Alkelda

One autumn day, as a thin youth of 19, Richard Plantagenet strode up the steep hill to his new home, a forbidding looking castle. Five hundred and fifty eight years later my historian son and I trod the same track, imagining Richard’s arrival. Richard was making his way to Middleham Castle in Wensleydale, where he would spend the next three years learning the arts of knightly conduct. He would live in the bosom of one of the greatest families of England. Middleham was the northern base of his future father-in-law, Richard Neville, the 16th Earl of Warwick, one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in England.

A year on from my earlier visit I was back in Middleham. With my wife we were ending our four-day pilgrimage walk from the church of St.Alkelda in Gigglesick to that same patron’s church in Middleham where, it is believed, the saint is buried. I hoped to discover more about people from the past and how they survived in this rugged landscape. We found evidence along the forty-mile way of Brigantes, Angles and Romans. We saw evidence too of twenty-first century man and his dog, leaving plastic bottles, sweet wrappers and canine poo on the path and amongst the ancient ruins. Above all, we came to find out how a little known saint left her mark on this place and enjoy the walk that bears her name.

Little is known about Alkelda. Some historians even doubt she existed; others believe she was from Iceland, with the name of Olkelda, and that the Vikings brought her story to Yorkshire when they raided the Yorkshire Dales. My construct from written records is that she was a beautiful Anglo-Saxon princess, (I was ever the romantic), brought up in Northumbria. Later in life she turned to the church and became a nun. She then travelled extensively across the vast expanse of upland England, using the many holy wells to baptise local children and bring the Christian faith to the outlying settlements. Some time in 867AD she was in Coverdale and had stopped off at a pub for refreshment, the way you do. There are excellent pubs today. There she was set upon by a crazy, probably drunken, Viking woman, still heady with rage after rampaging through York. The Viking throttled Alkelda with a scarf. She is buried in the church in Middleham.

Why Gigglewick church is remembered in Alkelda’s name is a mystery, other than she would have reached Ribblesdale on her lengthy expeditions. Today it is a tranquil village, happily avoiding the noise and bustle of nearby Settle where the tourists alight from the Leeds to Carlisle trains. Our pilgrimage walk took us from the church, over the Ribble, through Settle and a steep climb up Albert Hill. One moment we had been amongst stone built cottages beside cobbled lanes, the next we were out in an immense and high landscape with limestone peaks and crags set around millstone fells. At the base of Warrendale Knotts we came across signs of Roman occupation, there being the remains of a temporary camp. The way follows eastwards along Stockdale Lane for four miles to Malham. We stopped to look down on Stockdale Farm, now a collection of huge ugly cattle sheds and yards beside an old farmhouse. Just a Mr Cowperthwaite, his wife and one son look after hundreds of beef cattle and a flock of sheep. The fields in the valley appear startlingly green below the brown marram grass on the fell tops. This is part of Yorkshire than in decades past would have been under deep lying snow for weeks on end during long harsh winters. Now, the 4-mile winding single-track road from Settle is rarely impassable. The farmer can be confident of wholesome pastures for his herd until November having taken at least one good silage crop, sufficient to feed his herd through the, nowadays, shorter winter months. In the corner of a field lies a wreck of a tractor.

Romans camped here

In Alkelda’s day she would have walked this track amongst thin stands of birch and ash trees growing weakly in pockets on the land. The trees are all gone now. At the watershed of the Pennines we looked west to the River Ribble, south to Pendle hill and east to Malham Tarn. Here the land is only good for grazing sheep. Flocks of the handsome, black-faced Swaledale sheep greeted us at the base of Kirkby Fell. 

Like Alkelda, we chose Malham for an overnight stay. She would have regarded the limestone cove with awe and seen the River Aire tumbling over the crag. We had to elbow our way into the village amongst the urban day-trippers ambling up for a view of the cove under which the river now trickles. We strode down the hill tut-tutting at the urbanites on the wrong side of the narrow road. Why don’t the younger generations know that you walk against the traffic where there is no footpath? (These are the same types that walk on roads at night clad from head to toe in dark clothing and wonder why some are knocked down by cars and bikes.)

