Image by freefotouk via Flickr

Today I have a Yorkshire Dales miscellany gathered from around the blogosphere, items that have caught my attention and that I hope will interest you. They cover quite a wide range of topics, from archaeology and photography to the re-establishment of an ancient job. It would be nice also if they added to the visitor numbers of the sites I’ve found and enjoyed. (By the way, this is quite altruistic; I have no commercial connection with any of these sites or their owners).

Yorkshire Dales News: Cash help for Dales parishes

One of the ancient trades of the Yorkshire Dales, the parish lengthsman, is to be partially resurrected long after the job disappeared, thanks to grants from the LEADER programme organised by the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust. …

This next item, about the current consultation on the proposed extension of the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales national parks is a few weeks old now, but is still highly relevant.

Yorkshire Dales News: National park extension: CLA urges locals to …

The CLA is urging people who live and work in the area covered by the proposed extension to the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Park Boundaries, to be sure of how the changes could affect them before responding to the …

Next are two “-ologies” – archaeology and ornithology. The first of these I’ll be watching over coming months to see if anything anything especially interesting emerges as I’m currently preparing to launch a new blog on archaeology for the non-specialist and it would be nice to have a linkage between the two sites.

Yorkshire Post: Power work in Dales turns up Iron Age site

ENGINEERS burying power lines in the Yorkshire Dales have unearthed a piece of ancient history which has baffled experts. Along-buried strip of ash and burnt material …

National Park Authority: Farmers help wading birds to survive

Wading birds are being given a helping hand by farmers in the Yorkshire Dales. Arkengarthdale and Swaledale are hotspots for wading birds like curlew, redshank, lapwing and snipe, and the farmers are working with …

And finally, a photogallery:

Landscape Photography blog by Tristan Campbell, Harrogate based …

Yorkshire Dales · Nidderdale · Pateley Bridge · Harrogate · Wharfedale · Outer Hebrides. Landscape Types. Moorland · Seascapes and coastline · Trees and woodland · Skies and clouds. Seasons. Winter · Spring · Summer · Autumn …

That’s it for this time. More again soon.

I was about to write another blog article about Coniston Water, but was browsing through some recent entries on other people’s blogs when I came cross a marvellous description of a weekend on the water from travel writer and photographer Lucinda Manouch. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to put a link to it here for others to see.

Yes, I’ll eventually get around to writing what I’d planned for today, but for now you can enjoy Lucinda’s stimulating description of days on the water and camping at Coniston – and she didn’t restrict herself to the lake itself but also ventured a little way down the Crake, the river that flows out of the southern end of the lake and carries its water to the sea.

Swallow and Amazons (Coniston Water) – LucindaManouch.com
“… As we made the 3 hour trip to Cumbria I was still trying to decide which lake to visit. Some I had paddled before, some where just too small and some seemed a little tricky to get to. Then I saw Coniston water on the map and memories of playing Swallows and Amazons on the river as a child came flooding back. …”

By the way, if you have never read Swallows and Amazons you can get a copy here from Amazon.co.uk (no pun intended in referring to this bookseller).

Usually when I recommend a Lake District book it’s one that I already own myself. I prefer to do this so that the blog does not degenerate into an undiscriminating commercialism.

Today, though, I’m making an exception. Although I’ve seen and admired Mark Denton’s The Lake District: The Panoramas on a number of occasions, for some unaccountable reason I’ve never actually bought a copy. However, I’ve seen this book of remarkably beautiful photographs praised so many times that I’m putting it up here anyway.

This would make a marvellous gift for a friend or family member who loves the English Lake District, or even to introduce someone for the first time to this wonderful part of the country.

There’s no doubting that Mark Denton is an outstanding landscape photographer. He has worked not only on rural but also on city landscapes including books on Edinburgh and London.  You might also like to take a look at his Yorkshire volumes: Yorkshire Moors & Wolds and The Yorkshire Coast.

I have written several times recently about the River Ribble and its tributaries, especially the Hodder.   Now, here is a new book to enjoy.

