Yorkshire Dales and Fells

by Gordon Home

slope towards the gray roofs of Downholme. The situation is pretty, and there is a triangular green beyond the inn; but, owing to the church being some distance away, the village seems to lack in features.

A short two miles up the road to Leyburn, just above Gill Beck, there is an ancient house known as Walburn Hall, and also the remains of the chapel belonging to it, which dates from the Perpendicular period. The buildings are now used as a farm, but there are still enough suggestions of a dignified past to revivify the times when this was a centre of feudal power. Although the architecture is not Norman, there is a fragment in one of the walls that seems to indicate an earlier house belonging to the Walburns, for one of them—Wymer de Walburn—held a certain number of oxgangs of land there in 1286.

Turning back to Swaledale by a lane on the south side of Gill Beck, Downholme village is passed a mile away on the right, and the bold scenery of the dale once more becomes impressive. The sunshine has entirely gone now, and, although there are still some hours of daylight left, the ponderous masses of blue-gray cloud that have slowly spread themselves from one horizon to the other have caused a gloom to take the place of the morning’s dazzling sunshine. When we get lower down, and have a glimpse of the Swale over the hedge, a most imposing scene is suddenly visible. We would have illustrated it here, but the Dale Country is so prolific in its noble views that a selection of twenty pictures must of pure necessity do injustice to the many scenes it omits.

Two great headlands, formed by the wall-like terminations of Cogden and Harkerside Moors, rising one above the other, stand out magnificently. Their huge sides tower up nearly a thousand feet from the river, until they are within reach of the lowering clouds that every moment threaten to envelop them in their indigo embrace. There is a curious rift in the dark cumulus revealing a thin line of dull carmine that frequently changes its shape and becomes nearly obliterated, but its presence in no way weakens the awesomeness of the picture. The dale appears to become huger and steeper as the clouds thicken, and what have been merely woods and plantations in this heavy gloom become mysterious forests. The river, too, seems to change its character, and become a pale serpent, uncoiling itself from some mountain fastness where no living creatures, besides great auks and carrion birds, dwell.

In such surroundings as these there were established in the Middle Ages two religious houses, within a mile of one another, on opposite sides of the swirling river. On the north bank, not far from Marrick village, you may still see the ruins of Marrick Priory in its beautiful situation much as Turner painted it a century ago. Leland describes Marrick as ‘a Priory of Blake Nunnes of the Foundation of the Askes.’ It was, we know, an establishment for Benedictine Nuns, founded or endowed by Roger de Aske in the twelfth century. At Ellerton, on the other side of the river a little lower down, the nunnery was of the Cistercian Order; for, although very little of its history has been discovered, Leland writes of the house as ‘a Priori of White clothid Nunnes.’ After the Battle of Bannockburn, when the Scots raided all over the North Riding of Yorkshire, they came along Swaledale in search of plunder, and we are told that Ellerton suffered from their violence. The ruins that witnessed these scenes remain most provokingly silent, and Heaven knows if they ever echoed to the cries of the defenceless nuns or the coarse laughter of the Scots, for the remains tell us nothing at all.

Where the dale becomes wider, owing to the branch valley of Arkengarthdale, there are two villages close together. Grinton is reached first, and is older than Reeth, which is a short distance north of the river. The parish of Grinton is one of the largest in Yorkshire. It is more than twenty miles long, containing something near 50,000 acres, and according to Mr. Speight, who has written a very detailed history of Richmondshire, more than 30,000 acres of this consist of mountain, grouse-moor, and scar. For so huge a parish the church is suitable in size, but in the upper portions of the dales one must not expect any very remarkable exteriors; and Grinton, with its low roofs and plain battlemented tower, is much like other churches in the neighbourhood. Inside there are suggestions of a Norman building that has passed away, and the bowl of the font seems also to belong to that period. The two chapels opening from the chancel contain some interesting features, which include a hagioscope, and both are enclosed by old screens.

Leaving the village behind, and crossing the Swale, you soon come to Reeth, which may, perhaps, be described as a little town. It must have thrived with the lead-mines in Arkengarthdale and along the Swale, for it has gone back since the period of its former prosperity, and is glad of the fact that its splendid situation, and the cheerful green which the houses look upon, have made it something of a holiday resort, although it still retains its grayness and its simplicity, both of which may be threatened if a red-roofed hotel were to make its appearance, the bare thought of which is an anxiety to those who appreciate the soft colours of the locality.

When Reeth is left behind, there is no more of the fine ‘new’ road which makes travelling so easy for the eleven miles from Richmond. The surface is, however, by no means rough along the nine miles to Muker, although the scenery becomes far wilder and more mountainous with every mile. The dale narrows most perceptibly; the woods become widely separated, and almost entirely disappear on the southern side; and the gaunt moors, creeping down the sides of the valley, seem to threaten the narrow belt of cultivation, that becomes increasingly restricted to the river margins. Precipitous limestone scars fringe the browny-green heights in many places, and almost girdle the summit of Calver Hill, the great bare height that rises a thousand feet above Reeth. The farms and hamlets of these upper parts of Swaledale are of the same grays, greens, and browns as the moors and scars that surround them. The stone walls, that are often high and forbidding, seem to suggest the fortifications required for man’s fight with Nature, in which there is no encouragement for the weak. In the splendid weather that so often welcomes the mere summer rambler in the upper dales the austerity of the widely scattered farms and villages may seem a little unaccountable; but a visit in January would quite remove this impression, though even in these lofty parts of England the worst winter snowstorm has, in quite recent years, been of trifling inconvenience. Bad winters will, no doubt, be experienced again on the fells; but leaving out of the account the snow that used to bury farms, flocks, roads, and even the smaller gills, in a vast smother of whiteness, there are still the winds that go shrieking over the desolate heights, there is still the high rainfall, and there are still destructive thunderstorms that bring with them hail of a size that we seldom encounter in the lower levels. Mr. Lockwood records a remarkable storm near Sedbergh in which there were only three flashes. The first left senseless on the ground two brothers who were tending sheep, the second killed three cows that were sheltering under an oak, and the third unroofed a large portion of a barn and split up two trees. In this case the ordinary conditions of thunderstorms would seem to have been reversed, the electric discharge taking place from the earth to the clouds; otherwise, it is hard to account for such destruction with each flash.

The great rapidity with which the Swale, or such streams as the Arkle, can produce a devastating flood can scarcely be comprehended by those who have not seen the results of even moderate rainstorms on the fells. When, however, some really wet days have been experienced in the upper parts of the dales, it seems a wonder that the bridges are not more often in jeopardy. Long lines of pale-gray clouds, with edges so soft that they almost coalesce, come pressing each other on to the bare heights, and, almost before one mass has transformed itself into silvery streaks on the fellsides, there are others pouring down on their emaciated remains.

Of course, even the highest hills of Yorkshire are surpassed in wetness by their Lakeland neighbours; for whereas Hawes Junction, which is only about seven miles south of Muker, has an average yearly rainfall of about 62 inches, Mickleden, in Westmoreland, can show 137, and certain spots in Cumberland aspire towards 200 inches in a year. No figures seem to exist for Swaledale, but in the lower parts of Wensleydale the rainfall is only half of what has been given for Hawes, which stands at the head of that valley.