid special glory on the neat stone cottages, the bird-haunted gardens and the stone bridges across Malham Beck. I was already entranced as I struck out through the pastures on the paved path to Janet’s Foss. ‘Nice day for a walk,’ said the farmer mending his field wall in outsize flat cap and rubber boots. ‘Lord, didn’t the rain half come last night! We could do with it, mind. Going up Gordale? That’s quite a climb. Lovely day for it, though – wish I was coming with you!’

In a narrow, tree-shaded cleft the waterfall of Janet’s Foss sluiced down a mossy slide in twin tails of white water. Beyond the foss the jaws of Gordale Scar opened – steep slopes rising to sheer crags of jagged pale grey limestone 500 feet tall. The Scar is a vast cave, burrowed out by raging floodwaters at the end of the last Ice Age. The roof collapsed, leaving a giant chasm twisted into the body of the Dales.

‘We’re not sure about the climb,’ ruefully opined a couple, returning crestfallen from the depth of the Scar. But it proved a sheep in lion’s clothing, an upward scramble beside a jutting cataract and through an upper chamber choked with striated boulders where another fall tumbled in lacy folds from a crack in the dark walls overhead. No wonder Gothic painters and poets loved Gordale Scar – in those awe-inspiring depths it’s only natural to picture the Devil creating the chasm with a thunderous stamp of his cloven hoof.

At the top of the gorge I came out into wide, windy uplands striped with stone walls and pale terraces of naked stone, where Malham Tarn lay flat and steely. Here I turned back along the Pennine Way, through the high cleft of Dry Valley to reach the crazed limestone pavement at the rim of Malham Cove. The eerie metallic squeak of a peregrine echoed from the enormous amphitheatre of the Cove, a towering limestone cliff, all that remains of an ancient waterfall higher than Niagara. As a coda for this walk of natural extravagance and superlatives, it couldn’t have been better.

Start & finish: Buck Inn,
Malham, N. Yorks BD23 4DA (OS ref SD 901627).

Getting there:

Train: (www.thetrainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) to Gargrave (7 miles)
Bus: Dales Bus (http://www.dalesbus.org/malham.html) service 210, 211 from Skipton
Road: Malham is signed off A65 at Gargrave, between Skipton and Settle.

Walk (7½ miles,
moderate/hard, OS Explorer OL2): Leaving Buck Inn, right for 30m,
left by Malham Smithy across beck, right along far bank. In ¼ mile,
left past Mires Barn (902624, ‘Janet’s Foss’) on path by
Mantley Field Laithe and Janet’s Foss (911633). At road, right; in
200m left (913635, ‘Gordale Scar’) to Gordale Scar. At first fall
(915641), climb to left of fall (see note, below). In upper chamber,
climb on left side to top. Ahead to cross wall stile (914643); keep
ahead with wall on right. Pass tree; in 100m, path bears away from
wall for ½ mile to meet road wall (906652). Right along wall for ¼
mile to Street Gate (905656). Left over wall stile; ahead to road
sign; right (National Trust notice: ‘No Cars’) on gravel road for
⅔ mile to gate (898664). Left on Pennine Way/PW (fingerpost) over
ridge to car park (894658). Right along road for 50m; left (PW,
‘Malham Cove’) on path to Comb Hill (892648). Down Dry Valley
(894646 – marked ‘Watlowes’ on OS Explorer); right across
limestone pavement on rim of Malham Cove (897641). At far side,
through wall by kissing gate and down steep steps to foot of cliff
(897639); follow path back to Malham.

NB: Online maps, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk.

Please note: Slippery sections include Janet’s Foss, Gordale Scar, Dry Valley, Malham Cove limestone pavement. Many steps down Malham Cove.

Gordale Scar: Moderate rock scramble by fall; plenty of hand and foot holds. NO experience needed – but if in doubt, don’t do it! Climb at your own risk. Signposted detour from road at Gordale Bridge to top of Malham Cove.

Lunch: Buck Inn, Malham (01729-830317; www.buckinnmalham.co.uk)

Accommodation: Buck Hall, Malham (01729-830332; www.beckhallmalham.com)

More info: Skipton and Craven TIC, Coach Street, Skipton (01756-792809); www.yorkshiredalesandharrogate.com;

www.ramblers.org.uk;
www.satmap.com.