The Ribble is substantially a Lancashire river, but in fact rises in the heights above the Yorkshire Dales. These are outstanding landscapes, walking-country par excellence, from the bleakness of the river’s origins to the lushness of the mid and lower stretches of the Ribble Valley, and out past the old Preston Docks to the estuary at Lytham.

This new volume, Landscapes of the Ribble, by photographer Andy Latham (it is his first book) will be a welcome addition to the library of any lover of the region and its rivers.

Book Details:
ISBN-10: 0711230285  -  ISBN-13: 978-0711230286
Publisher: Frances Lincoln (2010)
112 pages; hardcover; 26.8 x 25.4 x 2.4 cm
Cover price: £16.99

As of 15th January Landscapes of the Ribble was priced on Amazon.co.uk at only £9.54.

Janet’s Foss, near Malham – Image via Wikipedia

With the beginning of 2010 not only am I expanding the blog to cover a wider area of the North of England (see my post about the changes at Around-England 2010) but I’m also starting a series of news updates about different areas of the region which I hope will interest people. My aim will be to bring to the surface items that might otherwise be missed, as well as giving easy access to different angles on already well-known news. So here goes with No. 1 of the Yorkshire Dales series.

The BBC early evening series on Great British Railway Journeys, fronted by Michael Portillo, has visited several of the areas covered by this blog – including the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales. If you’ve not seen the programmes you can catch the series on BBC iPlayer.  (This link takes you to last night’s programme; the others are easily found from there).

I had of course remembered Portillo’s earlier political career and his time as Minister for Defence, but had forgotten that he was previously Minister of Transport.  It was fascinating to hear him say that among all the many things he was involved with over those years in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet he considered the saving of the Settle to Carlisle railway line, and especially the great Ribblehead viaduct, to have been one of his major achievements. Here’s another blogger’s take on the programme as it visited Dent.

The Barrister Blog: Blacksmith in Dent in the Yorkshire Dales
One of the people who is featured is Lucy Sandys-Clarke who is a blacksmith in Dent which is at the top of the Yorkshire Dales and just down the road from Sedbergh and the Howgill Fells. It’s fantastic to see traditional crafts …
Publish Date: 01/12/2010 20:13
http://timkevan.blogspot.com/

Ribblehead Viaduct, Settle-Carlisle Railway – Photo by: Andrew Barker – Fotolia.com

A second item for today comes from the editor of the Dalesman who earlier this week blogged about the consultation currently being carried out by Natural England into possible extensions to both the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales national parks.  Like me, he appears to be somewhat sceptical as to the merits of the scheme.  I’m not opposed to protection of the countryside, of course not, but am not at all certain of the benefits from layers of bureaucratic planning control.  In fact, I suspect that if they’d had planning authorities in the Middle Ages most of the beautiful natural and built environment which we now fondly protect would never have come into existence.

Proposed extension to National Park
A public consultation is currently under way on four proposed extensions to the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks. Residents, businesses and landowners are all being asked to let their views known to Natural England on …
Publish Date: 01/11/2010 7:58
http://www.news.dalesman.co.uk/

Having said that, I’ll once again show myself up to be inconsistent.  We certainly need planning authorities to slow the steady march of windfarms across some of the most beautiful areas of our countryside.

Yorkshire Dales News: Dales windfarm enquiry opens
One of the most important planning enquiries held in the Yorkshire Dales for many years opens next Tuesday (January 12) to decide whether some of the finest landscape in the north of England will be dominated by five huge wind turbines …
Publish Date: 01/06/2010 18:00
http://www.daelnet.co.uk/

OK, that’s enough for this week.  I’ll try to get another one out about the same time each week.

In previous articles I’ve referred to my love of the River Hodder in Lancashire.  Recently I came across some photographs taken one very snowy Saturday morning in, I think, 1991 (or it may have been 1992). It was a splendidly crisp day, and great to walk where no man had gone before, as it were.  I started by the Hodder itself, and then decided to drive into the Trough of Bowland and walk up by the Langden Brook, one of the smaller streams that feeds the Hodder.  I’d lost the photographs for many years, but have never lost the memory.