We were greeted at our farmhouse stay by the owners – Peter Sharp, aged 87, his wife Vera aged 83 and young son, Chris, 60. Afternoon tea was provided which included a large slice of Yorkshire Parkin. These are strong and redoubtable Yorkshire country folk who remember the old ways of farming and a village before the mass of Leeds and Bradford motorists clogged the narrow streets. Farms were small but made enough money for a family and its hired hands to live. Much to our concern Peter climbed precariously onto a wobbly chair to close the high window in our room.

“It’s a’right”, he said. “I went into hospital last week to have a stent put in. I came out with six.” I noticed he descended the stairs backwards. Peter also remembers the tractor at Stockdale Farm. “I remember old Cowperthwaite’s tractor. It were useless. It would never start!” Clearly one day it never did and finally the farmer left it in frustration to rust in his field.

Our way from Malham took us past Janet’s Foss. Foss is a Nordic word for waterfall and this twenty-foot drop of water into a clear pond below hides a cave where Janet, a fairy queen, lived. People who think I believe in fairies are dead right. Near Janet’s Foss is another massive pair of limestone cliffs making Gordale Scar. The way ascends the steep western cliff before climbing up to another long and straight lane similar to Stockdale. This is peregrine falcon country but alas, we saw none, but we stopped for sustenance and watched a herd of Belted Galloway cattle with half a dozen frisky calves playing in the grass. We picked up the start of Mastiles Lane, still metalled in parts from nearly two thousand years of intermittent maintenance, and were soon within the area of a Roman Camp. 

Alkelda's Way

Some eight hundred years before Alkelda trod this route the Romans were here, fighting off the pesky Brigantes. These were a Celtic people who occupied what is now Yorkshire before Julius Caesar ever set foot at Dover. I looked out across this high, flat landscape that in winter was inhospitable, devoid of much shelter but it was home to wild boar. I imagined what the good lads from Emilia-Romagna and Umbria thought when commanded to dig a marching camp at the end of a hard day slogging up hill from Kettlewell or Settle. For this is what they did; at the end of their day’s march young Marcus, Vitalius and their mates would take their trenching tools off their packs and dig a rectangular ditch, put up a bank inside, then drive wooden stakes into the ground to form a palisade. I can only imagine the muttered insults they threw at their leader, Quintus Petillius Cerialis Caesius Rufus, whose command it was to drive away the local inhabitants from their land. I was standing, not for the first time in my life, where violent death was perpetrated on locals who were driven from their livelihoods in the name of empire building. Marcus and Vitalius must have cursed this savage landscape and longed for the comforts provided by Helena and Livia back home in the warm Italian countryside. I tend to cut Petillius Cerialis some slack. He was governor of Britain in 72AD, a tough gig, and also the son-in-law of my favourite Roman Emperor, Vespasian.

Our pilgrimage continued westwards to Kilnsey, Conistone and Wassa Hill before striking north to Kettlewell. I have written before about Kettlewell, and the Bradford benefactor Graham Watson, as to me, it is the quintessential northern Yorkshire village that is successfully holding back the most harmful effects of globalisation and modern farming methods. My last visit had been in winter, before the pandemic, when I chatted with the locals at their weekly coffee morning in the youth hostel. Now, as we approached the village past Scargill House, the traffic was heavier, the three pubs were full of visitors and the streets were rammed with gargantuan BMWs, Audis and Volvos.

