Ribblesdale And Ingleborough

A farmer and dog appeared from nowhere and More snow to come! cried he

. . .. A minute later they had returned into nothing. The stony way descended, a gleam of sun and Ribblesdale was revealed, Moughton snowy powdered, Ingleborough hoary headed. Penyghent appeared, looming on my left a frowning and sinister shape Horton was there at its feet, but three miles away Journey's End.

To Malham by Hunter Bark, Stockdale and the Cove; a mere hop, skip and jump when there is a whole day for it and a strong cold wind to hurry one along.

There is a frolic wind this morning, but it does not breathe the spring. Back we are in winter. It is true the sun shines, but it has no warmth in it. Climbing from Long Preston along the old road to Settle one of the most fascinating Craven tracks (known during the course of history as the Roman Queen Street, the York Gate and the Craven Old Way)we are soon over a thousand feet above sea level. Then we are on Hunter Bark ( bark having nothing to do with dogs at all). There are barks at Stainforth and up at Halton Gill berghs and barghs which are derived from the Scandinavian beorg meaning mound or mountain.

From Hunter Bark the landscape unfolds delightfully, even more beautifully now when the land glitters with rime. Ribblesdale is westwards and the dark hills of Bowland Forest beyond; ahead, with our track reaching out to it like a living thing, lie the rocks of the southernmost Craven Fault. These cliffs of Attermire are a proud sight; they rise suddenly in breathtaking beauty, a shining wall springing from the brown and green wastes. A young friend he was only twelve ran ahead of us once as we walked this same track, anxious to see the other side. We saw him silhouetted against a shining cloud. He shouted back, thrilled with what he saw Temples in Egypt, he cried. When a dark cloud passed over, the heights were shadowed. Then came one shaft of light from the cloud to pick out a tree filled glen to the east. Scaleber and the force were there. Down we went.

The gill was icebound; icicles hung from the ledges below the falls and boulders were armourplated. No sign of spring here; only the first larches hinted green, all else was mid winter.

It is possible to follow the beck above the force to the pastures of Stockdale farm. No one abroad today; the place seemed dead. Maybe the family were down in Settle; it is market day. The rooks set up a clamour from the rocks above the track, a strident rusty cawing; maybe they objected in the same way when the men of the Stone Age hunted among the rocks and the Roman soldiers ramped by.

Our route from Scaleber to Malham is my favourite approach to upper Airedale. From Stockdale we followed the line of a minor Roman road which was used during the Roman occupation by soldiers who camped at Scaleber. The site is marked today by grass grown banks; near by is a paved dew pond. The road is walled as far as the farm in Stockdale, after which it climbs, sometimes on steps of bedrock, sometimes skirting boggy places until it flattens out on the heights.

by: Adrian Vultur

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