The Hodder near Dunsop Bridge (1991?)

Got here before the gritters

Looking down on the Waterworks, Langden Valley, Bowland

I’m the first here – apart from the sheep

The snow is thinner here – but desolate for miles now

As I’ve said before, the Hodder with its villages, and the Trough of Bowland deserve to be much better known – but don’t come in droves will you; I’d like to see it stay peaceful.

As I looked around this morning for something that illustrated the challenges faced by people during this period of unfamiliarly heavy and protracted snowfall in England I came across the following.  It gives a down-to-earth description of the situation for many of the people who produce our food.  The rest of us should be grateful.

From the Lancashire Telegraph

East Lancashire snow: How farmers are coping

Monday, 11th January 2010, By Emma Cruces »

“THE big freeze has left East Lancashire farmers working around the clock to keep their animals fed and watered. ……….”

[And I liked the pragmatic get-on-and-do-it attitude of the closing sentences:] 
” You couldn’t prepare for it, even if you knew, and you couldn’t do anything more. At the end of the day it’s the same for lots of people. You still have to make a shilling, so you get on with it.”

Full article »

“Lancashire” – to many outside the Northwest of England the county name conjures up mental images of congested  towns full of blackened mills and street upon street of grubby ‘back-to-back’ houses.  Having grown up in Burnley then lived for several decades in Darwen and Blackburn I can confirm that there is a degree of reality in such an image.  But there’s more, much more. Lancashire is a county of many rivers.  Today it’s the Hodder on my mind.

“Cromwell’s Bridge” – from Lower Hodder Bridge on a rainy day

Historically the county of Lancashire stretched from the Mersey to the Duddon.  Between these lay the valleys of the Irwell, the Ribble and the Lune with their various tributaries, not to mention the collection of smaller shorter rivers spilling into Morecambe Bay from the southern lakes of what is now Cumbria.

The Ribble flows into the sea at Preston, having in the previous ten miles or so taken in the waters of the Darwen, the Calder and the Hodder.  The last of these, the River Hodder, is the only one of the Ribble’s major tributories that never flows through a town.  The Hodder is a totally rural river.

The Darwen, leaving its own town valley flows through Blackburn where it collects the Blakewater.  The Calder, having emerged from the Cliviger Gorge and passed through the beautiful Towneley lands twists its way in 19th-century cobblestone channels between the old mills of Burnley and hidden away near the town centre absorbs the Brun. 

The Hodder, in contrast, never sees anything larger than the scattered villages and hamlets to the south of the Forest of Bowland.  Its upper reaches have long been dammed, creating the Stocks Reservoir above Slaidburn.  From here it flows in twists and turns from east to west past Newton and Dunsop Bridge where it picks up the waters of the River Dunsop and Langden Brook and goes on south past Whitewell, at the back of its famous Inn.

The water then has to turn again, and counterintuitively it now flows from west to east, away from the sea as it searches for a way around Longridge Fell.  Meandering south again between rises in the land it flows under the Higher and Lower Hodder Bridges until near Mitton reaching the Ribble, a river which at this point is in no way its superior.  The Hodder gives up its name, the waters merge and together they flow to the sea.

The Hodder flowing (from the left) into the Ribble near Mitton.
(I must sometime get a shot up the Hodder from the other bank)

This is magnificent walking country, ranging from leisurely strolls by the river bank and higher paths along wooded hillsides to steeper hauls up and over the surrounding moorland,  Centuries-old stone-built houses, ancient bridges, quaint villages, and nearby is splendid Stoneyhurst; these all complement the beauty of the river itself. 

I’ve walked this Bowland (or “Bolland”) country in all kinds of weather: up by the Langden Brook deep in January snow, down from High Hodder Bridge slithering through muddy woodland in July rain, and tramping over the tops from the Trough to the Brennand Valley in September sunshine.  With a friend or walking alone this is Lancashire at its best.