Upper Nidderdale, N. Yorkshire

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Feb 202010

Nidderdale lies in the eastern fringes of the Yorkshire Dales, but there’s no mistaking where you are. It’s proper Dales country round here – sombre brown moor tops on high, green valley bottoms below, dotted with stone barns and striped with stone walls.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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The farming hamlet of Middlesmoor stands high over the upper reaches of the dale, a tight-knit cluster of houses along cobbled laneways, a decent pub in the Crown, and a church where generations of Middlesmoorians sleep with a memorable view to greet them on Resurrection Day – the whole green dale dipping away towards the silver comma of Gouthwaite Reservoir.

It was blue sky above me and rain showers chasing each other across the hills as I set out from Middlesmoor, barked off enthusiastically along the Nidderdale Way by a brace of muddy spaniels. The stony walled track of In Moor Lane, a winding old packhorse route, took me up over In Moor, and the rain and sun spread a fabulous arch of seven colours across the sky for me to walk through. Where the stony lane levelled out I startled a dozen grouse from their perch on the wall; they fled across the heather with a crisp whirr of wings and a burst of harsh, hysterical cackling.

A twist of the lane and I was looking down on Scar House Reservoir, 300 feet below, penned behind a long dam wall and cradled by whaleback hills. They knew how to build this sort of thing in the 1920s, with castellated walls and romantic turrets, the work consecrated by multitudes of mayors and aldermen.

The wind had risen to a gale. White horses slapped the dam wall as I crossed it, and the wind shoved me in the back like an impatient sergeant as I took to the high moor road along the northern flanks of the dale. The Nidderdale Way sneaked off unmarked somewhere beyond Woo Gill, but I didn’t mind – not with a well-found track to follow, the wind as an ally instead of an enemy, and the whole panorama of Nidderdale at my feet, spanned by another tremendous rainbow.

Start & finish: Crown Hotel, Middlesmoor, Pateley Bridge, N. Yorks HG3 5ST (OS ref SE 092742)

Getting there:

Bus: Nidderdale Rambler Service 825, Sunday & BH (1^st Sunday of month only till 4 April) – www.dalesbus.org

Road: A1, A61 to Ripon; B6265 to Pateley Bridge; cross River Nidd; next right, signed to Middlesmoor. Village car park just beyond Crown Hotel.

Walk: (9 miles, moderate/hard, OS Explorer 298): From Crown Hotel turn left up road, and on along walled lane (‘Nidderdale Way/NW’) and ‘Bridleway Scar House’) for 2 1/3 miles to Scar House Reservoir (067766). Cross dam wall; left up track; right (065772; NW) on stony track for 1 mile to cross Woo Gill (078777). Continue on track to pass Shooting House (084777). In 200 yards, right on moor road for 2¾ miles to another Shooting House (107753). Right downhill, through gate, down green track to Thrope Farm (102751). Through gate onto NW by farmhouse; right into farmyard (dogs are caged or tethered!); left around barn, down grass slope to cross River Nidd (101751). Left along river for half a field, then diagonally up through wall to cross road (099747; ‘Footpath to Middlesmoor’). Diagonally up fields through stone stiles; cross Intake Gill among trees (096743); up over stiles into Middlesmoor.

NB – online maps, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Crown Hotel, Middlesmoor (01423-755204; www.nidderdale.co.uk/crownhotel)

Accommodation: High Green Farm, Wath (01423-715958; www.highgreen-nidderdale.co.uk) – comfortable, spotless and beautifully positioned.

More info: Pateley Bridge TIC (01423-711147); www.visityorkshire.com;

www.yorskhiredales.org.uk; www.ramblers.org.uk

Kilham & Burton Agnes, East Yorks

Walks No Responses »

Nov 072009

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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A streaky sky foreshadowed a morning of sun and breeze over the arable countryside of East Yorkshire. Jane and I were off early from our night stop at Kilham Hall, following paths south through pale fields of wheat and oilseed rape. Long whalebacks too low to be called hills gave the skyline a seductive dip and roll you’d never suspect from the main roads. The poplar groves along Lowthorpe Beck stirred and hissed like a dark green sea away to our left. By the brook on the outskirts of Harpham a sparrowhawk went pouncing down with a crackle and thump into a patch of willowherb, startling a brace of hares to lollop away into the safety of the hedge.

