The area known as the Yorkshire Dales became a National Park in 1954.
It covers 1,762 square kilometres, that’s 680 square miles.
The Park’s job is to protect the area’s unique rural landscapes
and heritage. The countryside here is made up of great river valleys -
The Dales - surrounded by high moorland, known locally as Fells.
The view, over the gate, in this hole in the wall,
is one of the most glorious in the whole of Yorkshire;
it seems to sum up the essence of the Yorkshire Dales. It is, Bolton Abbey.
The ruins of a medieval priory; the river Wharfe snaking its way around them; and it’s all set against
a backdrop of the fells - that’s what they call the moorlands around here.
Fells that turn purple with heather in the summer. It’s the perfect place to come for a short
easy stroll, or, indeed, for a longer tougher walk at any time of the year.
In the early 16th century, England was a Catholic country; religious houses like these owed their spiritual
allegiance to the Pope. But that was the same Pope that refused to grant the King,
Henry VIII, a divorce from his wife, Catherine of Aragon, so he could marry Ann Boleyn,
in the hope of securing a son and the succession. Well, Henry’s solution was quite simple:
he declared himself head of the church in England, and, for good measure, he dissolved
these monasteries and helped himself to the lands and to their wealth.
Augustinian friars first arrived in this place in the year 1153. They came to found their abbey.
And they came for a more practical reasons than today’s visitors, who just want to
sample and feel the beauty of this wonderful place.
Those friars? They just wanted a sheltered spot;
they wanted access to water and, above all, they wanted plenty of land on which to
graze their sheep. Those sheep produced fleeces to be sold into northern Europe and they produced
a big profit, enough money to enable the friars to build their magnificent abbey.
If Henry VIII was so intent on smashing up the monasteries;
how come the nave here at Bolton Priory survives?
Well, that’s down to people power. When the monasteries were dissolved, they said:
‘Look, the nearest church for us is in Skipton, That’s 12 miles away - far too far to walk’.
So, they were granted permission to convert the nave for worship.
And, it’s still a parish church today.
There’s one special feature here that must be visited:
it’s in the Strid Wood. The full river here is channelled through this 6ft wide chasm, and
it’s about 20ft deep. It may not look far across, but if you slip, it means almost certain
death - as it did for a medieval lad called Egremont. His mother gave the lands round
here to the monks in his memory.
We may be in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales National Park;
but the 80 or so square miles around here is owned by the Duke of Devonshire,
as it has been by his predecessors in 1753. And it is now the Bolton Abbey Estate which actually
looks after the farmland, the paths, the rivers and all this abundant environment for wildlife.
There are a couple of historic buildings around here which are worth seeing: this is Barden Tower.
Now, it’s a hunting lodge built in the 12th century. But, in 1485, it became the
home of Sir Henry Clifford. Now, he was known as the Shepherd Lord, because he came here
to hide away from the enemies his father had made during the Wars of the Roses.
Now you could easily miss this place - we’re in the tiny hamlet of Beamsley, just off the
A59 Harrogate to Skipton road. What we have here is a circular almshouse with six rooms
radiating off it. Now it was all built by Lady Ann Clifford in 1593.
So, now we’re going to move on from the Bolton Abbey Estate, at the southern end of the Dales, further
up Wharfedale, and then on to visit the rest of Yorkshire’s great dales.
As we travel further north the stone turns from millstone grit to limestone; from which the local buildings
and the miles of drystone walls get their distinctive character.
Grassington is one of the most well-known villages in the Dales.
It attracts visitors from a wide area.
They come here to wander its roughly cobbled streets, or, to walk down by the river.
There are many tempting walks around here.
On the moors, above the village, can be found old lead mines.
And if you come here in winter when the foliage has died back; you can pick out Iron Age settlements.
One of the major features is Kilnsey Crag. It’s 170ft high with a 30ft overhang -
it’s a mecca for climbers.
An agricultural show is held here every August.
Local farmers come to catch up;
while runners try to outdo one another, running up and down the treacherous
slopes and gullies on the crag.
At one side of the crag, there is this wonderful green
track - Mastiles Lane. It crosses the moor to Malham.
It comes out by Malham Tarn, the inspiration for Charles Kingsley’s
‘The Water Babies’.
Just a short distance away, you come to
one of the most dramatic features of the Dales: Malham Cove.
