Journey to the North - Part 4

 Day 6 dawned bright and clear - my original intention had been to just head for home, but there were so many more stones to see, so we bought lunch from the supermarket (again) and headed up hill.

At this point I had a message from the AirBnB host to say she couldn't find her house keys, one check pockets later and I headed back down hill to return them  - told you I don't normally do the responsility part of going away! 

We headed up Heber's Ghyll which was a lovely walk, someone had taken the time to lay a dinosaur trail for children to follow too.

And onto the Swastika stone, the original (very hard to see) and a Victorian copy are both protected behind a barred fence.

The Sepulchre Stone 

Modern Art

Neolithic 'art' at hanging stones.

Another Stanza Stone - The Beck Stone, which was a challenge to find,  made a lovely place to sit and eat lunch by a babbling brook.

I was now burning away beautifully and it turns out that suncream and night cream tubes can look remarkably similar without reading glasses so I was just gently frying my skin rather than protecting it! 

But we walked on until mid-afternoon stone to stone across 5 miles before we parted and headed our seperate ways home.

Bearing in mind the health issues I have had this year and the general covid anst, this was a challenging trip but one that helped me to push boundaries and still come home more mentally relaxed than when I left.

So my Journey to the North for my Discovery Gold Award involved scrubbing toilets, sinks and showers, making tables, cleaning, laying out tents, making boxes. picking litter, walking up hills alone, and spending miles on the moor getting in touch with my neolithic roots.

I made new guiding friends, I extended my love of the north and learnt more about my neolithic ancestors - although I do think some of the more educated expert's interpretations of the stones are a bit off the mark.  I reckon a lot of these carvings are graffiti and nothing more, the drive of every person to leave some sort of mark on the world that means they are not forgotten.  You heard it here first ;) 

Read more...

Journey to the North - Part 3

I don't normally 'do' bookings and arrangements, I tend to leave that up to my husband or walking partner. As this trip was for my Discovery Award Gold I'd done the Waddow part all on my own and I also registered for airBnB and found what looked like a suitable place in Ilkley. Why Ilkley I hear you ask? Because the moor is teeming with Neolithic carved stones.  Neolithic stones are incredibly interesting, Avebury is spiritual,  La Hougue Bie is one of the most fascinating places I have ever been to. So it made sense to me that my journey to the north should include the moor.

Ilkley itself is a nice town, it is a spa town and the money is obviously drawn here but it holds a northern feel. I liked it.

My walking partner drove up to meet me there.  We had planned at the start of the year to go up the Old Man of Conniston, but my injuries meant this was the compromise of some walking time together and interesting for him too, as it is a place he had never considered walking in before.

The AirBnB home I had chosen turned out to be better than suitable and was absolutely fantastic with 2 double bedrooms and bathroom completely seperate on a floor of their own and the family left a lovely breakfast each day. They also, because of Covid, stayed out of the way, so this was like being in a lovely house on our own. 

 

Day 5 was a little drab but dry and after a nice breakfast we walked to the supermarket to buy lunch then walked up to the Cow and Calf to start our stone tour.  The cow is the larger of the stone son the left and the calf the stand alone stone.  I find looking at photos of rocks difficult to get a handle on size, but these are big (on day 6 we watched a clearly recreational walker in a skirt climb the calf, get stuck and have to be rescued by some climbers who harnessed and roped her up and slowly helped her back down - going up anything is much easier than coming back down!) 

There are lovely views once up on the moor (when I'm talking about the moor, this could be any part of Rombold's Moor of which Ilkey Moor is just one bit, different sections of Rombold's Moor have different names based on the locality to the towns)

The neolithic markings tend to be ring and cup marks but the rocks are also covered in modern carvings. Some from the 18th century onwards from what I could see, right up to today.  Mostly these are names, some are more modern art.  In some cases they appear to have carved names across the the neolithic marks.  I don't know how I feel about this.  Time marches on, traditions hold fast.  Is it just graffiti or is it a continuation of a culture?

I genuinely felt in awe of JD Wrigglesworth who had the tenacity to carve their full name in large letters across a rock in 1904.   

We headed off from the cow and calf to pancake rock.

Many of the stones have cup marks.  Lots are named and some were quite hard to find.

