Entries about views

On the coast of Somerset between Weston-super-Mare and Burnham-on-Sea, a long finger of land juts out into the Bristol Channel – the Mendips’ last hurrah before disappearing beneath the waves. Brean Down rises high above the beaches on either side, a two-kilometre-long ridge of limestone and an obvious place to build a fort – or several. Certainly Iron Age man thought so, as there is evidence of a fort and field systems from that period. The Romans built a small temple here, and much more recently, between 1864 and 1871, another fort was constructed at the very tip of the promontory.

Today the land is under the protection of the National Trust. As with most of their open countryside there is no charge to walk on the land, but you pay for parking. We visited on a rather dull September morning during the Coronavirus pandemic and found the car park quite busy with dog walkers and with ‘staycationers’ such as ourselves.

A three-mile walk leads you up onto the ridge, along its western edge to the fort, and back along the eastern side. It starts with a steep climb up a long flight of steps. There are small stopping areas at intervals where you can pause to admire the view – surely no one will guess that you’re really stopping to catch your breath?!

Once at the top the path is undulating, crossing grassland closely cropped by sheep and goats that live here. Walking out towards the far point you have wonderful views west along the coast and across the Bristol Channel to Wales. Apparently you can see the remains of the Romano-British temple somewhere along this stretch but it eluded us.

The coastline here is famous for the wide expanse of sand (some say mud!) revealed at low tide. The Bristol Channel has the second largest tidal movement in the world (second only to the Bay of Fundy in Canada); according to the National Trust website, the distance between high and low water can be as much as 0.75 of a mile (1.2 kilometres). This made for some interesting photo opportunities in today’s changing light, but is a challenge on sunny days for anyone wanting to swim!

Brean Fort

Our walk brought us eventually to the remains of the fort built here in the 19th century. This was one of the Palmerston Forts (named for Lord Palmerston, the then Prime Minister), designed to protect Britain from invasion by France – an invasion that never came. As I explained in my post about Spitbank Fort, in the Solent, Napoleon III was strengthening his navy at that time, and the memory of past threats from that quarter were still fresh. But the invasion never came and the forts were never used for their original purpose.

Although in ruins the walls of many of the fort’s buildings still stand and there are signs to guide you as you explore. I felt it had a slightly haunted atmosphere, despite the presence of other visitors here and there. Maybe I was sensing the ghost of Gunner Harris, who one night in July 1900 inexplicably fired a carbine into the ventilator shaft of a magazine storing gunpowder. The resulting explosion caused huge damage to the fort and killed Harris. There was some speculation that this might have been suicide – Harris was known to be sullen, with a bad temper, and was in trouble because he had left the fort without permission the previous day. At his inquest the jury returned the verdict that, ‘the explosion was caused by the deceased firing a carbine down a ventilator and that at the time he was temporarily insane.’ Whatever the reason, Harris had effectively dealt a fatal blow not only to himself but to the fort. It was closed down soon after, decommissioned and its guns sold for scrap in 1901.

However the building has been put to various uses both before and since then. Marconi had used it in 1897 to test his new wireless transmission equipment, setting a new distance record of 8.7 miles (14 kilometres) for wireless transmission over open seas. For a while it was used as a café (what a great spot to stop for a coffee that must have been!) before being rearmed during WW2 with anti-aircraft guns. The site was used to test bouncing bombs and other secret weapons. You can still see the length of rail employed to launch the bombs. A sign at the fort explains that the tests didn’t always go well. On one occasion the bomb, along with the trolley carrying it, flew off into the Channel, did a sharp right turn and came back inland to land in a local farmer’s chicken run!

This is a great spot to take a break, sitting on the old walls with a view out to Steep Holm and Flat Holm islands. The former is English while the latter, lying just beyond it, is in Wales (its Welsh name is Ynys Echni). Both islands were also fortified under Palmerston's scheme. Flat Holm has had a lighthouse since the early 18th century (this is a treacherous area for shipping) but the current building dates from the early 19th and is today automated, running almost entirely on solar power.

The return walk

After exploring the ruins of the fort and enjoying the view out to sea, we retraced our steps but on the eastern side of the headland. The path here is a little lower and more sheltered, but even here trees struggle to grow.

There were some pretty wildflowers and views across the wide sands of Weston-super-Mare below.

Wild flower

At some point this path passes the banks and ditches that mark the site of the Iron Age fort, but this too, like the Roman temple, we managed to miss!

