Malham: Welcome to Norway

English scenery doesn’t really do spectacular, but some bits of Yorkshire come close. In a country of modest geography, the theatrical surprises of Malham Cove and Gordale Scar feel as vast as anything in Norway or Chile. Relatively, anyway; and the beer’s much better. No wonder author Bill Bryson chose to live here, in the village of Kirkby Malham, for several years.



Getting to Malham by bike involved a morning train to Hellifield, on the Carlisle-Settle line. I was the only person alighting amid the station’s splendid Victorian ironwork (pic), a cross between an empty greenhouse and a deserted garden centre.



The village of Malham (pic), at the foot of Cove and Scar, was a few rolling country miles up the road. I’ve stayed at the hostel here in the past, and enjoyed hearty pub meals with fine pints of supra-Chilean quality and sub-Norwegian prices at the Lister Arms.



It was before nine when I arrived (pic), before the weekend road cyclists pitched up in need of coffee and cake, and all was very quiet.

Gordale Scar (pic), a tourist attraction ever since poet Thomas Gray raved about it in 1769, is a short ride and then walk up the lane, all waterfalls and startlingly high overhanging cliffs. Wordsworth called it ‘terrific’ in his sonnet Gordale, so he was obviously more enthusiastic about it than Gray, who called it ‘dreadful’.

Yeah, I know, they didn’t mean it that way. No such misunderstandings with proto-impressionist JMW Turner's 1808 painting of it, at least – it’s in Tate Britain - though he apparently was low on every colour except beige when he did so.



A short distance north – and what feels a long distance vertically – is the grand glacial amphitheatre of Malham Cove (pic). The cows here must have failed their meteorology exams, because they were ambling around happily instead of sitting down and forecasting the fog, sleet and rain that hit me immediately afterwards. Not quite enough rain, though, to turn the Cove into Britain’s highest waterfall, which it was on 6 Dec 2015 after Storm Desmond..



At the top of Malham Cove is this remarkable limestone pavement (pic, from a previous trip, when it wasn’t torrential rain). I can’t hear the 1975 song Rhinestone Cowboy without substituting those words for the title. All very well to sing 'No compromisin’ / on my horizon', but it was too misty to see that far today.



Carry on further north, up onto what feels like remotely high moorland, and you get to Malham Tarn (pic), a glacial lake that inspired Charles Kingsley to write The Water-Babies, and me to cycle round it. The visibility wasn’t great in the mist and drizzle, though the effect was quite thrilling: with the far shore invisible, it felt like I was by some vast Asiatic lake in a remote part of the world ending in ‘-stan’.



And then, this (pic): a rather magical narrow lane just to the north of the Tarn, perhaps the haunt of pixies and elves, but definitely the haunt of bored students glumly going through the motions of their Duke of Edinburgh at the field centre.



And then, this (pic): the lane down the east side of the Tarn, with one of my favourite road signs.



It’s all rather grand round here (pic). You might even say spectacular. But I left just as the brightly-clothed road cyclists were descending on the village for their lunch break: I had an appointment in Skipton to cadge a lift from a narrowboat piloted by my brother and well stocked with food and drink. Scenery’s all very well, but in Yorkshire we have our priorities right.

NW3: Grinton to High Force

Day 3 of the eighth and last of my Yorkshire Compass Rides saw gale force winds, the remote Tees valley – and the culmination of the whole project at High Force, Yorkshire's version of Niagara Falls.

(Back to ← Day 2)

Dales Bike Centre in Reeth fixed my broken spoke in under ten minutes, so I was able to set off earlier than expected into the teeth, claws and talons of ex-Storm Brian. There were 30mph headwinds and 60mph gusts, so as Yorkshire folk round here would say, it was a bit breezy, like. Evidently the gale was so strong it had upended the pub sign for the Black Bull in Reeth's ruggedly fine village green (pic).



Heading northwest out of Reeth up the Arkengarthdale road, the scenery was blessed with this fine rainbow (pic). Bulgarian legend says that if you walk underneath one, you will change gender. I was reluctant to risk this. I know how expensive it is to get a really good women-specific bike frame.