Some we gave up trying to work out whether we had definitely found the correct stone and just renamed them ourselves, so the moor now includes picnic rock and crocodile rock!

Modern art, can you spot the goat's head?

Some parts of the moor had very easy paths

Some rocks on the moor were very obviously identifiable, like the 12 apostles. 

Some paths were new

I am unable to wear walking boots because of my injury, so I was very grateful for some of the paths through bogs.

The Stanza Stones are part of an art project  by Simon Armitage and are spread across 50 miles. 

I was tripping along happily, whilstling 'On Ilkley Moor baht 'at' to myself when  Chris Chittell, walking from the opposite direction, commented on my lovely whistling. Surreal moment!

I also think I was possibly acting illegally as I was indeed wearing a hat that I had bought in Ilkley on Day 4!

Cowper's Cross was an unexpected find and has an interesting story, it is also evidence of Christianity trying to stamp out any pre-christian traditions and meeting places. 

Badger stone was the stone that initially set me to wanting to come to the moor.   It is very likely that this was a meeting place or market place and it has some of the best markings on it.

Time has washed away our understanding of what these marks truly mean though and it had also washed away the land surrounding the bench nearby.

We wandered on, on and off path finding more stones - until we were also weary 

And we headed down hill back into town for Fish and Chips sat on a wall.

12 miles walking meant I had now covered 45 miles across 5 days and I was starting to get beyond weary myself!

Read more...

Journey to the North - Part 2

Day 4 of my Journey up North and the weather was pretty shabby.

It is time I mentioned that my achilles finally gave up the ghost about April this year and I had to stop all running, any long walks and I'd rather lost a lot of my fitness.  I also decided it best not to mention to my physio that I had plans for a rather active excursion!  These plans had not included Pendle Hill but it was there at my feet, well I was at its foot, so it would have been rude not to go.

 Pendle is a hill but it's about as high as a hill gets before it becomes a mountain, being just shy of 2000ft.

Given my injury and my propensity for falling on these kind of walks, having gone down hard on both Snowdon and Ben-Nevis, I wondered how sensible it was my going up alone.  But there one or two walkers around so I set off

I was rather banking on a cup of tea  before I got going but the couldron said no.

Historically, the Pendle witch trials are important and interesting. The trials were well documented, the accused were not allowed to defend themselves, although some pleaded guilty and admitted they were witches, 10 were hanged.  

I decided to go up the challenging steps and come down the less challenging sloped path.  I usually am good at up, it's down that is my slippery down fall - literally.

I have a feeling this cairn, part way up, is something to do with the scouts.

Despite the mizzle, the views weren't bad.

I made it to the top

stood for a ponder

And then down.

I was rather pleased with myself, then I looked at the wall than runs bottom to top and had a bit of a think about the person that built that.  Imagine going to work at the top and realising you'd left your flask at the bottom, my mind wandered...I needed a cup of tea.

And part way to Ilkey I found it.

Read more...

Blockey

The March hill walk (which turned out to be the last for sometimes as they have since been cancelled) started in Blockey.  I was pleased to have my walking friend back from a long stay away in foreign climes so whilst the Cotswolds hides its hills fairly well and is not my favourite walking place, it was a chance to have a good catch up.

 On the Monarch Way to Broad Campden and then Chipping Campden

There was a lot of lying water around,

 But Spring was in the air and everything was starting to feel a little greener.

 There is plenty of interesting architecture in the villages.

 All with the Little Lord Fauntleroy air that brings in the American tourist thick and fast.

 The grade 2 listed  Quaker
meeting house in Broad Campden with 'friends of the' looking out as we walked past.

One of the problems of walking in large groups is you can't just stop as you feel like it as you would alone, I would have stopped here to have a chat and find out more.

 Lady Juliana's Gateway outside Chipping Campden

 And on towards Broadway

 Through quite a lot of mud!

 On the Cotswold way

 Broadway Tower stood proud in the distance

 It's an 18th century folly (Things built by people with too much time and money on their hands!)

We didn't go in obviously but actually it looks like it is worth a visit and there is a nuclear bunker there too.

 Great views over the Malverns.

 We carried on through privileged living lanes

 And lovely woods.

 "truffula trees"

 With good signage

and followed the rainbow back to Blockey.

14.5 miles, 1700ft

An easy day out and good company.

Read more...