A Yorkshire lass

'I still don't know why, exactly, but I do feel that people can have a spiritual connection to landscape.' Hannah Kent

Thus ends my holiday - back to the city - and I leave the landscape that I have grown to love and feel as 'home' even though it isn't where I was raised. I guess I've lived in Yorkshire long enough now (45 years) to feel like I belong and to claim it as mine. (Some would say you can only claim it if you were born here... but then, I never actually wanted to play cricket for Yorkshire... ha!) I do love the open spaces, the wide valleys and the heather moors, the drystone walls and the limestone pavements, the trees, the barns and the stone cottages. Thankfully this view (looking down into Littondale and the village of Arncliffe) and others like it are only an hour or so's drive away from my home in Saltaire. So I shall soon return.

Of course, it's actually a few weeks now since I got back from the Dales and autumn is well and truly here now - fiery colours this year but some wind and rain coming in now too. I have been out and about trying to find some good seasonal photos, so watch this space....

Dales diary

Most of the buildings in Halton Gill are very old. I saw stones showing dates in the 1600s and 1700s on several buildings. It seems a tight-knit community and very few of the properties appear to have changed hands within the last 20 years. People must like living there, even though (or perhaps because) it is quite remote. It's 10 miles to Settle, the nearest market town, over a narrow moorland road with some of the most spectacular scenery in Yorkshire.

This used to be the church and is now converted into a residence. I've found an interesting biography concerning John Augustus Grisedale, born here in 1868, the son of a minister of this church. His father died suddenly in 1881 and by 1884/5 young 'Gus', aged only 16 or 17, set off alone to seek his fortune in America.

Geese make effective guards for the family's washing!

Halton Gill

This picture perhaps gives an idea of how remote some of the Dales communities are. This is the hamlet of Halton Gill, a tight little cluster of old stone buildings near the head of Littondale, facing out towards Fountains Fell and the peak of Pen-y-Ghent. I can find very little about it online, though it must have a fascinating history. I have no idea whether the hamlet grew up because of farming or because of some long-gone industry. It seems to have had its 15 minutes of fame in the Sainsbury's 2010 Christmas advert, filmed here! (Click here to see it.)

Littondale

These Dales landscapes always thrill me....

Fresh air and space

There is little better for a townie like me than getting out into the fresh air and enjoying all the wide open space of the Yorkshire Dales. Littondale feels particularly spacious. It's a broad-bottomed valley carved out by glaciers. It has a small river, the Skirfare, running through it but despite the fact that we have had a wet winter, there was no running water in much of the main riverbed. I can only think that the water runs underground, as the rock is limestone and very porous.  The stream you see here is a small tributary running off the valley sides through the meadows.

I saw plenty of sheep and spring lambs and a few cattle of an unusual type, black with a broad white band round their middle (Dutch Belted?). There were are also a good few birds about - lapwings tumbling through the air, a couple of oystercatchers in the meadows (not many oysters hereabouts for them!). I also saw a curlew, as well as the commoner species of country birds: crows, rooks, blackbirds, gulls, magpies, jackdaws, robins, great tits, blue tits and several magnificent pheasants, their plumage stunning at this time of year. I might have seen more, but I don't carry binoculars as well as my camera.

Rest awhile

What a lovely place to sit and eat my packed lunch... (and later I retired to the pub in Arncliffe, where they still serve ale out of jugs.) Someone has thoughtfully placed a memorial bench in the churchyard, overlooking the River Skirfare and the bridge. It was so peaceful, enjoying the spring yellow of the daffodils and the celandines and watching little birds busily collecting nesting material. Some of the gravestones are covered in thick lichen but many are still readable. I was touched by those you see nestled together on the left of the photo. One is the grave of a three-year-old boy who died in 1936. Almost touching it is another stone, that of his mother Jane who died in 1996 aged 81. Her husband, John, and possibly another son and daughter, who both died in their 40s/50s, are buried a few yards away. Jane appears to have outlived them all.

St Oswald's Church, Arncliffe

St Oswald's church, a Grade II listed building, is attractively situated on the bank of the River Skirfare on the edge of Arncliffe village.  There has been a church here since the early 12th century but the existing building was largely rebuilt in the 19th century, although the tower dates back to the 15th century.  Built of local limestone, it almost appears to have grown out of the earth, so well does it fit the character of the surrounding limestone dale.

I stood on the bridge over the river for quite a long time, watching pied and grey wagtails busily flitting over the rocks, hunting for insects and bobbing their long tails in their distinctive way.

Arncliffe

Prettily planted with daffodils, Arncliffe is a typical Dales village, with stone houses clustered around a village green.  If it looks vaguely familiar to some, it may be because it found fame as the original setting for the TV soap 'Emmerdale Farm'. Now just called 'Emmerdale', these days the series is filmed on a purpose-built set on the Harewood House estate. I imagine Arncliffe's residents are quite glad about that!

Another photo walk?

The bliss of the long Easter weekend was made even more blissful by some fabulous spring sunshine, though it is still rather chilly. So... chores forgotten, do you fancy another country walk?  We'll go to a place I have long had on my 'must visit' list - Arncliffe. It's not that far - about 30 miles (50 km) and very near to some of the places I have visited quite often - Kettlewell and Kilnsey.  But, in common with most visitors to the Yorkshire Dales, I have always followed the road up Wharfedale and I have never branched off into Littondale. The smaller Dales are for the most part just as attractive as the better-known areas and have the advantage of fewer visitors. Though there were quite a lot of cyclists and walkers, there tend to be fewer cars. Just as well, as many roads are single-track with passing places.

I certainly felt welcomed when I arrived!