Wensleydale walls

The Yorkshire Dales are famed for their drystone walls. We spent some time on the photography workshop trying out different compositions at a spot in Wensleydale where the walls followed the curving slopes of the terrain. It was very pretty with all the buttercups and cow parsley in bloom.

Some of the walls are obviously functional, whereas others leave you wondering... In fact, one of them seemed to form its own question mark. Often you marvel that anyone could be bothered to build a wall in such a spot. Some of them are so high up on the hillsides and built on precipitous slopes, though these particular meadows near the bottom of the valley were quite gently rolling.

That chicken question...

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To join in our photography workshop, of course. We were having such a good time.

Hawes

I met Lizzie Shepherd and the other workshop participants in Hawes, and took the opportunity to have a little wander around the town. Hawes sits at the head of Wensleydale, beside the River Ure. Though fairly remote, it is a tourist hotspot and an important town for the local communities. It has a market and a livestock auction. The largest business is the Wensleydale Creamery, which produces the renowned Wensleydale cheese and has an interesting visitor centre. Hawes' petrol station was, apparently, reopened by the community in 2017, in order to save them a 36 mile round trip to the next refuelling stop! 

The parish church of St Margaret sits above the town centre. Many of the graves date back to the 1800s.

The market is colourful and busy. I imagine it is quite necessary in a town sited so far from major supermarkets and with few 'ordinary' local shops. Many of the shops are aimed at tourists and visitors: antique centres, art and craft galleries, gift shops and suppliers of walking and country clothes and accessories. (The Pennine Way long distance footpath passes through the town.) There are lots of nice cafés and pubs too.

The River Ure is the main river in Wensleydale. Strangely, unlike all the other Yorkshire Dales, the valley isn't named after its river but after the village of Wensley. It was once, however, known as Yoredale. The Ure flows just north of Hawes and the stream cascading down through the town is Gayle Beck.

Masham's church

The Anglican parish church in Masham, St Mary the Virgin, has a tower that dates back to the 12th century (Norman, 1100s) though the rest of the church has been altered many times since then. The spire was rebuilt in 1856. It is very light and bright inside, partly owing to the white painted ceiling that reflects light from the clerestory (upper) windows. It also, unusually perhaps, has some paintings hanging in the nave, a Nativity by Sir Joshua Reynolds above the chancel arch and another of the Virgin Mary, though I don't know who the artist of that is or how old it is. It looks quite modern so perhaps it was commissioned to mark the Millennium. Certainly one of the stained glass windows is a Millennium project, by glass artist Glenn Carter, depicting the scenery, flora and fauna of the area. (If you look carefully you can see a sheep and a shepherd's crook.)

The church sits just off one corner of Masham's market square and its large churchyard provides a peaceful oasis, almost like a park in the middle of town.

Cute canines

It was interesting that the recent Kilnsey Show didn't permit dogs on the showground. There was no such restriction at Masham Sheep fair and there were plenty of dogs, of all shapes, sizes and breeds. Most looked as though they'd rather be somewhere else right this minute...  A dog in want of a scent trail to follow is a sad dog.  

There was a working dogs display, with two lovely border collies herding geese. I wasn't standing in a very good position to take photos of it but it was quite funny. You have to marvel at the skills and intuitive sense of these dogs.

Those Morris dancers again

It's always nice to see a Morris dance team adding some colour and music to the festivities. These were the oddly named 'Bunnies from Hell', dancing in Masham. They seemed not quite as traditional as some Morris sides, but energetic and entertaining nonetheless. And they had very good musicians.

All things woolly

From this ⬆️  to this ⬇️ ... 

Yorkshire has a centuries' long tradition of sheep farming - and with it, of course, a long tradition of spinning and weaving, originally as a home-based industry and then, after the Industrial Revolution, in the mills that sprang up all over the area. Thankfully the skills of the homeworkers never quite died out and there are guilds dedicated to supporting those who still practise the crafts of spinning, weaving and knitting. 

At Masham Sheep Fair, dedicated to all things woolly, you could buy full fleeces as they come, straight off the sheep, and you could also buy skeins of wool, handspun and hand dyed. 

In the village hall, there was a wool craft fair. Ladies were demonstrating spinning and weaving and there were some beautiful products to buy, including sweaters, scarves, throws, socks and a good selection of knitted soft toys.  

