A Waterfall and an Anniversary Dinner in Our Favourite Village
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| North Yorkshire |
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| Craven |
Breakfast at the Racehorses, Kettlewell, was appropriately socially-distanced, but that is not difficult when only three of 17 rooms are occupied. Still, I was pleased we were not the only ones unafraid
to venture out and cautiously exercise new (and, it turned out, rather temporary, freedoms.
It was not a great breakfast. When we were here in 2017 breakfast included a slab of black pudding, now replaced by a triangle of
greasy pap. That is really not what hash browns are meant to be.
Here is a reminder from the yesterday's post (Skipton, Grassington and Kettlewell) of how we were when we came to Kettlewell on honeymoon in 1975 when hash browns (the good and the bad) were still confined to the far side of the Atlantic.
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| Lynne, Yorkshire Dales July 1975 Lynne's hair is still this colour, and no, it does not come out of a bottle |
How we are now will become painfully obvious as this post progresses.
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| Me, Yorkshire Dales July 1975. My hair seems to have changed colour |
Kettlewell to Aysgarth
It was a dismal morning so we got in the car and set off up the dale. The narrow bottom of the V-shaped valley has to accommodate the
river as well as a B-road and I had forgotten how narrow that road is. The four
miles to Buckden required several stops to pass oncoming vehicles.
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| The River Wharfe at Kettlewell, photographed on a sunnier day in 2017 |
On the valley sides the fields, hay meadows and grazing for cattle, were all neatly divided by dry stone walls. Each field has its own barn, a practice unique to this area. Most are of two storeys with cattle sheltered below and fodder stored above. Farms and farming methods change, many barns are now derelict, though some of the more accessible have been converted into tourist accommodation. The higher ground above, with no barns and fewer walls is rough grazing for sheep.
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| Another photograph from a finer day. No field barns but plenty of walls. The parallel walls at the top enclose a drover's road. |
Changes in national drinking habits have seen vast numbers of pubs close over the last two decades. I am delighted that all three
of Kettlewell’s are still in business, as is the Buck in Buckden and the Fox
and Hounds in tiny Starbotton half way between. Starbotton has less than 50 permanent
residents and over 60 houses, the ‘extra’ accommodation being second/holiday
homes.
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| Richmondshire |
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| Kettlewell to Aysgarth, 30 miles of Yorkshire's finest countryside (on a nice day) |
Bishopdale broadens and runs into Wensleydale near Aysgarth.
Aysgarth Falls
Aysgarth is a small village lining both sides of the main road through Wensleydale. Unlike Wharfedale, Wensleydale is broad and U-shaped,
the River Ure having had considerable help digging its valley from glaciation
in the last ice-age. Consequently, the Ure is a much wider river than the
Wharfe – and there is plenty of room for a much larger road – an A-road, in
fact.
The parish church is half a mile down the dale from the main part of Aysgarth, just above the bridge giving access to the
Upper Aysgarth Falls.
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| Upper Falls, Aysgarth |
The river Ure drops 30 m east of Aysgarth. In one drop that would be big waterfall, but the Falls are in three sections over a mile of
river, and each section has multiple steps. They are renowned for their beauty rather
than height; whether the same can be said for two old codgers below, the
crumbling remnants (speak for yourself, L) of
the youngsters at the top of the post, is laughable debatable.
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| At Aysgarth Upper Falls |
The Upper Falls have been a popular film location. In Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves Kevin Costner’s Robin having travelled to from
Dover to Nottinghamshire via Hadrian’s Wall, met Nick Brimble’s Little John
in North Yorkshire - director Kevin Reynolds had little respect for English
Geography. They fought across the falls, and you can’t do that at Niagara.
Ten minutes walk downstream through the National Park car park and some pleasant woodland…
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| Near Aysgarth's Middle Falls |
….are the middle falls. This is the biggest drop, though it is divided into seven steps, each so sharply cut they look artificial,
though they are not.
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| Middle Falls, Aysgarth |
The rain was holding off so we were happy to make the ten or twelve minutes stroll down to the curved lower falls.
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| Lower Falls, Aysgarth |
Hubberholme
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| Craven |
Tiny Hubberholme is also, slightly oddly, the site of
Buckden parish church. The pews are the work of Robert Thompson of Kilburn who
started carving mice into his work in 1919. Thompson died in 1955 but Robert
Thompson Craftsmen Ltd continue the tradition of ‘mouseman’ furniture on the
edge of the North York Moors.
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| The 13th century Parish Church of St Michael and All Angels, Buckden - in Hubberholme |
The mice are small, discreetly placed and integral to the furniture, not stuck on like an afterthought. In 1975 we spent some time locating as many as we could but that is not possible now; these are the days of Covid and the church was firmly locked with the mice on the inside and us on the outside.
Kettlewell
Back in Kettlewell we had lunch – a sandwich and a cup of tea - in a café much frequented by cyclists. Here we encountered careful
social distancing, disposable plates, and cutlery lobbed straight into a
bowl of disinfectant after use. We are getting used to not being able to buy a beer or a
cup of tea without giving a phone number, but I will be glad when that
eventually disappears along with other Covid inconveniences. It is true, though,
that apart from the return of the single-use plate, the effects of Covid – less
driving, less flying, less generally - have often been environmentally
beneficial. Even a grumpy old git must occasionally pause to appreciate a dark cloud’s
silver lining.