Kettlewell in Wharfedale

Despite a comfortable night in a village bed and breakfast I was keen to leave the next morning and arrive once again in the high country. As we climbed the steep Top Mere Road out of Wharfedale, wife was already living up to her nickname of ‘Moaning Minnie’. At this point it is timely to address the fact that there are two types of people in the world; those who enjoy walking for pleasure amongst hills, crags and wide-open skies and those who don’t. Minnie is in the latter category. However, we arrived at the summit of the track curling north around Diamond Hill and she was in good fettle. The sun was shining and we were looking forward to reaching Coverdale, the smallest and quietest of all the Yorkshire dales, treading new ground for us. 

Carlton in Coverdale, our objective and next night’s halt, lies at the eastern end of the dale. To reach it there are alternative routes; straight down the tarmac road or a climb across the northern flank of Great Whernside to Long Hill Sike Head and then on to the summit of Little Whernside (before dropping off sharply to the River Cover) from where I expected the views southeast to Scar House reservoir and northeast to the Yorkshire Moors would be spectacular. Little Whernside is not a friendly fell to climb. Its summit is barren. Being in the shadow of the Pennines it blows a lot around here. The spongy peat track threads its way tediously around bogs and marshes. It is tiresome. But Minnie had the sight of many horses to anticipate.

After the stark landscape we had been through there is an attractive softness about the mellow green fields and pastures in western Coverdale. The entire dale, and Middleham in particular, is an equine heaven. (Near Middleham castle is a storyboard about the village with a footnote that reads: “850 inhabitants, 500 horses”.) At Arkleside – surely named before the births of both the Irish thoroughbred and three-time Cheltenham Gold Cup winner called Arkle, and the incomparable Nottinghamshire cricketer and Aussie-baiter, Derek Randall, nicknamed Arkle for his speed in the field – we met a woman with sixty miniature Shetland ponies, some for sale. We could have bought one. 

The first hamlet of size in the western dale is Horsehouse, so called because this is where packhorses on the old drove road over to Kettlewell were fed and watered before their long climb out of the dale onto the moor. Locals would have to have given way to both the Romans marching in search of Brigantes and the merchants driving pack horse trains. In medieval times this was a leading monastic route. The monks of Fountains Abbey owned the flock of sheep that grazed these parts. By the eighteenth century this track saw cattle being driven down from Scotland through Coverdale. Now, or course, all that busy commerce and traffic has gone.

Coverdale

As we walked towards Carlton we saw that a good number of the old barns and farmers’ cottages have been converted into modernised holiday accommodation for town dwellers. It is good that the old built environment is still part of this ancient landscape but sad, yet inevitable, that there are fewer people living here than fifty years ago. One third of the Carlton houses are holiday cottages. The population is one third of that in 1841. Only one pub out of three survives, and that as a community cooperative. In this short dale village stores, post offices and pubs have closed through lack of regular trade. The pastures stretching back from the Cover still provide good grazing. We stopped in the late afternoon sunshine and lay down in a pasture to listen to the lazy late summer sounds  - the occasional sheep’s bleat; the snorts and blowing of the cattle; and the tinkle of the shallow river over rocks and fallen tree branches.

The one Carlton pub lies exposed on the edge of the village and was our refuge for the night. It must be gloomy here in winter. Like many incomers the tenant and his wife are ‘refugees’ from the North East. They need to provide an enveloping hospitality, just as the first licensee, Edward Wright, did in 1775, for travellers from the west like us arrive weary after a long day’s expedition over difficult terrain. There were few locals in that night. We dined next to eight young golfers from Catterick and two couples from ‘the city’. 

The last leg of the pilgrimage took us out of Carlton up onto Middleham Low Moor where ‘the Gallops’ provide over a mile-long exercise ground for the racing stables in the village. It being a Sunday, with low cloud draped over the moor, we considered it would be a day off for the hard worked lads and lasses from the yards. Yet a few were out, riding their mounts along the white rails and over the manicured turf on the moor. Whilst my wife’s keen eyes were taking in the magnificent horseflesh on show, my mind was turning to thoughts of King Richard the Third. I conjured up a vision of November 1462 when Richard first came to the castle to learn his military skills. He too would have ridden across this moor in the autumn fogs that blanket this high village. On special days he, the Countess of Warwick and members of this august household would ride to York.

