Climbing in The British Isles. Vol. 1 - England

by W. P. Haskett Smith

There is a fine rocky walk along the S. ridge, called Shelter Crags and Crinkle Crags, which descends towards the head of Dunnerdale, but it is extremely unfrequented.

Bram Crag and Wanthwaite Crag flank the coach road between Threlkeld and Grasmere on the east. The best part is rather more than two miles south of Threlkeld station. The climbing is somewhat similar to that about Swarthbeck on Ullswater, but on better and sounder rock, and there is more of it. A good day's work will be found among these crags, and a fine specimen of a 'sledgate' is deserving of notice.

Brandreth is between Borrowdale and the head of Ennerdale. The name, which occurs elsewhere in the neighbourhood, denotes a tripod (literally a 'grate,' usually made with three legs). The meeting-point of three boundaries of counties, parishes, &c. is often so named. Brandreth has only one short bit of bold rock—one of the many Raven Crags. It is hardly worth a special journey, but may very easily be taken by any one who attacks Great Gable from Borrowdale.

Brimham Rocks, in Yorkshire, are very easily visited from Harrogate or from Pateley Bridge. From the latter they are only four miles to the eastward. The station for those who come from Harrogate is Dacre Banks, from which the Rocks may be reached in an hour's walking. They are of millstone grit and well deserve a visit, for nowhere are the grotesque forms which that material delights to assume more remarkable. Some resemble the sandstone forms common about Tunbridge Wells, and many might very well stand for Dartmoor Tors; but others at first sight seem so evidently and unmistakably to suggest human handiwork that one can feel no surprise at the common notion that they were fashioned by the ingenuity of the Druids. Several of them, though very small, can only be climbed with considerable difficulty.

Broad Stand—a term commonly but, in my opinion, incorrectly used to denote a particular route by which the crags of Scafell may be ascended direct from Mickledoor. There are numerous other places within a few miles of this into the names of which this word 'stand' enters, and a consideration of them leads me to the belief that it signifies 'a large grassy plot of ground awkward of access.' This is exactly what we find here. A break in the cliffs produces a large open space which is the key to the ascent by the Mickledoor Chimney, to that by the North Climb, and to that which, being the oldest, easiest, and most frequented, has arrogated to itself as distinctive the name of a feature which it should only share with the other two. Really all three routes are merely different ways of reaching the Broad Stand.

One of the earliest recorded ascents is that of Mr. C.A.O. Baumgartner in September 1850, an account of which was sent by one of the people of the dale to the local paper in these terms: 'The Broad Stand, a rocky and dangerous precipice, situated between Scaw Fell and the Pikes, an ascent which is perhaps more difficult than even that of the Pillar Stone.' The late Professor Tyndall climbed it in 1859, and described it in the Saturday Review of that year. It evidently had a great reputation then, which was not, in his opinion, entirely deserved. It seems to have been known in 1837 (see the Penny Magazine) to the shepherds; and even in Green's time, at the beginning of the century, one or two daring spirits had accomplished the feat.

Buckbarrow (C. sh. 79).—Broadcrag (more north-east) is really part of it, and about 400 ft. high. Buckbarrow rises near the foot of Wastwater, opposite the best part of the Screes. When approached from the head of the lake it appears as two huge rocky steps; but, as in the case of Eagle Crag in Greenup, the steps are not really in the same plane. Seen from the slopes of Lingmell, it forms the boundary between the mountains and the plain, to which it sinks in one very graceful concave curve. It is not lofty—there are perhaps some 400 ft. of rock—but by the shepherds it is reputed inaccessible. This is only true in the sense that there are stiff bits on it which have to be evaded. It is haunted by both the fox and the buzzard—connoisseurs on whose taste in rocks the climber can generally rely. There is also climbing in the whole line of rock (Broad Crag) which stretches away towards Greendale. Since 1884, when the writer first became acquainted with it, Buckbarrow has become rather popular, considering its remoteness from Wastdale Head.—At Christmas 1891 a strong party, led by Messrs. Robinson, Hastings, and Collie, ascended it 'from the fox's earth to the hawk's nest,' and on April 15, 1892, a party containing several of the same members climbed 'the first main gully on this [the north] side. There are two short chimneys at the end of this little gill—one in each corner, about ten to twelve yards apart.' The left one, up which Mr. Brunskill led, was considered the harder. Afterwards Dr. Collie led two of the party up the face of the cliff to the right of the next gully on the west, which is marked by a pitch of about fifty feet low down. To a house near the foot of Buckbarrow old Will Ritson and his wife retired, after giving up the inn which they had kept for so many years and made so famous at Wastdale Head.

Buresdale, the proper name of the valley between Thirlmere and Threlkeld. Hutchinson, for instance, says: 'At the foot of Wythburn is Brackmere [i.e. Thirlmere], a lake one mile in length ... from the N. end of this mere issues the river Bure, which falls into Derwent below Keswick.' He also mentions Buresdale in connection with Layswater, yet another equivalent for Thirlmere. Guidebook writers seem to have conspired together to obliterate this name from the map, and to substitute for it the name Vale of St. John, which Sir Walter Scott made famous. To revive the name of the river would be an act of only posthumous justice, now that the Manchester waterworks have taken away all its water; but the valley is still there, and ought to be called by its genuine old name, which is of Scandinavian origin; compare with it the Bure river in Norfolk, and fishermen will recall similar names in Norway.