We huffed and puffed our way up and down
Penyghent and Ingleborough. All that lay ahead was Whernside. What could
possibly go wrong? Well, three pints of Theakstones and a large slice of guzzled
chocolate birthday cake for a start!
In April 1981, with three walking mates
and a support party of wives and young children, I was making my first attempt
to walk the Yorkshire Three
Peaks. All went well until we
reached the Hill Inn near Chapel-le-Dale. It
being the birthday of one of our number, chocolate and fruit cakes were
provided. It would have been impolite to refuse. Furthermore, accomplishing the
first two mountains called for a celebratory pint, followed by one or two more
- we were enjoying good company. So I was unprepared for the track up Whernside,
which is arduous and steep. With a bellyful of cakes and ale it was painful
too. Yet we made the summit and then hurtled down to the Ribblehead viaduct to
finish. Thus began a love affair with a perfect day’s walk of twenty-four
miles. The memorable master of the fells, Alfred Wainwright, says the “Three
Peaks are our old friends”. How they have become so for me after many circuits
of the mountains over thirty-six years.
A stranger, en route from Lakeland, first setting eye on Yorkshire’s limestone
country should be forgiven if dismissing the latter as featureless and dull.
This striking landscape in ‘God’s own country’ is anything but. It is rich with
geological splendour and dramatic history. Now, in the new century, it is beset
with challenges that would have dismayed Wainwright. There is a fourth
dimension too. Gaping Gill and a honeycomb of caves and potholes lie under the
slopes of Ingleborough. I once went underground, surviving with elder son The
Cheese Press near Ingleton and the constant fifty-degree (F) temperature
despite being soaked to the skin. Oh, It was fun.
The bedrock of carboniferous
limestone that provides the plinth on which the three peaks rise was laid down in the
Visean period of the last Ice Age, three hundred and forty million years ago. For me, there is not a lot of interest in the intervening years to the Iron Age (when
a hill fort was built on Ingleborough) and up to British Rail building the
Ribblehead Viaduct in 1874. This is when the area really came to life with the
railway bringing navvies, jobs, shanty towns, farmers and schools (about which
read on below) as well as boozers and diseases like smallpox. By the turn of
the last century Horton in Ribblesdale was a thriving village, as The
Settle-Carlisle became a significant railway linking Yorkshire with north
Lancashire and southern Scotland. Hotels, shops and a primary school served the
expanding population. A quarry was started north of the village, extracting
minerals for a voracious national economy. Its legacy is a hideous scar in the
landscape but started before conservationists and the Green Party had taken
hold in British consciousness.
The first recorded climbing of the famous
‘Three Peaks’ in one continuous walk was in 1887 and achieved in ten hours.
This is a creditable time in which to make the circuit even one hundred and
thirty years later. Dawn to dusk expeditions are inspirational; our own
children - with the advantage of support and modern equipment - each tramped
the route for the first time before their ninth birthdays. I have circumambulated
nearly twenty times. There is no doubt, however, that these expeditions pale
compared to one Gemmell Alexander, a resident of nearby Dentdale. In a summer
around 1978, and over sixty years in age, he set out from his home five miles
from the Three Peaks route and joined the track on Whernside. Achieving a
circuit in daylight and enjoying the day so much, upon reaching his starting
point he considered he was neither weary nor ready to return home. So he turned
around and made the circuit again. Completing the double Three Peaks he then
walked back to his house – a total of around fifty eight miles with only brief
stops for sustenance. What a man he must have been!
Trampers and cavers should know they are
in a dramatic landscape; danger, accidents and even death lie around every
corner. The Cave and Mountain Rescue team in 2016 had ninety-nine callouts: three deaths to attend, six
sheep to save and the odd human idiot who ventured on to the fells with
disregard for others thus putting lives at risk. In 2006 a mysterious ‘lady of
the hills’ – an Oriental woman was found dead in Sell Gill Hole. She was never
identified and lies in St. Oswald's Church graveyard.