This is the Stang (pic), the road towards Barnard Castle. The bend in the tree gives little idea of the sheer force of the headwind: I had been pushing, even downhill, much of the time since Reeth. But up the Stang it gradually became a mighty tailwind, whisking me uphill without pedalling like I was on an electric bike.

At the top of the Stang, someone had thoughtfully left a mattress for cyclists exhausted by the mile or so of steep climb (pic). This is the modern-day border with County Durham, but of course historic Yorkshire went much further. I hurtled down into the plains towards the Tees.

Barnard Castle didn't detain me: it would have meant crossing the river from historic Yorkshire into historic County Durham, and I wanted to stay inside the great county until the very northwesternmost point.



So I carried on, alongside the Tees's southwestern banks, along a narrow straight lane to the cul-de-sac village of Holwick (pic), dramatically situated under cliffs at Yorkshire's very top left corner. The pub was closed for the day, which was probably just as well.

The tarmac road became a farm track (pic), and the Tees valley to my right was now pretty dramatic, like one of the classic Yorkshire Dales. I was heading for that farmhouse, from where a short footpath runs down to the river...



...where a wooden footbridge allows Pennine Way walkers over the water (pic). This was my final goal, my choice as the far northwesternmost point you can cycle to in historic Yorkshire: High Force bridge, just round the corner from the waterfall itself.



So this was journey's end, the culmination of a fabulous summer of rides exploring my home county. Walk across here (pic) and you can see the tumbling brown liquid torrents of High Force: I'm referring to the pub of that name, and its decent, reasonably-priced local real ale. After a quick walk down to the waterfall itself, I settled in the pub to sit out the rainstorm before adjourning to my hostel up at Langdon Beck.



High Force itself was looking impressive (pic), thanks to the recent rains. It's not nearly the highest waterfall in England, but in terms of flow it's the biggest, and is possibly the loudest, so it's an appropriate endpoint for a Yorkshire project. Why bother going to Niagara Falls or Iguazu when we have this?



A couple of miles' walk along a muddy footpath from High Force, on the south bank of the Tees, is the rocky outcrop of Cronkley Scar (pic): the northernmost point in historic Yorkshire, seen from across the river looking west. Why bother going to Uluru or even Ayers Rock when we have this?

It's been another superb ride, showing me many different sides of my own county. I've thoroughly enjoyed this project and I'm a little sad that these eight rides are all over. Stunning dales and moors, vibrant industrial towns, lively people and great pubs, historical gems and fabulous cycling everywhere: Yorkshire's a grand place.

Miles today: 32
Miles from York to High Force: 102

Back to ← Day 2

NW2: Ripon to Grinton

Day 2 of the eighth and last of my Yorkshire Compass Rides saw me get caught up in a grouse shoot, lose a spoke and dodge a firing range. But if the day saw me, I didn't see much of it back: it was zero visibility for most of the time. (Back to ← Day 1 • On to Day 3 →)



A morning of mist and fog turned into an afternoon of fog and mist. I'd planned to do most of today offroad, but after the first moortop crossing – from handsome Kirkby Malzeard to Lofthouse – I decided to stick to the road for the rest of the day. The tracks were boggy and wet, and I could see little beyond the handlebars. Perhaps it's just as well I couldn't be seen: at one point on Kirkby Moor I got caught up in a grouse shoot (pic). If I had got shot at least it would have been by accident.



Staying on road proved the right decision, though the traffic could be busy some times (pic).

After a sneaky back road to Ellingstring that was closed for roadworks but open for bikes, I had a quick peek at Jervaulx Abbey – what I could see through the fog, anyway – and was startled by the thwunk of a spoke going on my back wheel. The bike shop in Leyburn was closed for the day, so I had to crack on to Grinton, my destination for the evening.

'Crack' was the operative word, as this took me excitingly through an MOD firing range (pic), but confident in my invincibility given my grouse-shoot survival earlier on, I carried on.



At last the fog lifted, the mist dissipated, and the sun almost came out. I enjoyed a fine moortop ride (pic) and then fabulous rollercoaster descent down into Swaledale, Yorkshire's most dramatic dale. Things round here have hardly changed since the days of James Herriot's vet stories. Things such as mobile phone provision. So, unable to call, I had to ride down into Reeth to book my bike for a wheel-fix tomorrow morning...



