Walking in the Yorkshire Dales - A Walker's Guidebook

Guidebook to 50 of the author’s favourite walks in the English Yorkshire Dales. All the walks are circular, and range from 4.5 to nearly 8 miles. They vary from simple valley strolls (ideal as half-day ‘family rambles’) to strenuous fell expeditions. Hand-written and profusely illustrated in Jack’s highly distinctive style

The area known as the Yorkshire Dales is many things to many people, but above all it is a magnificent walking country. Walking has traditionally been the favourite pursuit of those visiting a region which offers a range of attractions perhaps unrivalled anywhere else in the whole of Britain:

• wild, desolate fells
  
• extensive tracts of heather moorland
  
• rugged limestone scars, pavements and spectacular cliffs
• awe-inspiring potholes and caves
  
• deep river gorges and sparkling mountain streams
  
• exquisitely beautiful waterfalls
  
• green fertile valleys and flower meadows
  
• outstanding views
  
• a vast network of public footpaths and bridleways
  
• remote, picturesque villages and bustling market towns
  
• ancient abbeys, churches and castles
  
• fascinating relics of former industries and ancient civilizations.

The happiest person in the Dales must be the walker who is also a geologist. The major part of the area lies on a platform of ancient rock – chiefly granite – known as the Askrigg Block. Apart from a few isolated exceptions, however, this base platform lies covered by strata of more recently formed rocks, and of these it is limestone which dominates the geology, and consequently the scenery, of the Yorkshire Dales.

The Great Scar Limestone is up to 400 feet thick in parts of the western and southern Dales, and is magnificently exposed in Ribblesdale, Wharfedale and Malhamdale. Here, above the glistening cliffs and scars, are vast areas of limestone pavements weathered from the exposed blocks of rocks. Above half the limestone pavement in Britain is found in the Yorkshire Dales. The Great Scar Limestone has not only undergone surface erosion, but is also honeycombed with complex underground cave systems. This is probably the finest caving area in Britain. The ordinary walker, who is too faint-hearted (or sensible?) to venture into these dank and sinister caves, can safely sample the wonders of the underworld at three public show caves – white Scar Cave (Ingleton), Ingleborough Cave (Clapham) and Stump Cross Caverns (between Pateley Bridge and Grassington).

In the more northerly dales, notably Wensleydale and Swaledale, the Great Limestone lies hidden beneath layers of rock strata known as the Yordale Series. Formed in an alternative successsion of sandstone, shale and limestone (of a darker kind than the Great Scar variety), the Yoredales have weathered to produce hillsides with a distinctive stepped profile. In all parts of the Dales the highest fells are capped by beds of hard, coarse, millstone grit.

Though nature has lavishly contributed this fine scenery, it is the influence of man which has helped to create the unqiue Dales landscape that we see today. The mineral resources of the region have been exploited for many centuries. The Romans are known to have mine lead, and this industry developed until, at its peak in the nineteenth century, thousands of miners, chiefly in Swaledale and Wharfdale, were employed in extracting and processing lead. The ruins, levels, hushes and spoil heaps of these old mines still remain - stark and grim and desolate.

Since the discovery that grassland was improved by the application of burnt limestone (hence the profusion of old lime kilns), limstone working has developed into a major Dales industry, and today high-quality limestone is quarries in several areas - most notably at Cracoe and Horton-in-Ribblesdale.

In the eighteenth century certain changes in the country’s social and economic life had a marked effect on the Dales landscape. Between 1780 and 1820 successive Enclosure Acts led to re-distribution of land and the construction of thousands of miles of drystone walls in the valleys and up the fellsides. This was an important building period in the dales, and many of the present farms, cottages and barns are that vintage. The dales in fact have been inhabited since pre-history, and current walkers’ paths date from earliest man to the drovers’ and packhorse routes of the last two or three centuries. Many of these ancient green lanes still provide superb routes over the hills from dale to dale.

The other great influence on the landscape has been the grazing of sheep. The Dales are renowned for sheep, and years of careful breeding has produced animals which are ideally suited to the terrain and climate. Most popular is the blackfaced ‘Swaledale’ with its curly horns. The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority has chosen the Swaledale tup as its symbol. Sheep-grazing has a profound effect on the natural vegetation of the area.

My purpose in writing the introduction has been to attempt a general description of the superb countryside which the lucky user of this book may expect to enjoy, and the major factors which have shaped and fashioned it. My sincere wish is that you may derive as much pleasure from these walks as I have had in compiling them.

J Keighley
October 2005