Last year, as Lockdown took full effect, it essentially curtailed all foreign travel. This year, concerns surrounding Covid remain and so, once again, few are leaving our shores. Rather, they look to home for holiday breaks. The ‘Staycation’ was born.
Having much enjoyed the 5 day Cuthbert’s Way two years ago, my wife and I recently undertook another long trek, 55 miles or so, arranged through Shepherds Walks Holidays. This, ‘Herriot’s Way’, took us through the Yorkshire Dales, though links between places on our walk and those in which the fictional vet practised are tenuous at best. Our circular route from Aysgarth, took in Askrigg, Hawes, Keld, Reeth and Bolton Castle (a particularly well preserved 14th century fortress) – staying at a variety of country pubs and hotels along the way.
Lead Mining, sheep farming and cheese have been the three principal Dales industries through the ages. But lead mining came and went – the last working mine closing down over 100 years ago. In its prime, the late 18th century, Britain was the largest producer in the world. Initially lead was taken from surface ‘scrapes’ or from sink holes (prospectors judging where to explore based on the vegetation; where lead lay beneath the surface this affected the latter). Subsequently, lateral tunnels were driven deep into the hillsides. We came across the remains of differing enterprises, ranging from small rock-breaking stations to smelting works, either nestling deep amongst the heather or set back from later roadways. All this depended on local employees. In many cases ‘local’ meaning a five or six mile walk to work, followed some six hours later by the same walk back again.
Sheep have been farmed here for a thousand years or more, creating narrow tracks across the hills and sometimes leading the unwary big-footed, less nimble, human down precarious valley sides. This is their home and they look with some disdain on modern man, the clumsy incomer, casual visitor, passer through. This may explain the smile I’m sure I see on their faces.
Continuing another 1000 years tradition, today, the Wensleydale Creamery, Hawes, produces 4000 tons of cheese each year, taking in thousands of litres of milk daily from the 50 local farms which supply it. We saw the stone butts erected for ‘The Guns’. Great squares of heather are burnt, under control, to provide new vegetation for the birds to feed on. At one point some partridges crossed our path. We felt sorry for them as, come the ‘Glorious Twelfth’, they will become fair game, quite literally, for the hunters who will invade their habitat. Beaters will drive them out from the undergrowth. It reminds me of the Trenches, where other innocent souls were forced to leave safe cover to face a hail of ammunition which would almost certainly destroy most of them.
It was awe-inspiring to reflect that the present landscape took shape here many thousands of years before humans arrived on the scene, millions even; awe inspiring that these hills will remain much as they are now for thousands more. As one of my fellow walkers remarked ‘We are simply the current inhabitants [of Earth] … We make of it what we can, but one day we too will be gone.’ A rather gloomy prediction but not unreasonable in view of climate change and our species’ relentless exhaustion of the world’s resources.
Of our party of six, four were serious walkers, used to three or four such ventures every year. For us it was annual leave, a walking holiday; for these others a walking holiday. So, we found the pace rather unforgiving at times. We did make stops for food and water, and sometimes just to take in the view, but my, did we work hard in between! One redeeming factor; the first rain of the week, a thunder storm no less, struck only when we were just a mile or so from the end of our final stretch. We spent a while sheltered in Aysgarth church and then ‘legged it’ onwards through fierce rain to the end. A welcome pot of tea revived us all before we went our separate ways.
All things considered, would I recommend Shepherds Walks? Yes I would, and our splendid guide Mark.