Harpham holds two ancient wells, both encased in steel cages and strong old stories. St John’s Well on the eastern edge of the village, very efficacious in curing headaches, deafness and dumbness, and in calming the fury of wild beasts, was brought into being during the Dark Ages by the holy healer St John of Beverley, a native of Harpham. On the west side, the Drummer’s Well has an altogether more ominous history. The story goes that during the Norman invasion, William the Conqueror promised the land around Harpham to whomever should arrive there first. The noble Sieur de St Quintin, infuriated when a humble drummer boy beat him to it, pushed the lad to his death down the well and claimed the title for himself. To this day, the death of each head of the St Quintin tribe is foretold by a drum-beat from the depths of the well.

Burton Agnes church tower beckoned us on over fields bright with scarlet pimpernel and speedwell. The handsome Tudor manor house of Burton Agnes Hall – in the hands of one family since Elizabethan times – hid its red brick face among its trees. We turned west again across the fields, finding a long green lane between high old hedges that brought us steadily back to Kilham and a welcome pie and pint by the Old Star’s nice bright fire.

Start & finish: Old Star Inn, Kilham, East Yorkshire, YO25 4RG (OS ref TA 064643)

Getting there: Train (www.thetrainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) to Driffield (5 miles). Bus: 126 from Driffield. Road: Kilham signed off A614 Driffield-Bridlington

Walk (7½miles, easy, OS Explorer 295): Leaving Old Star Inn, right (‘Bracey Bridge’ fingerpost) through pub garden, past gardens; left at path junction (fingerpost, yellow arrows/YA) through kissing gate to bottom right corner of field. Bear right (066642); cross fields parallel to Lowthorpe Beck for 1½miles. Cross A614 at Bracey Bridge (076620). Cross parking place; across stile by gate; follow track. In 200 yards fork right (079618; fingerpost, YA); follow field edge for 2 fields; through kissing gate; left on track across Lowthorpe Beck (085614); on to road. Right into Harpham. Past St Quintin Arms inn, left ('Bridlington') for 30 yards; right over stile (YA); through fields for ¾mile, aiming for Burton Agnes church tower. At A614, right into Burton Agnes. 2^nd left to Church and Burton Agnes Hall. Return along A 614; first right (‘Rudston’); in 1/3mile pass village sign; in another 50 yards, left (fingerpost, YA). Follow YAs through fields for ¾mile; right along farm lane (087634) for 1 mile to road. Forward round right bend; in 50 yards, left (fingerpost) past battery sheds and sewage works; over stream (068641). Bear right to field corner; on into Kilham.

NB –Online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Old Star Inn (01262-420619)

Accommodation: Kilham Hall, Kilham YO25 4SP (01262-420466; www.kilhamhall.co.uk): upmarket, comfortable, welcoming

More info: Bridlington TIC (01262-673474); www.yorkshire.com; www.ramblers.org.uk

Red squirrels: Mirk Pot, Snaizeholme, North Yorkshire

Articles 1 Response »

Oct 052009

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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As we came down Hugh Kemp’s drive early in the morning, a red squirrel scuttered across the drive just in front of us. It sat up, cleaning its nose with both front paws, its tail a puff of pale russet smoke, black eyes fixed on us, before diving out of sight between the bars of a cattle grid. ‘Come on in,’ said Hugh at the door of Mirk Pot House. ‘I’m sorry my Jane isn’t here to greet you. Coffee? You’ll have to excuse the clutter. Now, then, these red squirrels of ours …’

The tree planter and red squirrel conserver of Snaizeholme is a Yorkshireman by birth and a landscape artist by talent. He’s also been a practical conservationist throughout his eight decades of life. In 1966 he and his wife Jane found the ruinous farmhouse of Mirk Pot in the hidden dale of Snaizeholme, a cleft tucked into the rolling country to the south of Wensleydale. ‘Our battle plan,’ he says, ‘was to buy a derelict hill farm with some outhouses and a reasonable amount of land. We’d rebuilt the house by 1967, and we started planting trees commercially.’

Christmas trees, Sitka spruce, Japanese larch, sycamores – the Kemps planted the bare fellside enthusiastically, and soon began to notice an increase in bird life. When they fenced off the plantation against grazing sheep and deer, ‘mountain ash, hawthorn, bird cherry, the native trees – they all came back. We got expert advice from the British Trust for Ornithology on how to improve our plantations for wildlife; we clear-felled our Sitka; we created a wildlife corridor with native trees – hawthorn, silver and downy birch, willow, sessile and pedunculate oak, blackthorn. What we ended up with was a very young plantation of broadleaves, and a few big conifers. We were trying to encourage the black grouse to return, but inadvertently we were actually planting for red squirrels.’