The sheep races

Among the events at Masham Sheep Fair are the sheep races. Four sheep are enticed along a run, with the promise of some food. They all have ribbons and there is a sweepstake, betting on which sheep will reach the food trough first. It's a light-hearted way of raising money for charity.

However, there has been a petition raised by animal rights activists (who have probably never even seen the 'races') to have them banned as being cruel. To be honest, the sheep didn't look in the least uncomfortable or frightened to me. The crowd weren't roaring noisily and the animals were just running after the food, which I have often seen them do in the fields when the farmer arrives with the buckets. 'They don't know they're racing. They aren't actually racing. They're just trotting for some food.' It's hardly bull-running, as the local paper pointed out. They don't get stabbed at the end!

Masham Sheep Fair

The small market town of Masham, in Wensleydale, has for the past 30 years held an annual sheep fair in the market square. The fair commemorates the sheep sales that used to be held here, which thrived because of the town's proximity to Jervaulx and Fountains Abbey, with their large flocks of sheep. The fair raises a lot of money for charity. This year, the beneficiary will be the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

I love the bustle of these kind of events and Masham is a lovely setting, its square lined with fine Georgian buildings.

Incidentally, the judge in the photo below (in the pale green jacket) is Sir Gary Verity. He is a sheep farmer but perhaps is more famous for being the Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, the county's official tourism agency. He was responsible for bringing the Grand Départ of the Tour de France to the county in 2014, and since then for inaugurating the Tour de Yorkshire cycle race.

Gayle Mill

Another tick off my bucket list... Gayle Mill, near Hawes in Wensleydale, has been somewhere I've wanted to visit since it was featured some years ago on a C4 TV programme called 'Restoration'. The programme asked viewers to vote for a heritage restoration project, which would win a grant for its completion. Gayle Mill came in the top three in the national finals and though it didn't win (despite my vote), it attracted sufficient interest for the restoration to be completed.

It is a Georgian mill, originally built about 1784 as a water-powered cotton mill (strangely, as this is the heart of sheep country!). It was turned over to flax and later wool spinning, before becoming domestic accommodation in the 19th century. (There are intriguing remnants of Victorian wallpaper.) Around 1879 it was turned into a sawmill, the waterwheel being removed and replaced by a water-powered turbine that drives various woodworking machines (sawbench, circular saw, planes and lathes) by a series of belts and pulleys from a central lineshaft, as well as generating some electricity to light the mill and some nearby houses. The sawmill closed in 1988 and the building looked set to be converted to apartments. However, the North East Civic Trust oversaw the restoration and the mill is now managed by a trust and used as a working mill, museum and workshop for a variety of heritage skills training courses.

It was fascinating to look round. The volunteer who guided the tour was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic. He explained and demonstrated how the turbine worked, fed from the river via a sluice and down the mill race, seen in my top photo. When the river level is low, there is a mill dam higher up the hill that can feed water to the mill. He showed us these amazing cartwheels (below), explaining how they are made from three different types of wood that have different strengths and flexibility. The iron rim is made smaller than the wheel, heated in a fire and, when expanded, slotted round the rim. As it cools, it shrinks and pulls the wood tight on the spokes. This is a very skilled process. Like many of these country crafts, the skills are dying out and places like Gayle Mill are fighting to keep them alive.

Chocolate!

Also, and perhaps of more interest to this particular 'tourist', I visited Leyburn's chocolate maker: The Little Chocolate Shop. It's not very romantically situated, being on a small business park, but once inside you can watch the chocolate being made by hand - and then buy in the shop, of course.  There are three machines constantly circulating the liquid chocolate (dark, milk and white - shown here). The young man was creating some chocolate sheep (what else, in Wensleydale?!) The factory area is in a kind of central glass cube so it is easy to see what is going on (but limited sight-lines and lots of reflections from the glass make taking photos a challenge).

The Tea Pottery

There's always one, isn't there.....?

Back to the holidays: I visited a pottery in the town of Leyburn in Wensleydale - the Tea Pottery, to be precise. They make... you guessed... tea pots, in every shape imaginable. In theory they are useable for the nation's favourite brew but I imagine most are bought as decorative items by collectors.

My daughter has an Aga cooker in her new home, green, just like the teapot below (apart from the handle of course, haha.) She abhors kitsch though so I wasn't tempted to get her a gift.

