North East England's Best Views by Simon Jenkins

Author:Simon Jenkins
Language: spa
Format: epub
Tags: England’s 100 Best Views: North East
ISBN: 9781847659484
Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 2013-08-21T16:00:00+00:00

Gritstone geometry at Swaledale head

Most of the fields contain handsome free-standing barns, often two-storey and with stone roofs. Though such barns occur elsewhere in the dales, nowhere do they so dominate the personality of the landscape as in Swaledale. They were used, and some still are, for storing hay and sheltering sheep in winter.

Swaledale is largely unwooded, with trees confined to the winding course of the river, where ash, sycamore and alder offer a colourful guard of honour in autumn. Summer’s colours are of meadow buttercup, wood cranesbill and pignut, a flora that peters out as the valley head is approached. Also found is the poignant ‘melancholy thistle’, its solitary flower once used to cure sadness.

On all sides of the dale head are traces of mining, the valley sides scarred from the explosives used to reveal lead-bearing ore. The remains of workshops, chimneys, inclines and trails are everywhere, the detritus contrasting with the immaculate pastures below. The landscape features speak the language of the mines, as in bands, shake holes, seats, sides, gills and edges. All are slowly sinking back into the moorland ecology.

North from Swaledale head we look across to the high moor of Kisdon. The road south leads onto the gritstone cap and Hawes, the names of the fells evoking the scenery. Here is Buttertubs, Lovely Seat, Shunner Fell and Grimy Gutter Hags. Onwards and upwards we go, to the widest, wildest expanse of upland England, the Pennines.

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