Kendal, the county town of Westmoreland, is only seven or eight miles from Windermere. Once a manufacturing center of importance, famous for its woolens and “Kendal Green,” it has been gradually transformed into a quiet, unprogressive market town. The King’s Arms Hotel is one of the most typical and interesting of the old-time buildings. It abounds in narrow hallways, odd corners, beamed ceilings and paneled rooms, all behind a very common and unpretentious exterior. We have noted many narrow alleys leading into the main street and some of these still have heavy gates at the entrance. We are told that Kendal suffered from frequent incursions of the Scots during the almost endless years of border strife, and these alleys afforded quick refuge for the citizens of the town. The gates were closed and the marauders thus confined to the main street, where they became easy targets for the men behind the barriers. But no such exciting incident breaks the sleepy quiet of Kendal today, though the scene before us is not without animation. It is market day and the streets are thronged with farmers from the prosperous valley in which the town is situated. Cattle, sheep and produce seem to be the chief topics of conversation so far as we can gather from snatches of the broad North Country dialect of the men about the town.
Our stay at Kendal is a short one—we are soon away for the
“Yorkshire Dales,
Among the rocks and winding scars,
Where deep and low the hamlets lie
Beneath their little patch of sky
And little lot of stars.”
So Wordsworth describes the narrow green valleys running between the long ridges of moorland hills and opening into the wide fertile plain in the center of which stands the city of York.
We drop southward for some little distance and then turn to the east, through the very heart of the hills. Just before we come to Settle, our attention is attracted by a group of people looking curiously into a stone trough by the wayside. There are expressions of disappointment—“It’s not working today.” We are told that this is Settle’s ebbing and flowing well, famous over all Yorkshire and concerning which a learned antiquary has written a book. But the well is out of commission today—the long drouth has affected the spring until for the second time in the last twenty-five years the phenomenon has ceased. Ordinarily there is a regular ebb and flow of the waters at intervals of from five to fifteen minutes. It is known that this strange spring has been in existence for hundreds of years, but the phenomenon has never been satisfactorily explained.
A little farther we find a striking instance of how a bad name will linger long after its original significance has vanished; for Hellifield was once Hell-in-the-Field, because of its reputation for wickedness. But surely this straggling little village hardly looks its formidable cognomen today. A few miles on the Skipton road brings us in view of a strangely incongruous spectacle; on one of the rough hills an oriental temple stands with huge dome and slender minarets sharply outlined against the evening sky—a sight that almost savors of enchantment in such surroundings. But it is real enough, for an eccentric Londoner who embraced Buddhism some years ago, spent a fortune in erecting this temple on the bare northern hills.
Skipton is near the head of Airedale, but we see here no sign of the multitudinous factories that taint the skies and sully the waters farther down the Aire, which, if one were to follow it for twenty-five miles, would take him through the heart of Leeds. But Skipton is only a market town—fairly prosperous, for the narrow vale which surrounds it is famed as one of the richest pastoral bits of Yorkshire. The fading light accentuates the gray monotone of the old houses, and gives a further touch of cheerlessness to the somewhat bleak aspect of the place. The large market square is paved with cobblestones and around it in promiscuous array stand public and business buildings, among them two hotels, large but rather unprepossessing structures. A hurried glance at the interior of each confirms our first impressions and we bid Skipton a hasty farewell. We pass under the high walls of the old castle to reach the Ilkley road. The grim gateway is flanked by two huge embattled round towers and the walls are pierced by small mullioned windows. Skipton Castle was once the stronghold of the Cliffords, and some say the birthplace of Fair Rosamond, rather than the almost vanished castle on the Welsh Wye, which also claims the distinction—if indeed it be such. It is wonderfully well preserved—few other Yorkshire castles can vie with it in this particular—and stands today as sullen and proud as it must have seemed when the wars of the Roses swept over the land.
A narrow upland road bordered by stone fences and leading through bleak hills carries us over the moorland ridge that lies between Airedale and Wharfdale, and on entering the latter, the comfortable-looking Devonshire Arms stands squarely across our way. We find it a quiet, pleasant place, seemingly half inn and half home for the family of the genial landlord. It is situated near the entrance to the grounds of Bolton Abbey and its pretty gardens to the rear slope down to the rippling Wharfe. The inn is the property of the Duke of Devonshire, to whom the abbey grounds belong, and as he was averse to Sunday visitors at the abbey, the hotel is licensed as a “six-day house.” No one may be taken in and no meal served to anyone not already a guest, on Sunday. When we left the hotel we did not expect to return, and by paying our bill practically gave up our status as guests of the Devonshire Arms. But it chanced that we were back in time for lunch and a serious discussion took place between our landlord and his assistants as to whether we might be accommodated or not. It was finally decided to stretch a point in our favor and to assume that we had not severed our relations when we left in the morning.
A desire possesses us to see something of the most retired portions of the Yorkshire moors and from Skipton we start due north over the hills. We pass Rylstone, the tiny village given to fame by Wordsworth in his ballad, “The White Doe of Rylstone,” and re-enter Wharfdale at Grassington. The unbroken moors stretch northward on either side of the river—a country quite devoid of roads excepting the indifferent ones on each side of the Wharfe—to the village of Kettlewell. We follow the right-hand road, narrow, steep and winding, and altogether a severe test for a motor. Fortunately it is quite clear, for in many places vehicles could scarcely pass each other. Nothing could be harsher and bleaker than the country, even as we saw it in the prime of summer time, and the little towns seem almost a part of the country itself. It would be hard to imagine that there was ever a time when Grassington, Coniston or Kettlewell did not nestle, angular and weather-beaten, at the foot of the eternal hills, and they are as bare and as devoid of the picturesque touches of the village of southern England as the hills they lie beneath. They seem to have little excuse for existence and it is not clear to a casual visitor how the lonely moors that encircle them can afford sustenance to their inhabitants. Lead-mining once employed many people, though at present most of the mines are exhausted. Kettlewell is in the very center of the moor; no railroad comes within many miles of the town. It lies along a narrow valley—a mere cleft in the hills—that opens into Wharfdale, which itself becomes very narrow here. It is a center for those who would explore the mysteries of the surrounding moors or who desire to hunt or fish in almost primal solitude. That there are many such visitors is attested by the rather good-looking inns at Kettlewell, and altogether, the village seems less forlorn than the others we have just passed. The place is not as quiet as one would expect from its retired location; coaches are discharging their loads of trippers and evidently do a thriving business.
One might find it very interesting to continue northward to Askrigg, another old and quaint moorland town, and from this to visit Wensleydale—which we do later—but our present plans do not contemplate this. The road is a very indifferent one, though probably not much worse than that over which we came. Returning from Kettlewell we take the opposite side of the Wharfe, passing at first close to the river and then beneath gray and red cliffs that ominously overhang the road. From the hill-crests at times we have wide panoramas of the dale, with the silver ribbon of the Wharfe stealing through it. The road takes us back to the village of Grassington; from thence we follow a road whose steep hills and sharp turns engage the closest attention of the driver until we reach the Devonshire Arms, as before related.