Middleham Castle was, at this time, a grand home where the Nevilles entertained in opulent style. Distinguished guests from the in-crowd of the era would often be there when state business would be discussed. Royal banquets were regularly held when the young Richard would begin to participate in the political struggle between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians.

Half a mile north from the castle is the church dedicated to St. Mary and St. Alkelda, the end of our pilgrimage walk. Alkelda is buried here. It is believed that her bones were discovered when the church was restored in 1878. A commemorative sign marks the location. Due to the pandemic the church was locked and we could not gain permission to enter. This was a small anti-climax to our expedition, which overall had been uplifting. For we had escaped from the ‘virus on the landscape’ that engulfed our lives back home. We were able to observe how Alkelda and Petillius Cerialis, then later Graham Watson, the Sharps and the Cowperthwaites have created and nurtured a heritage that repulses the worst effects of modernisation. In spending four days in this special high country of Yorkshire we could forget the restrictions governing everyday life. I had a taste of what Richard Plantagenet and his young friends must have experienced back in 1462 when they too escaped northwards. They swapped the politics of intrigue and treachery of London for an outdoor life amongst the moors and dales of Wensleydale. We had left behind Brexit, life in a pandemic, Trump, Novichok and Belarussian bellicosity, which were all addling my brain. 

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There is a bleak beauty to these northern hills. I have long liked to lose myself in them. As we walked the forty miles from west to east I rediscovered a real sense we were on the roof of England. I don’t get that feeling when climbing the Lake District fells because from many I can see Scotland and gain a sense of the whole kingdom of Great Britain. In the northern Yorkshire fells there is no long view north. This leads to a sense that this landscape is a place apart, independent of the rest of Britain. And that is how many Yorkshire folk have always seen themselves; different from the rest and proud to be so. I identify with these people. Yes, there is a remoteness amongst the fells, yet descend to the dales and a mystical feeling comes over me. Down in the dales emerald green pastures - chemically enhanced no doubt – lie between rough stone walls that crisscross the dale. The dale is the counterpoint to the fell.

This forty-mile stretch has seen no significant military battles, no major calamity no pestilence or flood. It is true that in 1070 King William 1 did commit atrocities on the local inhabitants as he searched for rebellious Anglo-Danish renegades but this was minor compared to what took place in other parts of England and France. It is rather a case that people’s lives have been shaped by the landscape more than most other parts of England where humans have shaped the landscape to their will. Low-tech farming and raising horses have been the principle activities for over a thousand years. Alkelda would not feel out of place if her reincarnation walked this way today. In her wake, over nearly twelve hundred years, pilgrims have made their way over fell and down dale, discovering for themselves this land of wild tranquillity. Globalisation is kept at bay and this landscape is to be cherished for that reason.

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Books

Over fifty years I have collected a disparate collection of titles on North Yorkshire, some acquired before I came to live in the county. All have served to inspire me in this inimitable place. Some have remained untouched for several decades; it is time I re-read those.

The following is a short and not exhaustive reading list on the Yorkshire Dales and some will be out of print, but a second-hand copy of every book can be tracked down these days. 

S. Baring-Gould     Yorkshire Oddities. 1874. Re-print by Smith Settle. 1987

John Hadfield (ed.)     The Shell Guide to England. Michael Joseph. 1970

James Herriot.             James Herriot’s Yorkshire. Michael Joseph. 1979

Paul Murray Kendall.     Richard the Third. Allen & Unwin. 1955

John R. Kenyon     Middleham Castle. English Heritage. 2015

Kathleen Kinder     St. Alkelda’s Way. The Alkelda Press. 2019

A. Wainwright      Wainwright in the Limestone Dales. Michael Joseph. 1991