When looking through the December 2009 issue of Country Walking Magazine I was rather surprised to find Burnley, Lancashire, listed among the month’s twenty-six recommended walking routes.  Now before anyone jumps to the conclusion that this is a southerner talking out of the top of his hat about the industrial north and “dark satanic mills”, let me point out that I grew up in Burnley, went to school there, and only left on getting married and moving fifteen miles down the road to Darwen.

The photograph above is copied from the 1909 official guide to Towneley Hall which, along with other publications, has been in my Burnley local history collection for many years – actually I have a 1911 reprint, not the 1909 first printing.

Having grown up in Burnley I think I can claim the right to be balanced and fair about it, without indulging in dishonest flettery.  There are some grotty parts.  I recently went back to the Burnley Wood part of the town and was seriously unimpressed with the condition of the area.  On the other hand there are some wonderful places, and Towneley Hall with its open fields and woodland park stands out among them.  So I should not really have been surprised; it’s just that it’s relatively unusual for the message to have got home to people outside the area.

I had the enormous privilege between the ages of twelve and twenty-one of living on Woodgrove Road  overlooking Towneley Holmes.  It was from this base that in my teens I learned the joy of walking in the countryside, across the valley, up and over the hill to Worsthorne and Hurstwood; along the valley to Walk Mill, Holme and  Cliviger Gorge.  Earlier this year, due to the illness and death of a close relative, I had to spend considerable time in the area and was reintroduced to exploring this wonderful landscape – wonderful, and yet so close to the legacy of 19th century industrialisation and 20th century urban sprawl.

The Country Walking route starts in front of Towneley Hall, takes you high above the town on the moors at Crown Point (where as a 10-year-old in the early 50s I was often to be found with the family Alsatian), down past Dyneley to Walk Mill and back along the valley close to the Calder to the Towneley Hall car park – or more likely the Stables Cafe.

This really is a inspired example of how people living in so many of Lancashire’s industrial towns have always been able to get out quickly into splendid countryside.  Towneley Hall itself warrants a future article of its own.

When I launched this blog just over eighteen months ago my plan was to start with the Lake District. I was also at the time developing a ‘non-blog’ site about the Lake District so that made logical sense, quite apart from the fact that along with Lancashire it’s the part of the country with which I have the closest personal connections.  Another piece of the plan right from the beginning, however, was to spread out more widely into the rest of England.

That time has now come. Although there have been occasional posts about other areas you should now begin to see a steady broadening. We’ll look at places in Lancashire and Yorkshire, with initially an emphasis on East Lancashire and West Yorkshire – the Pennine country.  From time to time we’ll look at my current home county of Nottinghamshire and cross the Trent at Newark Castle to explore parts of Lincolnshire. Places in Cheshire will get an occasional visit, and of course we’ll not forget those areas of Cumbria outside the National Park such as the Furness Peninsula.

This does not mean that the rest of the country will be completely ignored, but I don’t want to be overambitious. Let’s take the extension a stage at a time.  The North-East will get some attention, but anything comprehensive will have to come later.

In addition to expanded geographical coverage there will be a greater variety of posts. The descriptive articles will continue, as will occasional travel diary entries. There will be more items about books, and especially those that we have found unusually interesting, and not only new books but also older volumes now available only on the secondhand market.

We’ll link to newspaper sites when there are particularly interesting things happening, and also to official bodies such as the tourism agencies and national park authorities. The site has to pay its way, so there will be commercial components as well. For example, our own hotel booking service will continue to be available through the site, under the banner, Hotels.InBritain.biz; as its name implies this will extend beyond England to the whole of Britain – and actually far beyond our own islands.

To support all of this we’ll shortly be changing the layout and will be introducing a new indexing system to help people find their way around. During 2010 our target is to become one of the most popular sources of information about places to visit in our wonderful country, especially the northern counties.

So, watch this space.