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| Kettlewell |
We spent much of the afternoon wandering round the village – apart from a short spell standing in the doorway of the village shop
(closed on Sunday) hiding from the rain. Dale’s villages, like everywhere else,
look best in the sunshine, but the relatively light-coloured limestone means
they do not look overly depressing in the wet.
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| Kettlewell |
There have been changes since 1975, the plethora of parked cars in the pictures above is an ugly but inevitable consequence of
increasing affluence. Other changes are for the better. Most buildings today are in good condition and there are several that were once tired, or even on the verge of dilapidation. that have been rebuilt and updated. They look
good from outside, while I would expect the comforts and convenience of the interior
are beyond the imaginings of the original builders.
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| Restored Building, Kettlewell |
There are spots without parked cars…
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| Kettlewell without parked cars |
…but even road signs can take you down memory lane. A metal post near where the village roads meet the ‘main’ road may carry four modern signs, but the top one to Burnsall and Skipton is a 'pre-Worboys' as road sign aficionados (yes, they do exist) call them. The Worboys committee reported in 1963 on the shortcomings of the road signage of the day and suggested a complete overhaul and re-design. Their suggestions were put into effect from January 1965. I passed my driving test in 1967 so there were still plenty of pre-Worboys signs in those far off days when a gallon (4.5 litres) of petrol cost 5/11d (just under 30p) but they are vanishingly rare now.
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| Pre-Worboys road sign, Kettlewell |
The (almost) famous and (almost) infallible Kettlewell weather stone was not, I think, here in 1975, but it is hardly new. You do not
have to smile, as they would say in Yorkshire, but most people do.
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| The Kettlewell Weather Stone |
At the east end of the village, where the path sets off to climb Great Whernside, (the summit is 3.5 km beyond and 450 m above the
ridge in the photo)…
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| The eastern corner of Kettlewell |
…there is a bridge over the Kettlewell Beck. Tradition demands we stop here for a game of Pooh Sticks. Tradition was maintained and I
was, as ever, a magnanimous loser.
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| Pooh sticks bridge over Kettlewell Beck |
Late in the afternoon the village became jammed with cars. The ‘main’ road to Skipton was closed at the Wharfe Bridge and the police
were attempting to funnel southbound traffic onto an alternative, single track,
road. Police at the southern end of the closure were attempting to do the same
with northbound traffic. They were co-ordinating their efforts, but hold-ups
were inevitable. Summer weekends always bring out the bikers, largely groups of
middle-aged men attempting to re-capture their youth. Tragically, one had fatally misjudged a
corner between Kettlewell and Kilnsey causing a temporary road closure.
Dinner at the Blue Bell
We may have been staying at the Racehorses, but it was at the Blue Bell we spent our honeymoon, so we had dropped in there earlier and
booked our anniversary dinner. In 1975 there was little choice, regular pubs did
not serve food, beyond a bag of crisps; those who stayed at the Blue Bell dined
at the Blue Bell, those who stayed at the Racehorses dined at the Racehorses
and nobody wandered in from outside.
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| Blue Bell Inn, Kettlewell |
Social-distancing currently limits the number of diners so booking was essential, but there is still a problem for those eccentrics
who wish to dine on a Sunday evening. Sunday lunch is big, but many pubs and
restaurants close their kitchens late afternoon. Fortunately, the Blue Bell was
serving in the early evening.
Pubs are all different and have been left to work out their own Covid salvation (or not bother, in some well-publicised cases). At the
Blue Bell drinkers were outside, diners inside, and we had a room to ourselves.
‘There are no individual menus,’ we were told, ‘photograph the blackboard, go
to your table and we will come and take an order.’ Now, that would have been a
problem in 1975!
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| Blue Bell menu, Kettlewell |
I lack the patience to go right through the menu listing everything unknown or unavailable in 1975, but the starters are:- garlic bread!
45 years ago garlic was irredeemably foreign (though the pretentious could buy
it in our local supermarket – by the clove): Carrot and coriander soup (coriander?
fancy foreign stuff, what’s wrong with parsley?): sweet chilli sauce (spicy
foreign muck): haddock goujons (what in God’s green Yorkshire is a goujon?). British
food was among the worst in the world, it is not yet among the best, but it has come a long way in the 45 years of our marriage.
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| Dining at the Blue Bell |
The Blue Bell appeared to be trying much harder than the Racehorses whose menu was marooned in the 1990s. I had belly pork with apple
purée, black pudding croquette and cider sauce, Lynne had a lamb kofta with feta
and olive salad, yoghurt dip, flat bread - and chips (some things will never
change). It was good pub food and we enjoyed it; the menu had been written with
thought and imagination and the food prepared with care. Was it perfect? No,
but we were not paying Michelin star prices. Was it value for what we paid? Yes.
Would we go back? Yes.
27/07/2020
We had enjoyed a good weekend in a place of happy memories, and although both days had been disappointingly overcast, we had not been rained on that
much. Our return journey was another matter. Dire from start to finish.
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| A lovely day on the M6 |