Estate houses

The village of Wensley, which gives its name to the dale, must have been more important in the past. Nowadays it is a quiet and unremarkable place. Until the 16th century it had a market, always a sign of significance since market charters were granted by the King. In 1653, however, it seems the village was devastated by the plague and the surviving villagers fled, so that it took nearly a century to recover. There is a private driveway out from the village across a beautifully landscaped estate, which I believe leads to Bolton Hall, a mansion built in 1678 and then rebuilt in 1902 after a fire. It is still lived in by Lord Bolton's family. They also own nearby Bolton Castle, which is open to the public. Some of the houses in the village are clearly 'estate houses' built for the estate's staff.

My paternal grandfather worked for the Duke of Portland on his Welbeck estate in Nottinghamshire so I grew up around 'estate houses' and can recognise their distinctiveness, even though they tend to have regional styles.

[Interestingly - and completely off topic! - the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a guest of the Duke of Portland at Welbeck in 1913, almost a year prior to his assassination that precipitated WWI. He was almost killed at Welbeck in a hunting accident when a loader's gun accidentally fired - an accident that could have changed the course of history but, sadly, did not.]

Cottage garden

I loved everything about this quintessential cottage garden in front of a house in the village of Wensley. There are so many plants and colours crammed into the small space. Sweet peas entwined through the fence, delphiniums adding a touch of their distinctive blue and pretty hanging baskets too.

Treasure within

Holy Trinity Church, Wensley is a veritable treasure trove of interesting features inside. The octagonal font is dated 1662 and has an attractive, carved pineapple finial. (Pineapples are a symbol of welcome.)

In the chancel is a pretty three-bay arcade dating to the early 14th century (1300s).

The choir stalls have some lovely carved pew ends, dated 1527. I rather liked this dog with its bone.

As in many of our English churches, the stained glass is beautiful. This one is 'The Light of the World', reminiscent of the famous Holman Hunt painting and so I assume the window glass is Victorian.

There was some wonderful and vibrant tapestry work in the kneelers.

The nave has some box pews and holds the Scrope family pew, set high up over the rest of the congregation. It is comfortable with cushions and curtains, either so that the aristocrats need not see or be seen by the riff-raff or perhaps so they could snooze during long sermons, who knows? The Scropes were the Lords of Bolton and resided nearby in Bolton Castle (which is still owned by the family) - where Mary, Queen of Scots was housed for six months after she fled Scotland. The pew still holds prayer books and hymnals inscribed 'Lord Bolton'.

Holy Trinity Church, Wensley

The church in the village of Wensley in the Yorkshire Dales, built on the site of an 8th century Saxon church, dates back to the mid-13th century and is a Grade I listed building. The tower was added in 1719. It is a 'redundant Anglican church', rarely now used as a place of worship. Instead it is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, a charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk.

Wensleydale flora

A selection of plants found in Wensley:
a teasel seed head, some variation of a convolvulus and a cranesbill of some kind. I don't think any of these were 'wild' flowers as they were growing in a little cultivated garden in the village, set aside for quiet contemplation.

Candle rainbows

I just love this photo. The dipped candles seem to be made in every colour under the sun and many with lovely patterns and markings too. As well as the dipped candles they make chunky pillar candles, scented ones, marbled ones and cast ones - cupcakes, sheep, toadstools - you name it! A feast for the senses.

I have pretty much given up burning candles at home on account of the damage the smoke causes, over time, to the decor. White Rose Candles say theirs are such high quality they don't smoke... so I was tempted but not entirely convinced.

The candlemaker

The candlemaker, White Rose Candles, has been in the old watermill in Wensley since 1978. It's a family-run business, producing high-quality beeswax and paraffin wax candles using a mixture of traditional and modern dipping and casting techniques. Some of the equipment, like the dipping machine above, was designed and made by Mick White (shown) and verges on the eccentric, the pulley mechanism apparently made out of bicycle wheels. The whole place seemed like a glorious muddle to the untrained eye. It obviously works though, producing some exquisite and colourful candles - from church candles to cupcakes! - available to buy in the shop and online.

Workshop in the woods

Wensleydale is the next of the Yorkshire Dales north from Wharfedale, a scenic drive over the fells and into a valley with a very different character.  It is unusual in that the dale doesn't take its name from the river flowing through it, which is the River Ure. Nor is it named after one of its principal towns, which are Hawes and Leyburn. There is a small, quiet village called Wensley though and I visited to see its church and its candlemaker. The candlemaker's workshop and gallery is situated in an old watermill, along a woodland path. Behind it there's a waterfall, making the whole area scenic and worth a visit.