THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

At Walden Head two farmhouses and two ruined houses cluster together amidst trees by the beck, and beyond them rises fold upon fold of fell.  Perhaps it is a cold February evening with the Pike fleeced with snow.  Across the valley a dog barks; a woman crosses a meadow to feed hens.  Each homestead in the valley is a unit; the farmer and his wife, perhaps a child or two, cows, hens, sheep, and a horse or a tractor. Each one carries on life in the dale.

Hartley/Dales, 1956

We could go back to Wensleydale by a mountain-path that climbs up the side of Cam Gill Beck from Starbottom, and then, crossing the ridge between Buckden Pike and Tor Mere Top, it goes down into the wild recesses of Waldendale.  So remote is this valley that wild animals, long extinct in other parts of the dales, survived there until almost recent times.

Home/Dales, 1906