A Month in Yorkshire

by Walter White

A little farther and the rocks form a dam, leaving but a narrow opening in the centre, across which a man may stride, for the passage of the stream—and we behold the Strid. Piling itself up against the barrier, the water rushes through, deep, swift and ungovernable, and boils and eddies below with never-ceasing tumult. The rock on each side of the sluice is worn smooth by the feet of many who have stridden across, caring nothing for the tales that are told of terrible accidents from a slip of the foot or from giddiness. Once a young lady, fascinated by the rapid current, fell in and was drowned in sight of her friends. And

“——mounting high
To days of dim antiquity;
When Lady Aaliza mourned
Her son, and felt in her despair
The pang of unavailing prayer;
Her son in Wharfe’s abysses drowned,
The noble Boy of Egremound.
From which affliction—when the grace
Of God had in her heart found place—
A pious structure, fair to see,
Rose up, the stately Priory!”

For about a mile upwards the river-bed is still rocky, and you see many a pretty effect of rushing water, and perhaps half a dozen strids, but not one with only a single sluice, as the first. No one stopped or turned me back; no peremptory shout threatened me from afar; and truly the river is so shut in by woods, that intruders could only be seen by an eye somewhere on its brink. Not a soul did I meet, except three countrymen, who, when I came suddenly upon them on doubling a crag, seemed ready to take to flight, for instead of coming the beaten way to view the romantic, they had got over the fence, and scrambled down through the wood. They soon perceived that I was very harmless.

A little farther and we leave the rocks; the woods recede and give place to broad grassy slopes; high up on the right stands the keeper’s house; higher on the left the old square block of Barden Tower peeps above the trees; before us a bridge spans the river, and there we pass into the road which leads through the village of Barden to Pateley Bridge and Nidderdale.

The Wharfe has its source in the bleak moorlands which we saw flanking Cam Fell during our descent from Counterside a few days ago. Rocks and cliffs of various formations beset all its upper course, imparting a different character to the dale every few leagues—savage, romantic, picturesque, and beautiful. No more beautiful scenery is to be found along the river than for some miles above and below Bolton Abbey. Five miles farther down, the stream flows past those two delightful inland watering-places, Ilkley and Ben Rhydding, and onwards between thick woods and broad meadows to Wetherby, below which it is again narrowed by cliffs, until leaving Tadcaster, rich in memories of Rome, it enters the Ouse between Selby and York.

The sight of Barden Tower reminds us once more of the Shepherd Lord, for there he oft did sojourn, enjoying rural scenes and philosophical studies, even after his restoration to rank and estate in his thirty-second year.

“I wish I could have heard thy long-tried lore,
Thou virtuous Lord of Skipton! Thou couldst well
From sage Experience, that best teacher, tell
How far within the Shepherd’s humble door
Lives the sure happiness, that on the floor
Of gay Baronial Halls disdains to dwell,
Though decked with many a feast, and many a spell
Of gorgeous rhyme, and echoing with the roar
Of Pleasure, clamorous round the full-crowned bowl!
Thou hadst (and who had doubted thee?) exprest
What empty baubles are the ermined stole,
Proud coronet, rich walls with tapestry drest,
And music lulling the sick frame to rest!
Bliss only haunts the pure contented soul!”

But the blood of his ancestors flowed in his veins, and on the royal summons to arm and array for Flodden, he, at the age of sixty, led his retainers to the field:

“From Penigent to Pendle Hill,
From Linton to Long Addingham,
And all that Craven coasts did till,
They with the lusty Clifford came.”

I crossed the bridge and went up the hill for a view of the ruin. At the top, a broken slope, sprinkled with trees, serves as village green to the few houses which constitute the place known as Barden Tower. Near one of these houses I saw a pretty sight—a youth sitting on a bench under a shady tree reading to his old grandfather from one of those venerable folios written by divines whose head and heart were alike full of their subject—the ways of God towards man, and man’s duty. Wishing to make an inquiry concerning the road, I apologized for my interruption, when both graybeard and lad made room for me between them on the bench, and proffered all they knew of information. But it soon appeared that the particulars I wanted could only be furnished by “uncle, who was up-stairs a-cleaning himself;” so to improve the time until he was ready I passed round the end of the house to the Tower in the rear. The old gateway remains, and some of the ancient timbers; but the upper chambers are now used as lofts for firewood, and the ground-floor is a cow-stall. The external walls are comparatively but little decayed, and appear in places as strong as when they sheltered the Cliffords.