...and then back up the hill to the YHA hostel of Grinton Lodge, a castle-like converted shooting lodge (pic). The day turned out to have had a quite a theme. I completed it by having a few shots myself, the type that come in small glasses.

Miles today: 41
Miles since York: 73

Back to ← Day 1 • On to Day 3 →

NW1: York to Ripon

The last of my eight Yorkshire Compass Rides was a three-day trip to the northwesternmost reaches of historic Yorkshire, up in the remote Tees valley amid the Pennines. Day 1 involved a flood, a bridge to nowhere, a darts player's rival to Stonehenge, and Europe's oldest continuously performed ceremony outside a Wetherspoon. (On to Day 2 →)



I did this on my offroad touring bike, intending to avoid tarmac where possible. An underwater bike would have come in handy for the first section on the NCN route alongside the Ouse, which was unexpectedly flooded (pic). To avoid it I had to go along the busy A19 for a bit before rejoining the quiet cycle route through splendid Beningborough Hall, home of some of Yorkshire's most expensive bacon sandwiches.



I peeled off the NCN route at Aldwark, heading along farm tracks to the village of Myton. Its restored bridge (pic) goes nowhere now, which seemed appropriate for my career trajectory. More tracks led to back lanes and then main roads to Boroughbridge, famous for its Roman remains. More excitingly, it also has Yorkshire's answer to Stonehenge, though it can't have been a serious question: the Devil's Arrows.

These slabs of millstone grit were transported from Plumpton Rocks near Harrogate around 4700 years ago. Three monoliths survive, grooved by centuries of rain, almost in a line (pic).

Their purpose has been forgotten, which is hardly surprising. There's stuff in my attic that's only thirty years old but I now have no idea what it's for or why I got it in the first place.

The name comes from the legend that the Devil was cross with Aldborough and chucked stones at it, but missed, so Boroughbridge copped it instead.

Pondering this, and wondering why faces that seem to appear in toast or clouds are always angels or Jesus, but any large-format geology gets satanic credit, I cycled on.



Thanks to my bike's chunky tyres, I did the last couple of miles into historic Ripon along its pleasant canal (pic), a favourite for local dog-walkers. I went past a pristine Morris Minor parked by the canal, and it all felt like the old days, the days before dog owners picked up their poo.



This is the car in question. E reg makes it 50 years old. It's looking better for its age than me.



Ripon is the smallest of Yorkshire's seven cities (the others are York, Leeds, Bradford, Hull, Sheffield and Wakefield). I'd come to stay here overnight to see Europe's oldest continuously performed ceremony. Every night at 9pm since the year 886 – yes, every single night, without fail – a man has sounded the horn four times, once at each corner of the market cross.

Not the same man, or horn, obviously: a team shares the duty, and after each performance the hornblower gives a little talk to the cluster of sightseers (pic) that takes rather longer than the ceremony itself.

As it happened, my room for the night was in Wetherspoon's Unicorn Hotel, which overlooks the square. I could enjoy the historic ritual from my room, without having to put on any shoes. Or anything else.

On to Day 2 →

Miles today: 32

Hessay: Journey to the Centre of the Earth

We all know Yorkshire is the centre of the world, but where's the centre of Yorkshire? In other words, if the historic county was made of plywood instead of rocks, where would you be able to balance it on the point of a pencil stronger than the one in my WH Smith Pocket Diary?

There have been various claims. The village of Barkston Ash, between Selby and Leeds, has an ash tree said to mark the ceremonial centre of the county. If you spit at it, legend has it, you will die a year and a day later. The same used to apply to the locals in the pub near my house, though with less of a wait. (It closed and is now a Heron Foods, thank goodness.)

Other claims have been made by the village of Moor Monkton, northwest of York, whose church was sometimes said to be the centre; while an Ordnance Survey press release a decade ago marked the village of Cattal, outside Harrogate, as the middle point.

More recent work by the OS, however, has decided on the village of Hessay, just west of York, as the geographic origin of all things Yorkshire. My friends Si and Sue were staying for the weekend, so a visit there to find the central point seemed a good excuse for a bike ride.