Beyond the top of the steps we had climbed at the start the path curved back on itself and we were able to descend a more gentle slope down to the road, the car park and the café. Here we bought cold drinks and hot pasties to enjoy at a table overlooking the beach – a good reward for our efforts!

Cheddar Gorge

Cheddar Gorge cuts into the southern edge of the Mendip Hills in Somerset. At 137 metres deep it is hardly the Grand Canyon, but it is pretty impressive nevertheless! Unfortunately (in my view) its lower end is marred by touristic over-development, but as you travel up the gorge it becomes wilder, thankfully.

The southern side of the gorge is steepest and the most developed. There are several cave complexes within it. Some are usually open to the public, but we visited during the coronavirus pandemic and the caves were closed – a bonus in some ways as it meant the gorge was much quieter. On the other hand, it would have been interesting to see where Britain's oldest complete human skeleton, known imaginatively as Cheddar Man and estimated to be 9,000 years old, was found in 1903.

There are several cafés strung out along the side of the road, all also closed when we visited, and of course a shop selling the famous Cheddar Cheese. This was open but we didn’t go in.

While there is some development on the northern side too, it’s mainly restricted to a handful of shops by the car park at the foot and a sprinkling of houses, some of them rather attractive. Paths lead up between the houses to the open land above, which is owned by the National Trust. The most distinctive feature here is the so-called Lion Rock, and unlike some such features you see around the world, I think this one does look a bit like the animal for which it is named! I found photography here quite challenging because of the contrast between the sunny upper slopes and rocks, and the deep shadows lower down.

Towards the top of the gorge the scenery becomes wilder. The road climbs steeply – it’s a popular challenge for cyclists and was used as part of the 2011 Tour of Britain race. There are several places where you can pull over and park to admire the view or go for a walk. There are a lot of rock-climbing routes and we saw several small groups just embarking on ascents, but they were still at the stage of sorting their equipment so I couldn’t get any interesting photos of them. But the light was better here for photographing the scenery, and we came across a number of the feral goats that graze the slopes, including a young kid and his (her?) mother.

Goats in Cheddar Gorge

Deerleap

Instead of returning the way we had come, back down Cheddar Gorge, we continued to climb up into the Mendip Hills before turning south on a network of minor roads to the small carpark at Deerleap, from where I had read good views were to be had. Sure enough, the view from the car park itself was good, but even better from the public footpath that starts from here. We could see for miles across the Somerset Levels below, with the former island of Glastonbury Tor, which we had visited yesterday, clearly visible.

But we found more than just views, wonderful as these were, as the path led us across the fields to an area set aside as a nature reserve, with wildflowers dotting the grass.

It must be lovely at the height of summer and was still a pleasant spot even in late September, especially on this sunny day. This gentle walk was a great way to round off our morning before returning to our base in Wells for lunch and an afternoon exploring the city.

Long, long before it was home to one of the world’s most famous music festivals, Glastonbury was a place of pilgrimage not for music fans but for those seeking a more mystical experience. The ruined abbey is associated with Joseph of Arimathea, who is said to have arrived in Glastonbury and stuck his staff into the ground, when it flowered miraculously into the Glastonbury Thorn. There are also links to the Holy Grail and King Arthur. On the edge of the town Glastonbury Tor rises above the Somerset Levels, it too associated with Arthurian legend.

All of this has led to the town becoming a magnet not only for tourists but also for New Agers, hippies and followers of various Pagan cults. On its streets, everyday shops rub shoulders with those selling crystals and tarot cards, while tourists in practical anoraks and walking shoes mingle with local farmers in wellies and with more recently arrived and more colourfully dressed residents.

Glastonbury Abbey

Glastonbury Abbey was founded in the 7th century on a site previously occupied by both Roman and Saxon settlements. It was enlarged in the 10th century and destroyed by a major fire in 1184, but subsequently rebuilt. By the 14th century it was one of the richest and most powerful monasteries in England, but like other such places in Britain it was dissolved by Henry VIII and fell into ruin.

Those are the basic facts, but many myths have grown up around the abbey. In medieval times a Christian legend claimed that it had been founded by Joseph of Arimathea in the 1st century. Joseph was a follower of Christ who undertook his burial after his crucifixion. The legends tell how Joseph travelled to Britain, bringing with him the Holy Grail – the cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper. It is said that he pushed his staff into the ground while he lay down to sleep and it miraculously took root and became a leafy, flowering thorn tree.