On each circuit I relish meeting more old
friends, each of which has contributed to at least one of my memorable dramas. Humphrey Bottom, Sulber Nick, Black Dub
Moss, Batty Green, Blea Moor, Cable Rake and Eller Beck all will tell of my sinking up to my waist in peaty bogs;
twisted ankles; summer sweats up Whernside; the pesky midges and how they
enrage me; spotting Little Owls, curlews and skylarks; and sheltering from hailstorms
amongst clints and grykes. Making our most recent ascent up just Penyghent this
spring I was reminded of the American comedian Fred Allen who said, “I like long walks, especially when they are
taken by people who annoy me”, for as we descended Skell Gill Pasture a lycra
and plimsoll clad female of loud Lancastrian tongue could be heard across the
dry stone walls for hundreds of yards. So we hung back to enjoy the quiet charms
of Hull Pot and Horton Scar.
A sense of impending doom will have struck
the village of Horton and outlying hamlets of Chapel-le-Dale, Ribblehead and
beautiful Selside in 1970. This is when the Settle-Carlisle Railway was closed.
I doubt the local people knew at the time but this was surely the start of the
disintegration of the community that has gathered pace with the new century’s
austerity. Hill farmers cannot survive without EU subsidies; will the next
government fund them post Brexit? The local bus service will cease if the
seniors’ bus pass is withdrawn – as No.11 is threatening. Homeowners are moving
to jobs and bright lights in the towns and cities southwards. The roll has declined at Horton in Ribblesdale CE (VA) Primary School.
Valiant parents and Friends of the school are fighting against its closure this
summer.
Every year one hundred thousand people
climb one or all of the Yorkshire Three Peaks. Sadly, many come to just race.
They fail to stop and get to know the likes of Sulber Nick and Humphrey
Bottom. What draws me and countless others every year to wander more
modestly paced through the charms of this stunning landscape? It is its
timelessness, its tranquillity (yet also on occasions the maelstroms of snow,
wind and rain sweeping across the land), its wildlife and the sheer joy of
taking exercise in remote northern hills. Yet these are all threatened. If the
farmers go, so do the sheep, and the hills and slopes will grow scrub and
trees. (As much as I love trees, they have their place elsewhere). If the
schoolchildren go, so will the parents and families leaving empty houses and
dereliction. The quarry’s licence to extract minerals expires in twenty five
years; surely it will not be renewed due to heavy environmental, transport and
energy costs involved.
The mountains of Penyghent, Whernside and
Ingleborough have stood majestically for centuries, welcoming Iron Age
inhabitants, Romans, Celts, Yorkshiremen and my family. I want this landscape
to endure and, so I believe, do millions of other locals, visitors, trampers
and cavers. The farmers must continue to be supported. The school must expand
its roll or it will close. Entry for cars must be controlled and the bus
service expanded. Superfast broadband must be available to properties in
Selside and Horton. The Westminster government should build a subterranean
science park in Ribblesdale for an extension of Kew Gardens, The Environment
Agency or the Ministry of Agriculture and transfer jobs from the rich southeast.
Families with school age children will follow jobs. More homeowners will come
and Sulber Nick and his mates will
continue to charm new generations.
If you would like to share your experiences of the places
discussed in this blog please record them in the Comments section.
PUBLICATIONS
Non-fiction:
·
Striding Through Yorkshire, A.J. Brown; 1938 (Women beware, this
is a sexist writer)
·
The Winding Trail, ed. Roger Smith; 1981
·
Walks in Limestone Country, A Wainwright; 1970
·
Wainwright in the Limestone Dales, A Wainwright; 1987
·
Ordnance Survey Explorer Map OL2
(A terrific read and reference)
Fiction:
I
have no novels in my library that use The Three Peaks as a setting nor have I
encountered a writer of fiction from these parts. I would welcome being
informed of any such writers.
The
crime writers Reginald Hill and Peter Robinson have set their novels in North
Yorkshire but I confess to not having read more than a couple of their titles.