It was a local woodsman who first spotted a red squirrel in Snaizeholme, but no-one quite believed him. Then in 1997 there were confirmed sightings, followed by a steady increase in red squirrel numbers. With support from DEFRA and the Forestry Commission, and some expert advice from the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, Mirk Pot has become a red squirrel refuge. Grey squirrels – introductions to the UK from North America, now crowding Britain’s native reds to extinction all over the country – are baffled by specially designed feeders which provide the red squirrels with their favourite mixture of peanuts, sunflower seeds and pine nuts. The sessile oaks are coppiced, to retain the trees themselves without allowing them to produce the acorns that grey squirrels love.

As we left the house in Hugh’s company, a red squirrel was swinging on the bird feeder in the garden. It jumped down to the wall, ran along the stones, stopped for a scratch, did a double take when it noticed us, and scampered out of sight up the nearest tree. ‘Stone walls,’ mused Hugh. ‘We’ve had half a mile rebuilt – cost us an arm and a leg, but it’s worth it. Red squirrels hate travelling through thick undergrowth, but they use that wall as a motorway.’

We boarded Hugh’s battered blue Land Rover and went bouncing along rough tracks to West Field, near the specially created viewing area. Hugh told us of the parapox disease, sometimes called squirrel pox. Greys are immune to parapox, but can transmit it to the reds, whom it condemns to a slow and horrible death. ‘Even more reason to keep out the greys,’ was Hugh’s crisp summing up.

At the viewing area there was just one red squirrel on show, a pretty little individual that was sitting up on the bench eating peanuts from the feeder. It soon took to the tree-tops, and its colleagues must have been keeping out of our way, because we saw no more. But red squirrels are generally far from shy, it seems, when food is on the agenda. ‘I found one actually in the food bin by our front door,’ recounted Hugh. ‘So I fixed the lid on properly. But when I took it off next morning, blow me if there wasn’t a squirrel sitting in there eating. Now I chain the lid down – but even so, I’ve seen them on their hind legs trying to prise it open with their front paws!’

I found the red squirrels of Mirk Pot wholly delightful. Whatever the cause – and I suspect it has a lot to do with childhood memories of Beatrix Potter’s cheeky, charming Squirrel Nutkin – their energy, inquisitiveness and delicate beauty are quite irresistible. They thrive in Snaizeholme, quite oblivious of what they owe to Hugh and Jane Kemp. But we, at least, can give thanks for this dedicated couple and the invaluable conservation work they are so effectively doing in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales.

FACT FILE

Red squirrels in Snaizeholme (OS Explorer OL2): Access: either on foot via Snaizeholme Red Squirrel Trail (10 miles return walk from Hawes)

(http://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/index/learning_about/nature_in_the_dales/best_places_to_see/snaizeholme-red-squirrel-trail.htm); or B6255 from Hawes to Widdale Bridge, left up minor road to entrance to Red Squirrel Viewing Area (signed) via Mirk Pot or West Field.

Hugh Kemp leads red squirrel walks, by appointment only (01969-667510).

Further information: Hawes TIC (01969-666210)

Hints: Red squirrels are most active around dawn/dusk and in sunshine after bad weather; their hearing is acute; they’re most likely to be in the treetops. Take binoculars, keep quiet, and stop still if you spot one.

Help and advice

The Wildlife Trusts (01636-677711; www.wildlifetrusts.org) can advise on locating red squirrels across the UK; likewise Natural England (0845-600-3078; www.naturalengland.org.uk), Scottish Natural Heritage (01738-444177; www.snh.org.uk), Countryside Council for Wales (0845-130-6229; www.ccw.gov.uk) and Northern Ireland Environment Agency (www.ni-environment.gov.uk). The Forestry Commission (www.forestry.gov.uk) and the Forest Service of Northern Ireland (www.forestserviceni.gov.uk) are active in conserving red squirrels. The National Trust has developed 5 downloadable Red Squirrel Walks: see www.nationaltrust.org.uk

Red Squirrel Week: 3-11 October 2009. Details: contact The Wildlife Trusts

Reading: Trees and Wildlife in Wensleydale (Mason Bros, Newsagents, Main Street, Hawe, North Yorkshire DL8 3QN – £10 plus postage – tel 01696-667278) is Hugh Kemp’s autobiography.