The Holy Thorn and St Patrick's Chapel

The thorn tree that can be seen in the abbey grounds is said to be a cutting from the direct descendent of this tree which grows on nearby Wearyall Hill. The abbey’s website tells the story in more detail:

‘By the 1530s, not long before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, three thorn trees grew on Wearyall Hill (sometimes known as Wirral Hill) about 1km south-west of Glastonbury. The trees were very unusual because they flowered twice - once in the spring around Easter, and a second time at Christmas. Not surprisingly, they were seen as holy thorns. In the Civil Wars of the 17th century Puritan soldiers cut down the only remaining thorn because they saw it as an object of superstition. However, local people had kept cuttings, and it is from these that the thorn now growing in the abbey grounds is believed to descend. It continues to flower around Easter and again at Christmas.

The holy thorn has become part of the legend of Joseph of Arimathea. According to this story, when Joseph arrived in Glastonbury with his twelve companions he climbed Wearyall Hill, whose name derives from his proclaiming 'we are weary all'. He planted his staff in the ground whilst he rested. The following morning the staff had taken root, and it grew into the miraculous thorn tree.’

Some versions of the legend say that the risen Christ accompanied Joseph on his journey to Britain. It is thought that this is what inspired the opening lines of William Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’:

‘And did those feet, in ancient times,
Walk upon England’s mountain green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?’

I should add though that some scholars find this an unlikely source for Blake, arguing that the tradition that Jesus accompanied Joseph of Arimathea to Britain only arose in the early 20th century.

Visiting the abbey

Much of the abbey is in ruins although a couple of buildings are still intact. We visited on a cool but bright September morning, great for photographing what remains of the arches, windows and other features.

Near the entrance is St Patrick's Chapel which was founded by Abbot Richard Beere in 1500 and is still used for worship today. One of the many legends associated with Glastonbury is that St Patrick is buried here. This legend recounts that it was from Glastonbury that Patrick set out to convert the Irish and that he returned here at the end of his life to die. Hence the dedication of this chapel to the saint.

The chapel was restored in 2009/2010 and the wall paintings and stained glass, which I loved, date from then despite their traditional appearance. They include two depictions of St Patrick - one in the stained glass behind the altar which shows him standing above a snake (he is popularly held to have banished all snakes from Ireland) and the other a wall painting showing him with a wolfhound.

From here we went to explore the ruins of the Great Church. In places these still stand quite tall and it is easy to imagine how impressive the building must once have been. In other places there are simply lines of stone in the grass, marking the foundations.

In the centre a rectangle is marked out and a sign identifies it as the site of King Arthur’s tomb. It reads:

‘In the year 1191 the bodies of King Arthur and his queen were said to have been found on the south side of the Lady Chapel. On 19th April 1278 their remains were removed in the presence of king Edward I and Queen Eleanor to a black marble tomb on this site. This tomb survived until the dissolution of the abbey in 1539.’

Today the authenticity of this find is disputed, with most historians suggesting that it was a publicity stunt undertaken to raise funds to repair the Abbey, which had been badly damaged by the fire of 1184. Nevertheless, the link with Arthur persists to this day and draws many to visit Glastonbury.

We walked through the ruins of the monastery, none of the walls rising to a height of more than a foot or two, to reach the much more substantial Abbot’s Kitchen. This is the only surviving part of the Abbot’s house and is a sign of how different the abbot’s life would have been to that of the monks. While they lived a life of abstinence and poverty, he had a magnificent house, as befitted the abbot of the second richest abbey in the country (eclipsed only by Westminster). His kitchen needed to be able to cater to the many great visitors who came to the abbey, including Henry VII for whom a special apartment was added to the house.

This is considered to be one of the best-preserved medieval kitchens in Europe. It has four great fireplaces, one in each corner, and a central chimney to draw out the smoke. Its high ceiling allowed the head chef to stand on a raised gallery to supervise the work of the rest of the cooks and servants as they prepared feasts worthy of their VIP guests.

Between the kitchen and the entrance area lies the Lady Chapel. This is somewhat more intact than the Great Church (most of its walls still stand) and it’s easier to visualise the original structure.

The walls would once have been painted in ochre, red, blue, green and white, with gold leaf details. Some traces of paint still remain around the carved arches. The abbey website says that the paintwork ‘almost certainly dates to 1184-99 - probably to 1184-89’.

