Chapel le Dale

(Old School Bunkhouse),

Yorkshire Dales

14th - 16th May 2010

View from the steps of Lancaster Castle on Castle Hill towards St Mary's Parade.

Lancaster is the county town of Lancashire, England. It is situated on the River Lune. Lancaster is a constituent settlement of the wider City of Lancaster and encompasses several outlying towns, including neighbouring Morecambe. Little is known about Lancaster between the end of Roman rule in Britain in the early 5th century and the Norman Conquest in the late 11th century. The city's name, first recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086 as Loncastre means 'Roman fort on the River Lune', from the Old English cæster. Lancaster Castle, partly built in the 13th Century and enlarged by Elizabeth I, stands on the site of a Roman garrison and  is a medieval castle, a Crown Court, and a Category C men's prison. Lancaster Castle is well known as the site of the infamous Pendle witch trials in 1612. It was said that the court based in the castle (the Lancaster Assizes) sentenced more people to be hanged than any other in the country outside of London, earning Lancaster the nickname, "the Hanging Town". Lancaster Priory & Parish Church dates from the 11th Century, though there has been a church on the site from 630 AD. The 15th Century Priory and Parish Church of Lancaster standing by the Castle on the hill, overlooking the city, is built on the site of a priory which was founded in 1094.

My Hungarian friend Zoltan, recently relocated to Germany, had flown over in the week for this, his first visit to the Yorkshire Dales. Zoltan possesses a mind and logic that is typically that of an engineer, where the element of precision manifests itself in his outlook, behaviour and personal use of language. He is proudly Hungarian and has often reminded me that it is the most complex of languages, even to the extent of sending me an e-mail as to what George Bernard Shaw once said about Hungarian: "After studying the Hungarian language for years, I can confidently conclude that had Hungarian been my mother tongue, it would have been more precious. Simply because through this extraordinary, ancient and powerful language it is possible to precisely describe the tiniest differences and the most secretive tremors of emotions". Such a compliment by the Irish noble-prize winner writer, George Bernard Shaw elegantly points out the uniqueness of the Hungarian (or as the Hungarians call it, Magyar) language. It is unique, for that Hungarian is an isolated language, having no relatives in Europe.

View down towards the Deepdale valley with Crag Hill beyond, at the cairns just below Whernside Tarn.

So with my walk now rescued, I set off with the group up Whernside. On the summit, we took a break and sheltered from the wind. The views were spectacular and we could follow most of the route of the Settle - Carlisle railway as it made its way from Horton to Ribblehead station, over Ribblehead viaduct below us to the right before entering the tunnel at Blea Moor, emerging at the other end in the forest of Mossy Bottom, before crossing Dent Head and Arten Gill viaducts (within one kilometre of one another) ahead of us as we gazed out to the hill of Great Knoutberry beyond. The line finally reaches Dent station, the highest mainline station in England, at 1150 metres before disappearing into another tunnel as it reaches Dodderham Moss. 

As we have done on numerous occasions before, we turned off the path and headed to the left towards Whernside Tarns, picking up the path that descends into Deepdale and Dentdale beyond. On a previous walk in 2008, we had taken the path into Deepdale that allowed us to pick up the road that led through Dentdale past Whernside Manor towards Cowgill, where we ascended the hill that led to Dent station. On this occasion, we left this path and continued along the back of Whernside Manor. The forest that had previously existed there had now been logged completely and the landscape now bore a somewhat denuded look, though fresh saplings had been planted. We stopped for another tea break at a beck, before continuing. It was then that we saw a pair of alpacas that we had seen at a farm gate on the previous occasion. Strange looking creatures indeed, one brown and the other white, the did not seem shy at all, as curious in in us as we were in them. We eventually reached a bridge that crossed the River Dee at Ewegales Farm camping site (postcode LA10 5RH), just before the village of Cowgill and its beautiful church. From here we followed the road that led past the Sportsmans Inn (postcode LA10 5RG) the led towards Dent Head viaduct.

Just on the opposite side of the road at Dent Head viaduct, a path leads off to the right that takes one past Dent Head Farm (this is where the turkeys are bred, each bearing their own name) just before Mossy Bottom, where the railway enters a tunnel. Following the path through the forest which eventually reaches a clearing, an ascent of the hillside leads to the first of three ventilation shafts, enclosed by a rounded brick construction, leading up from the tunnel below. As the day moved towards late afternoon, we descended the established path towards Blea Moor, passing its Signal Box en route to Ribblehead viaduct. Taking a short cut through a tunnel under the railway line instead, we cut across farmland back towards the bunkhouse at Chapel Le Dale, eventually picking up the path we had set out upon that morning. We had covered a distance of 21 kilometres and our aching bodies and limbs were well aware of that.

Walking the last leg back to the Old School Bunkhouse, Chapel Le Dale.