Muker and Keld, Swaledale, North Yorkshire

Walks No Responses »

Sep 122009

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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A brisk west wind, a chink of sun in the Swaledale clouds after days of rain over North Yorkshire, and the clatter of walking sticks on the road outside Muker Teashop where Jane and I were finishing our Yorkshire rarebits. Out in the village street a hairy-kneed rambler of the old school frowned at Jane’s Satmap device. ‘Get you lost, will that,’ was his pithy judgement.

A walled lane led up the sloping fellsides behind the village, the grazing fields dotted with the square-built farmhouses and small stone barns so characteristic of the Yorkshire Dales. Sun splashes and cloud shadows chased across them. It was a joy to be alive and walking up there in the face of the wind, climbing the old stony road to the crest of Kisdon Hill and following it down to Skeb Skeugh ford and the huddle of grey stone houses at Keld, the Norsemen’s well-named ‘place by the river’. I remembered the enormous kindness (and huge teapot) of Lizzie Calvert at her Thorns B&B house when I arrived here with my father more than 30 years ago, soaked and bespattered from a storm-bound Pennine Way.

On the outskirts of Keld, Jane and I joined that glorious and notorious long-distance treadmill, but only to cross the rain-engorged Swale. East Gill Force jetted down its black rock staircase and into the river with a muted rumble and hiss, and here we swung away from the Pennine Way and made for Crackpot Hall’s dolorous ruins. ‘Don’t miss Swinner Gill,’ we’d been advised by Nick and Alison Turner, owners of Muker Teashop. ‘It’s really something special.’

It was lead-mining subsidence that put an end to Crackpot Hall, and the ruins and spoil heaps of the Dales’ great lost industry lie all around – stone-arched mine levels, a tumbledown smelt mill deep in the cleft of Swinner Gill, and the precarious trods or tracks of the lead miners. All lay silent this afternoon, with the dale sides rising sharply to the sky, the beck sluicing below, and a breathtakingly beautiful prospect opening southward towards Muker down the sunlit floor of Swaledale.

Start & finish: Muker Teashop, Muker, Richmond, N Yorks DL11 6QG (OS ref SO 910979)

Getting there: Bus (http://getdown.org.uk/bus/search/muker.shtml): service 30 (Richmond-Muker-Keld, Mon-Sat) or 831 (Leyburn-Muker-Keld-Hawes, Sun & BH)

Road: A1; A 6108 or A6136 to Richmond; A6108, B6270 to Muker.

Walk (6½ miles, moderate/hard grade, OS Explorer OL30): Leaving Muker Teashop, left; left again up lane by Literary Institute. Forward; right by Grange Farm, left up its side (‘footpath to Keld’). Follow lane; then ‘Bridleway Keld’ (909982)up walled lane for ½ mile. Pennine Way/PW forks right, but continue for 30 yards, then bear right uphill by wall (903986; ‘Keld 2 miles’). At top of slope follow wall to left; continue climbing to open hilltop. Follow green road (fingerposts) over hill, down to ford beck, right along road. On left bend, right (893009; ‘Keld only’) into Keld.

Right down gravelled lane (893012; ‘footpath to Muker’). In 300 yards, left downhill (‘PW’). To return direct to Muker, turn right and follow PW. To continue walk, cross River Swale footbridge; left to reach top of waterfall. Where PW forks left, turn right along track (896011; ‘bridleway’ fingerpost). In ½ mile pass stone barn; in another 100 yards pass engine and steering wheel sunk in ground (!). In 50 yards fork left (904009) on stony track to Crackpot Hall. Aim for house above; then follow path (progressively narrower) into Swinner Gill. Where path forks opposite ruined lead mine buildings, take lower fork to fingerpost; turn back sharp right (911012; ‘Muker’) down narrow path to ford beck (911008; NB – if beck too swollen to ford safely, retrace steps to Crackpot Hall and follow main track south towards Muker).

Continue along path for ¼ mile to join main track; continue down Swaledale on right bank of river for 1 mile. Cross Swale by footbridge (910986); right (yellow arrow) for 50 yards, then left along meadow path for ½ mile back to Muker.

Conditions: Narrow, slippery paths in Swinner Gill

NB – Detailed directions, online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Farmer’s Arms, Muker (01748-886297) – a proper pub, and very welcoming

Tea and Accommodation: Muker Teashop (01748-886409; www.mukervillage.co.uk) – really warm and welcoming. Try the Yorkshire Rarebit and the sinful cake-and-cheese combo! £65 dble B&B

More info: Richmond TIC (01748-828742); www.yorkshire.com; www.ramblers.org.uk

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