In the crypt below the chapel is a well known as St Joseph’s Well. This was in existence long before the chapel was built, and may date back to Roman times, but (perhaps because of its age) it became incorporated into the various legends linking Joseph of Arimathea to Glastonbury. It was consequently a place of pilgrimage right through to the 16th century, when many miracles and cures were said to have taken place following offerings made here.

Glastonbury, the town

After leaving the abbey we walked through the town, enjoying the atmosphere and taking a few photos of the more interesting characters on the streets.

In non-COVID times I might have been tempted to browse some of the shops, but as it was I just went into one to buy a pretty birthday card for my sister.

Glastonbury Tor

Our destination was Glastonbury Tor which lies to the east of the abbey. To get there we followed a path past some houses and then up and across the fields, climbing steadily.

In a garden on the way to Glastonbury Tor

This terraced conical hill has long been associated with tales of King Arthur. It is thought that the Ancient Britons called it Ynys yr Afalon, leading to a belief that this is the fabled Isle of Avalon of Arthurian myth. Certainly it was once an island, rising above the shallow sea that used to cover what are now the Somerset Levels. It was crowned by a church, St Michael’s, built from wood in the 11th or 12th centuries, and some other Saxon buildings, possibly cells for hermit monks. That church was destroyed in an earthquake in 1275 and replaced by a stone one, of which only the tower remains – the remainder of the church was demolished during the dissolution of the monasteries.

As to the links with Arthur, some say that this is the likely hiding place of the Holy Grail, making the Tor a place of pilgrimage for centuries. Other stories grew up around the tor too, perhaps because there is something mystical in the way it rises above the plains, especially on a misty day. Some have said it holds the door to the land of the fairies, others the door to the land of the dead.

But for most visitors to Glastonbury the hill represents something much more simple – the challenge to climb it and the reward of great views when you do. I have made the climb several times in the past, when my legs were much younger, but on this occasion I decided it was enough to have climbed halfway and I left Chris, who had never been here before, to finish alone.

The Somerset Levels

After lunch in the town we drove a little to the east, to a nature reserve on the Levels, and had a rather windswept walk. The hides were closed because of the pandemic so we couldn’t get very close to the birds we saw out on the water. Nevertheless, I got a decent collection of photos, and the dragonflies were far more obliging than the birds!

Later in our stay in Somerset we had a lovely short walk near Deerleap, on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills, and I took some shots of the wonderful views across the Levels towards Glastonbury Tor, so I will finish this entry with one of those images.

The name of Wensleydale is almost synonymous with its cheese, but there is more to the place than that. It is a beautiful valley, like all the Yorkshire Dales, although perhaps surprisingly the river that runs through it is not called the Wensley, but the Ure (Wensley is the name of one of its smaller villages). It is more visited than Swaledale to the north, perhaps because of that famous cheese!

We recently spent a very pleasant day out exploring the dale and visiting some of its many waterfalls and other attractive spots. The weather could have been better, but could also have been worse – it was cloudy but mostly dry although we had rain towards the end of the day. Nevertheless we managed to see a lot and had some very pleasant walks.

Wensley Falls

This small waterfall is often overlooked, and we therefore had it to ourselves when we stopped for a quick look on our way up the valley. We parked in the car park of the White Rose Candle Workshop on the edge of the village and followed a short path which brought us out at a viewpoint below the falls. The rocks were wet and a little slippery, so I had to balance carefully while taking these shots!

Aysgarth Falls

These falls are far better known than Wensley Falls, and are among the dale’s most popular attractions, so unsurprisingly we didn’t have these to ourselves! There are actually three separate falls here, named rather prosaically Upper, Middle and Lower Falls. From the car park you walk a short distance in one direction to reach the Upper Falls, then retrace your steps, cross the road, and follow a longer path, about a kilometre each way, which passes the Middle Falls and then carries on to the Lower Falls.

The Upper Falls were the busiest, being the easiest to reach, but you could hardly call them crowded and it was easy to get good angles for photography. Like all three sections of Aysgarth, the falls are not very deep, and the water was brown – rich with peat from the moors above thanks to recent heavy rains.

I experimented with slow shutter speeds and was quite pleased with some of the results even though I had to handhold the camera.

The Middle Falls were livelier, and we could get a bit closer to the water here.

