Trip to the trig

My target in climbing up onto Baildon Moor was the trig point. I think other countries have similar things. They are triangulation stations, a tool for surveying in the days before aerial photography and electronic positioning aids (GPS) were available. There are over 5000 of them across Britain. A trig point is usually a concrete post with a metal disc in the top into which you can slot a theodolite. The trig point is at an accurately surveyed and documented position and (on a clear day and in theory at least) has at least two other trig points in view, so the whole country is divided into triangles. They are not all on hills of course. One in low-lying Cambridgeshire sits below sea level. They are mostly redundant now, except as a goal for walkers and off road cyclists to aim for. Whilst I was up there, several cyclists passed by and a few dog walkers too, everyone keeping a safe distance from each other, though the wind was enough to blow any germs away! 

The trig point, for me, was simply a little challenge to myself to find the motivation I needed for a good, bracing walk. There are of course, those who take trig-bagging more seriously. There are, apparently, 454 trig pillars in Yorkshire alone, so there are plenty to aim for. 

This point is only 282m above sea level but it still felt a long climb from the bottom of the valley in Saltaire. Exhilarating though, and the views from the smooth plateau up there are quite good. The photo above is looking back the way I came; the one below shows part of the village of Baildon on the other side of the moor.

Going up in the world

A (non-urgent) text arrived on my mobile very early one morning (do people do that to you?) and because the phone beside my bed lit up and vibrated, it woke me up. Boo! It made me a bit grumpy (that and the lockdown situation) so I decided a solitary walk was the only remedy. I walked up to Shipley Glen, where I enjoyed communing with these rather magnificent trees and the ancient rocks.
My walk continued along the heathland of the Glen and then up and up, onto Baildon Moor. It was very muddy!

The higher you go, the more glorious the views. This is looking down to Gilstead and Bingley.

The moorland looks like a fairly natural landscape but in fact it has been shaped by man for centuries. There is evidence of mining in the curious depressions called bell pits. You might take them for bomb craters but I understand they were vertical shafts dug in order to extract coal. When it became too dangerous to continue, because of the risk of collapse, the shaft was filled and another sunk further along the coal seam. The infill has settled over the years, leaving these characteristic circular depressions.You can see one in the foreground in the photo below.

Part way up the hill is the Dobrudden caravan site, enjoying the spectacular views. 

Propped up by the wall of the caravan site, there is this curious stone, with ancient 'cup and ring' markings. Sadly, the marks have now almost eroded away. You can perhaps just make out a few circular hollows. Some years ago, it looked like THIS. These are examples of Bronze Age (2000 - 800 BC) rock art and have been found all over the Baildon, Rombalds and Ilkley moors, though their purpose isn't really clear. They prove that this area was inhabited all those thousands of years ago, though no doubt it all looked a bit different then. 

Top Withins

From the Brontë Falls, if you follow the rough track that climbs the valley side, you can walk on to Top Withins, the ruined farmhouse that is reputed to have been the inspiration for the Earnshaw home in Emily Brontë's novel 'Wuthering Heights'. It is spelled 'Withins' on OS maps and most signs but seems to have become 'Withens' in popular culture. Most of the online links I found spell it that way. It is a popular literary shrine. The signposts to it are in English and Japanese!

There are plaques explaining a little of its history. The land here was farmed for at least 400 years, until the 1890s. In 1591, William Bentley divided his estate between his three sons, and that probably led to the origins of the three farms: Top, Middle and Lower Withins, all now ruined. This kind of divided inheritance was common in the area and meant that families were forced to support themselves with ever dwindling parcels of land, resulting in much poverty and distress. The land was hard to work anyway and only supported a few dairy cattle, sheep and small fields of oats. Families supplemented their income by hand loom weaving and the men worked in the many stone quarries on the moors.

The views from up here are bleakly beautiful. It's rarely warm, with keen winds sweeping across the moors. It must have been a difficult place to live, even though in those days there was a lot more activity, with people living and working on the moorland.

There are a few hamlets and villages nearby but Haworth, the nearest place of any size, is about four miles across the moor. In my photo below, it lies in the dip beyond the trees on the hill. Although the area looks rather flat in the photo, that is deceptive. This is a high moorland plateau, dissected by deep V-shaped valleys cut by small streams and sloping gradually down in the distance to the broad valley of the River Aire, which was originally gouged out by a glacier 12,000 years ago. The steep and narrow gorge where the Brontë Falls is situated is the zig-zag, bracken-filled line on the right. 

Heather

After seeing the heather in bloom at St Ives, Bingley the other day, I decided I'd take a walk on Haworth Moor, where there is more of it - or so I remembered. In fact, it seems to me to be declining even there, taken over by bracken and grasses. I don't think it's just my memory. I'm pretty sure there was a lot more of it ten or fifteen years ago. Climate change? Or the way the moors are managed now, perhaps. There is still, however, enough of it to give that lovely purple haze effect and the scent was gorgeous - a kind of soft, honeyed fragrance.

The moors are grazed by a few hardy sheep: the Yorkshire Swaledale breed, I think. For some reason, this little flock formed a (fairly) orderly queue as I approached. Sweet.

The land around Haworth Moor was quarried for stone and there are lots of dry stone walls, of a slightly different character to those higher up in the Dales. Many of them are collapsing, and don't seem to be maintained. Sheep-creeps or cripple holes are square holes in the wall that allow sheep to move from one field to another. In the photo below, the lintel has broken and the hole is no longer useable - but there were open spaces in the wall nearby anyway, so the sheep could move freely around.

More playing

Just for fun, here is the same image I posted yesterday and I've added some texture, colour and a few 'birds'.

When I was confined to the house by the heavy snow for nearly a week, I kept boredom at bay by reading and by playing around with photo editing. I tried to motivate myself to do some 'spring cleaning' of the house. I managed to do one room!

More weather

My online photo group theme for February was, appropriately enough, 'weather' - and this image pretty much sums up most of February's weather round here, until the snow arrived. It's easy enough to capture fog, even rain - but wind is harder to convey in a still photo. I was quite pleased with this depiction, which I think does suggest the howling wind on top of the moor, bending the grasses and twisting the few hardy bushes that manage to survive up there, some 430m above sea level. I'm never sure why the wind doesn't blow the fog away but I suppose you're really inside a cloud up there!