Yorkshire Dales and Fells

by Gordon Home

A JACOBEAN HOUSE AT ASKRIGG

The village of Askrigg, perched picturesquely on the northern slopes of Wensleydale, possesses this imposing stone house. It overlooks the open space by the church, where bull-fights took place in the early part of last century. The ring is still to be seen in the patch of grass, and the wooden balcony between the projecting bays of the house was a favourite position for watching the contests.

that there is an open view on that side, made interesting by the Perpendicular church. The simple square tower and the unbroken roof-lines are battlemented, like so many of the churches of the dales; inside we find Norman pillars that are quite in strange company, if it is true that they were brought from the site of Fors Abbey, a little to the west of the town. The greater part of the church dates from 1466, and shortly after this reconstruction of the thirteenth-century building a chantry in the south aisle, dedicated to St. Anne, was founded by one of the Metcalfes of Nappa Hall, which we shall pass on our way to Aysgarth.

Wensleydale generally used to be famed for its hand-knitting, but I think Askrigg must have turned out more work than any place in the valley, for the men as well as the womenfolk were equally skilled in this employment, and Mr. Whaley says they did their work in the open air ‘while gossiping with their neighbours.’ This statement is, nevertheless, exceeded by what appears in a volume entitled ‘The Costume of Yorkshire.’ In that work of 1814, which contains a number of George Walker’s quaint drawings, reproduced by lithography, we find a picture having a strong suggestion of Askrigg in which there is a group of old and young of both sexes seated on the steps of the market-cross, all knitting, and a little way off a shepherd is seen driving some sheep through a gate, and he also is knitting. The letterpress describes how a woman named Slinger, who lived in Cotterdale, used to walk to and from Hawes Market with her goods on her head, knitting steadily all the way. Knitting-machines have long since killed this industry, but Askrigg has somehow survived the loss. Grandfather-clocks are still made in the little town, as they have been for a great number of years. We have already noticed an old Askrigg clock at Muker, and if we keep our eyes open we shall come across others, as well as examples from Leyburn, Middleham, and other places in the dale that possessed a clock-maker.

It is interesting to those who wish to get a correct idea of a place before visiting it to know that they may easily be led astray by even the best guides. When we read in Murray that Askrigg is a ‘dull little town of gray houses,’ we are at once predisposed against the place, although we might know that all the houses in the dales are gray. No suggestion is given of the splendid situation, and one might imagine that all the houses, with the exception of the one near the church, are featureless and quite uninteresting. This, of course, would be a total misapprehension, for many of the buildings are old, with quaint doorways and steps, and there are mossy roofs that add colour to the stone, which is often splashed with orange and pale emerald lichen. In writing of Hawes, on the other hand, Murray omits to mention the lack of picturesqueness in its really dull street, merely saying that ‘the town itself is growing and improving.’ Not content, however, with this approval of the place, the guide goes still further astray by stating that the dale in the neighbourhood of Hawes ‘is broad and open, and not very picturesque’! I cannot help exclaiming at such a statement, although I may be told that all this is a mere matter of individual opinion, for is not Wensleydale broad and open from end to end, and is not Hawes situated in the midst of some of the wildest and noblest fells in Yorkshire? It is true that the town lies on the level ground by the river, and thus the views from it do not form themselves into such natural pictures as they do at Askrigg, but I am inclined to blame the town rather than the scenery.

From Askrigg there is a road that climbs up from the end of the little street at a gradient that looks like 1 in 4, but it is really less formidable. Considering its steepness the surface is quite good, but that is due to the industry of a certain roadmender with whom I once had the privilege to talk when, hot and breathless, I paused to enjoy the great expanse that lay to the south. He was a fine Saxon type, with a sunburnt face and equally brown arms. Road-making had been his ideal when he was a mere boy, and since he had obtained his desire he told me that he couldn’t be happier if he were the King of England. And his contentment seemed to me to be based largely upon his intense pleasure in bringing the roads to as great a perfection as his careful and thinking labour could compass. He did not approve of steamrollers, for his experience had taught him that if the stones were broken small enough they bound together quickly enough. Besides this, he disapproved of a great camber or curve on the road which induces the traffic to keep in the middle, leaving a mass of loose stones on either side. The result of his work may be seen on the highway from Askrigg to Bainbridge, where a conspicuous smoothness has come to a road that was recently one of the most indifferent in the district. Perhaps he may eventually be given the maintenance of the way over the Buttertubs Pass; and if he ever induces that road to become a little more civilized, this enthusiastic workman will gain the appreciation of the whole neighbourhood. The road where we leave him, breaking every large stone he can find, goes on across a belt of brown moor, and then drops down between gaunt scars that only just leave space for the winding track to pass through. It afterwards descends rapidly by the side of a gill, and thus enters Swaledale.

There is a beautiful walk from Askrigg to Mill Gill Force. The distance is scarcely more than half a mile across sloping pastures and through the curious stiles that appear in the stone walls. So dense is the growth of trees in the little ravine that one hears the sound of the waters close at hand without seeing anything but the profusion of foliage overhanging and growing among the rocks. After climbing down among the moist ferns and moss-grown stones, the gushing cascades appear suddenly set in a frame of such lavish beauty that they hold a high place among their rivals in the dale, and the particular charms of this spot are hardly surpassed by any others in the whole county. Higher up there is Whitfield Force, which has a fall of nearly 50 feet. Its setting, too, among great rock walls and an ancient forest growth, is most fascinating, especially when one finds that very few go beyond the greater falls below.

Keeping to the north side of the river, we come to Nappa Hall at a distance of a little over a mile to the east of Askrigg. It is now a farmhouse, but its two battlemented towers proclaim its former importance as the chief seat of the family of Metcalfe. The date of the house is about 1459, and the walls of the western tower are 4 feet in thickness. The Nappa lands came to James Metcalfe from Sir Richard Scrope of Bolton Castle shortly after his return to England from the field of Agincourt, and it was probably this James Metcalfe who built the existing house. We are told something about the matter by Leland, who says: ‘Knappey in Yorkshire, now the chifest House of the Metecalfes, was boute by one Thomas Metcalfe, Sunne to James Metecalfe, of one of the Lordes Scropes of Bolton.’ He also says that ‘on it was but a Cotage or litle better House, ontille this Thomas began ther to build, in the which Building 2 Toures be very fair, beside other Logginges.’ Mr. Speight thinks that Leland made some mistake as to the Metcalfe who purchased the estate, and also as to the builder of the house; and in his account of Nappa the author of ‘Romantic Richmondshire’ has, with the aid of the Metcalfe Records, been able to correct several inaccuracies which have been written about this distinguished and numerous family.

Until the year 1880 there was still kept at Nappa Hall a fine old four-post bedstead, which was, according to tradition, the one slept in by Mary Queen of Scots when she is said to have stayed in the house. Nothing exists, however, to give the slightest colour to this story, but the bed, now somewhat altered, is still in existence at Newby Hall, near Ripon.