The longer walk to the Lower Falls was pretty, leading through a patch of woodland and alongside some meadows with wild flowers. We passed a beautifully carved wooden bench. I thought the lines on it might be a quotation from something written about this area, but they don’t appear to be.

The falls themselves were, I thought, the prettiest of the three sections, surrounded by trees and attractively lichen-covered slabs of limestone. It was possible to walk a short distance right down by the water across some of these slabs, adding to the number of photo opportunities – I took loads of pictures here!

Aysgarth Falls have attracted artists over the centuries – Turner painted them, and Wordsworth waxed lyrical about them, as did John Ruskin. More recently they were the setting for some scenes in Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, including the famous fight scene between Robin Hood and his friend Little John – explaining perhaps the growing number of visitors.

Semer Water

After visiting Aysgarth we continued west up the dale, but took a detour down a narrow country road to see Semer Water – another location painted by JMW Turner. This the second largest natural lake in North Yorkshire and one of only two natural lakes to be found in the Yorkshire Dales. The River Bain flows out of the lake and into the Ure – at only two miles long it has the distinction of being the shortest river in England.

The beauty of the lake has attracted many artists, of whom the most famous is Turner who visited the lake on 26th July 1816 on one of his many tours. Across the road from the lake is a raised area with a bench which is supposedly sited at the spot where Turner sketched Semer Water.

It may well have been beautiful when he visited but trees have grown up and partly obscured the view from his bench, and on this dull day I didn’t find myself especially inspired by the landscape.

Hardraw Force

Back in Wensleydale we carried on westwards to the popular small town of Hawes, where the famous cheese is made. It was thronged with visitors (enjoying a covid-safe staycation, no doubt) and in any case we hadn’t planned a stop here, so we turned north to cross the river and followed it a short distance on the other side to Hardraw, the location of England`s largest single drop above-ground waterfall. The falls are on private land belonging to a pub, the Green Dragon, but open to the public on payment of a small fee. We’d intended to park in the pub car-park but it was full, so we drove just beyond the village where we found roadside parking on a grass verge, along with several other cars. We decided to eat the picnic lunch we’d brought in the car (a very English thing to do), enjoying the view of the dale in front of us. Then we walked back to the pub to visit the falls.

The owners have invested some at least of the money they make from having the falls on their property in developing the land around them. There is a network of paths through the ravine (Hardraw Scar or Scaur) on both sides of the river which you can follow to reach the waterfall, and good viewpoints once you get there. The weather had turned a bit worse by now, with drizzle in the air, but that’s the price you pay for the beautiful green shades of the landscapes around here!

The falls drop about 100 feet into a rocky pool. Like Aysgarth they were visited by Wordsworth and Turner, both of whom stayed at the Green Dragon. And also like Aysgarth, they were used as a location in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, for the scene where Maid Marian catches Robin Hood bathing under a waterfall.

Hardraw

After visiting the falls we had a quick look around Hardraw itself. I took a photo of the late 19th century church, dedicated to St Mary and St John, but we didn’t try to go inside (it was almost certainly locked, as most churches have been during the coronavirus pandemic, although some are now opening up for worship). The church was used as Darrowby Church in the original TV series of All Creatures Great and Small (I don’t know if the new series also has scenes filmed here).

Church of St Mary and St John

The clouds were low over the fells but the fields were still a lovely shade of green. The landscape here is just a little tamer than that of Swaledale to the north and the sheep slightly less hardy-looking, but it is nevertheless a bleak place in winter.

Askrigg and Mill Gill Force

We took the quieter and narrower road north of the river back down the dale, and made our last stop of the day in Askrigg. Here we followed a rather longer walk to Mill Gill Force. This started by St Oswald’s Church and followed a village street, Mill Lane, until this petered out into a stone path, which led us across a field with good views of the fells including the distinctively flat-topped Addlebrough.

The path then entered the woods and crossed the stream, Paddock Beck. It was quite muddy underfoot as we followed the ravine. At one point the path forked and the signpost was somewhat obscured by trees but we had met another couple shortly before who had warned us about this and told us to take the right-hand fork to reach the falls, which we did. We arrived at a good viewpoint just as the rain, which had been threatening for some time, also arrived, so we stayed under the trees taking photos from a distance.

When it seemed clear that the rain was here to stay for a while, we decided not to risk exposing our cameras to more water by trying to get closer to the falls. So we turned back on the same path and returned to the village – at which point, of course, it stopped raining!