A huge 300ft high,1,000ft wide, amphitheatre.
Here the water percolates through the rock to find its way down to a harder bedrock.
It’s the source of the river Aire.
Energetic people climb the 400 steps to the top to see the limestone pavement:
Blocks of limestone where water
has dissolved the rock away on weak fissures.
In the far distance can be seen the market town of Skipton,
just on the edge of the National Park. It lies at the bottom of Rombalds Moor
in a vale between the Wharfe and the Aire valleys.
This strategic position made it an ideal place to build a castle.
The castle became the stronghold of the Clifford family who developed Skipton
as a market town to serve the district. In the adjacent aprsih church, you can see the
Clifford family tombs.
The town’s trade developed in the 18th century when the building
of the Leeds Liverpool canal brought cheap coal to fuel the first cotton mills.
Skipton is still very much a market town with stalls lining the High Street, four days a week.
And a weekly auction mart where the Dales farmers bring their sheep.
It’s mostly marginal upland sheep farming in the Dales and all the towns and villages ….
Towns like Settle,
with its oddly named Ye Olde Naked Man Cafe and Bakery.
And the Shambles an arcaded row of butchers shops.
Look out for a large house called The Folly: when it was built in 1679,
local people thought it ‘folly’ to build such a large house. They weren’t wrong!
The builder, the wealthy merchant, Richard Preston, went bankrupt.
It’s now the Museum of North Craven Life.
Settle is the start of a rail line, and it crosses the Dales
to Carlisle, 72 miles to the north.
Built in 1876 as a rival to the west coast line to Scotland.
It was a major feat of construction requiring 14 tunnels and 20 viaducts, including
the 24-arch Ribblehead viaduct across a bog.
Along its route from Settle, it passes the Three Peaks
of Penyghent, Inglebrough and Whernside.
Each peak is over 2,000ft high
and it forms a challenge for those who hope to complete the 24 mile walk in under 12 hours.
Although, if you’re here on the last Sunday in April, you’ll see the winning fell runner
completing it in a winning time of around 2 hours 45 minutes.
From here, a minor road carries you over to Wensleydale;
at the head of which Dale is Hawes - a small market town
where a weekly livestock market takes place, and, where Wensleydale cheese is manufactured.
Unusually, Wensleydale is the only Dale not to be named after its river.
The river here, being the river Ure.
Across the river from Hawes, lies the hamlet of Hardraw,
famous for its 100ft waterfall. Every September a brass band concert is held here.
From Hardraw a steep road climbs over Buttertubs Pass,
so-called, as farmers’ would lower unsold dairy products
from Hawes market into the chasm to keep them cool until the following week.
This is Swaledale:
the most northerly of Yorkshire’s Dales and the most remote.
There are no major towns along the dale,
although there are four villages at its head: Keld, Angram, Thwaite and Muker.
This dale is much quieter than it used to be, when lead was mined up on the moors.
Now the people who come here, come to walk, cycle or ride horses.
We cross from Swaledale back into Wensleydale
to visit Castle Bolton.
Built in 1378 for the Scrope family, it was later turned into a private residence.
But it is, now, open to visitors.
Across the river is West Witton, where a curious custom in enacted every August.
The effigy of Bartle, thought to be St Bartholomew,
as it is held on the Saturday nearest to his Feast Day,
is carried door-to-door, soliciting drinks.
But at the end of the village the body is dumped and set alight.
The next village is Wensley, the village that gives the dale its name.
You perhaps expect it to be a busy market town, but when the plague hit the area in
1563, the market was transferred to Leyburn, a mile further up the hill - and there it remains.
Leyburn is the home of the Wensleydale Railway that has opened up 17 miles of track
from Leeming Bar to Redmire close-by Castle Bolton.
The track at one time ran 40 miles from Northallerton
all the way to Garsdale at the top of Wensleydale.
There are those who hope this will be achieved one day.
Lastly, we come to Middleham with its spectacular castle.
King Richard III - then the Duke of Gloucester - lived here in the 1460s as a boy.
And it is thought that the Middleham Jewel, a 15th century gold pendant, found
here in 1985, would have in all likelihood have been owned by royalty.
A replica of the pendant is displayed in the church.
Today, the village is the centre for horse breeding and race horse training.