I took a few photos in the village before it could start again, then we headed back to the car and to the cosy apartment we were renting in Leyburn, happy with our waterfall-filled day out.

Swaledale is among the less visited of Yorkshire’s dales, much less busy than neighbouring Wensleydale, but I have often wondered why as it is beautiful. Above and around the valley are heather-topped hills, their lower slopes green and dotted with stone barns and crisscrossed with drystone walls. They slope down to the fast-flowing Swale, where a road along the bottom of the dale passes through a string of picturesque villages. Towards the eastern end of the dale is Grinton, which we visit often (see A Breath of Fresh Air). But recently we spent a few days staying in nearby Leyburn and had a wonderful day out exploring the dale and some of its other villages.

The landscape of the dale may look in places like nature at its wildest but in truth it was created by a combination of traditional farming practices and lead mining. While sheep farmers gradually enclosed the lower slopes to create the characteristic mosaic of dry-stone walled compartments and stone field barns, the spoil heaps and scars of the lead mining industry are responsible for much of the barren and bleaker parts of the dale especially on the moorland. You can also see the odd ruined mine building up on these moors.

Grinton Moor

To reach Swaledale from our base in Leyburn we crossed Grinton Moor, on the ridge of hills that separates the dale from Wensleydale to the south. We stopped near Grinton Lodge (formerly a shooting lodge, now a youth hostel) to pay our respects to Chris’s father John, whose ashes we scattered here.

Gunnerside

We didn’t stop in Grinton itself, as we visit so often, nor in neighbouring Reeth as we planned a stop there on our way back. So the first village we visited was Gunnerside, a few miles further up the valley. We parked in the small parking area in the centre, just by the stone bridge over Gunnerside Beck, a tributary of the Swale. Signs asked us to make a £1 donation for parking via a box by the bridge, which we did.

There are several interesting and picturesque buildings in the village, including a working smithy (closed on our visit, presumably because of the coronavirus pandemic), and the Literary Institute. Many of the villages in the Dales have one of these institutions, built during the 19th century. They were important recreational spaces, often the only public building in the village. They were often provided or supported by local landowners and employers, who saw clear advantages in ensuring that their tenants and employees had somewhere to socialise other than the pub, where their minds would be improved by reading improving works of literature and attending lectures. For this reason the institutes were often also supported by temperance organisations. Today Gunnerside’s Literary Institute, which was built in the 1860s, serves as the village hall.

But our main purpose in stopping in Gunnerside was to take a walk along the beck, through the pretty little valley known as Gunnerside Ghyll or Gill. This word comes from the Norse ‘gil’, meaning ravine or gully, while beck comes from the Norse ‘bekkr’.

This was the site of a major lead mining industry in Swaledale until the late nineteenth century, and the scars can still be seen.

Unfortunately the water of the Ghyll was so high after recent rains that it had flooded out part of the path and I didn’t have suitable footwear to wade through it, so we only did the first part of the walk. This took us up and out of the village alongside the tumbling stream, with views back to the houses below.

We encountered a number of the distinctive horned Swaledale sheep grazing here, as they do all over the dale.

And we could see the ruins of what must have been buildings once linked to the lead mining industry. But we didn’t get far enough to see the main mining area with its spoil heaps, ore works and entrance to the mine itself. That will have to wait for another day.

Muker

Our next stop was in the bigger and much busier village of Muker, further up the dale. The car park on the edge of the village was full but we managed to find roadside parking at the far end and walked back to the centre. The tea shop was closed (I assumed because of the pandemic) but next door to it the local store was open and selling take-away drinks including barista coffees which could be enjoyed at the tables set out on the terrace in front of both premises. Chris waited outside while I went in to place our coffee order, and while I waited for the drinks to be made, I looked around the small shop. It was quite a diverse range of items, ranging from guide-books to tins of beans, children’s fishing nets to toilet paper, souvenir boxes of fudge to malt whiskies …

Once the coffees were ready we sat outside in the sun watching people strolling past, and afterwards had a quick look around the village. We had to smile at the life-size Swaledale sheep perched on a roof-top!

The village church is dedicated to St Mary. It was built around 1580 but heavily restored in the 19th century. Needless to say it was shut – even if normally open (which is sadly becoming less and less common these days), the pandemic would have ensured it stayed locked up for now, apart from occasional services.

Tan Hill

Leaving Muker around midday we drove further up Swaledale, passing many more photo-worthy views. But we had a reservation for lunch so had to leave these until later. We turned north to climb up out of the dale and over the open moorland to Tan Hill, the location of what claims to be the highest inn in Britain at 1732 feet (it is not the only pub to make this claim but seems generally to be accepted as the most credible).

We had pre-booked a table for lunch – essential, we thought, as there are no other options for miles around! As it turned out, they had lost our reservation but luckily could accommodate us, even in these times of reduced capacity due to coronavirus. We had a tasty lunch and then headed outside to take some photos of the view. The Pennine Way, the first National Trail to be established in England (in 1965) passes right by the pub and we saw several hikers. The road across the moors is also understandably popular with bikers so there were quite a few of them around too.

Over the moor

We had planned to return to Reeth across the top of the moor, on the Long Causeway, a road that runs parallel to Swaledale. But the delights of the dale were tempting us back, especially as we’d had to drive past so many scenic viewpoints on our way here, so we changed our plans and returned instead by the way we had come.

As we drove back across the moor we stopped several times to take photos of this wild and wonderful landscape.

The barns of Swaledale

Dropping down into the dale near the village of Keld we stopped to take more photos. By now I had become obsessed with capturing the patterns created by the drystone walls dissecting the fields above the valley and the stone barns scattered across the green landscape.

Later I read up about the barns. Stone barns were built in this area from around the early 18th century. Unlike in other parts of the country, here they were sited away from the main farm buildings, in the hay meadows themselves. Traditionally they were used to store hay during the winter, and in a separate section, to shelter cows. Thus, the food and the animals that needed it were in the same place, and there was no need for the farmer to haul the feed to them. During the winter he would walk to his barns twice a day to feed the cows and let them out to drink. In the spring the manure they produced would be spread, by hand, on the land to fertilise the meadows for the next hay crop in the summer – again, no need for the farmer to haul the manure any distance.

Some of the barns have two storeys and were used to shelter not cows but sheep. Swaledale sheep are very hardy, but in the first year of their lives they are more vulnerable during hard winters which are not uncommon in this, one of the highest of the dales. These young sheep are known as hoggs and the barns used to house them as hogg houses. They had room for sheep on both floors and hayracks around the walls.

The barns have a distinctive appearance because of the traditional building technique used in this area. This involved two walls, inner and outer, with rubble used to fill the gap between them. To ensure the walls didn’t fall away from each other, long stones known as ‘throughs’ were inserted from outside to inside. In the case of houses, the throughs were cut off to make it look neater (although once you know to look for them they are easy to spot), but with barns there was no need to waste time doing that, which is why these Swaledale barns are so unique.

Today, with modern farming techniques, the field barns have become largely redundant (although some are still used to store hay), but their significance is recognised, and farmers can get grants to restore their barns to protect this iconic landscape.

Keld

Leaving our car on the main road we walked down into Keld. The name derives from the Viking word kelda meaning a spring.

Unlike the other villages around here it sits a short distance away from the road through the dale, and has a more tranquil atmosphere, although there were quite a few other people around. We wandered through the churchyard from where there were lovely views of the valley, but the church itself was closed.

The nearby United Reform Church has a worn sundial dated 1840.

And we spent some time watching and photographing the many birds who had come to feed on the wall of one of the village houses, clearly home to a bird lover. The garden had lots of feeders, and seeds were strategically placed in several places, including this wall.

Angram

This little hamlet had caught our attention when we drove through earlier in the day, so on our way back down the dale we stopped for a quick look around. It was a good place to hunt for opportunities to photograph building details – one of my photography enthusiasms. Oh, and a few more barns!

Reeth

Our final stop of the day was in Reeth, a somewhat larger village only a mile from Grinton. Its buildings are gathered around a large green and while some may deprecate the fact that this is nowadays used in part for car parking, it does make it easy to park there even on a busy day such as this was turning out to be (warm sunny days aren’t too common in these parts, even in August!)

Many gardens and buildings in the area have bicycle-related objects on display, a legacy of when the 2014 Tour de France started in Yorkshire, and this one has clearly had a 2020 addition in the shape of a face mask for the sheep!

We had ice creams at the always-excellent ice cream parlour at the bottom of the green and then had a stroll around. But it was, as I said, rather busy and time was getting on, so we didn’t stay long and instead drove back over Grinton Moor to the cosy apartment we were renting in Leyburn – the end of a lovely day out.