We set out on the Sustrans route up the Ouse. Beningborough Hall is a popular stop for Sunday cyclists (pic). For just £2 you can get an excellent bacon butty, so long as you can find someone to lend you another £4. It's not a place for a cheap date.


The only crossing point of the Ouse between York and Boroughbridge is Aldwark Toll Bridge (pic). The delightfully clanky old wooden thing was built in 1772, which seems the last time it was serviced. Cars cost 40p but bikes are free. It saves a 25-mile round trip and was once hit by an iceberg, so goodness knows how easy it is for them to insure it now.

We dropped in to the pleasant village green of Nun Monkton, so called because it used to have some nuns and, er, a ton of monks.

It boasts the tallest maypole in the UK (pic), at 88 feet high, and its extent skywards has caused concern to local RAF pilots.

In a place where bridges get clobbered by glaciers, anything could happen.


We'd hoped to get a pint in the 'pub at the centre of Yorkshire', the Victoria at Cattal. Unfortunately it didn't open this Saturday lunchtime, so there was no chance to test anyone's balance at the supposed ultimate balancing point.


Down the road in Tockwith we did catch a pint, though, and spotted this small monument (pic) commemorating seven airmen who died when a Stirling Bomber crashed here in 1945. Hopefully they weren't avoiding a giant maypole.

More monuments further up the road at Marston Moor (pic), where Oliver Cromwell's pro-Hessay troops routed Prince Rupert's pro-Cattal forces in 1644 in a civil war battle over the location of Yorkshire's centre.


So we headed on to Hessay, the village at the centre of all things. The exact centroid is, as far as my research shows, on private farmland behind 8 Shilbutts Lane (pic).


Sadly, Hessay has no pub, cafe, shop or even post office to cash in on its geographic fame. Nowhere to spend money, not even on a stamp. Anyway, with the actual spot being underneath a cowpat in an inaccessible field, we decided to appoint instead this exact place (pic) as the Centre of Yorkshire, and therefore the Centre of the Earth. Yes indeed: the world revolves around this point.

W3: Slaidburn to Dunsop Bridge

Day 3 of the seventh of my Yorkshire Compass Rides involved the westernmost limit of historic Yorkshire, Little Copenhagen, a surprising notice about cats, and the very centre point of Great Britain. (Back to ← Day 2)


Reeking of kerosene, and fearful of any encounters with cigarette smokers, I set off the few miles from Slaidburn youth hostel to Dunsop Bridge (pic). The hilltops here, looking west, are the westernmost in historic Yorkshire.


Dunsop Bridge – another village that used to be in Yorks and is now Lancs – is the settlement nearest the point determined by the Ordnance Survery as the centre of Great Britain. The nearest you get to a monument or marker is this phone box (pic), which is inscribed as Britain's most central phone box (which it is) and 100,000th in the UK (which is probably isn't, now that most of the rural ones have been turned into libraries or greenhouses).


The actual central point is four miles north of Dunsop Bridge, along the Dunsop Valley (pic). There's a flat tarmac bridleway, not open to non-residential traffic, that makes a real gem of a family-friendly trail through some good scenery. You could be in Wales or Scotland, especially when you try to get a mobile signal.


The nearest you can get by bike to the centre is Brennand Farm (pic), just visible at the top of the picture here. To get to the actual origin, Whitendale Hanging Stones – the location at which Great Britain could be balanced on the point of a pencil, if you had one that hadn't been chewed by a nephew – you have to walk a mile or so along a footpath behind the farm, and it was starting to rain, so I didn't. Instead I went back to Dunsop Bridge to the Puddleduck Cafe, Britain's most central, which conveniently had good bike parking, free use of a track pump, and most important coffee and cake.


I still had the find the westernmost cyclable point, and headed out from Dunsop Bridge. Evidently it's a perilous place for inattentive cats (pic). Perhaps they're too busy chasing red squirrels.


It's fine scenery round here, as the road heads through the Trough of Bowland (pic), still in modern Lancashire but historic Yorkshire. Many of the rivers round here have provided drinking water for Preston since the late 1800s. Given how much it has rained in the last two days, I don't think they'll be going thirsty.


A track leads west from off this road to the very westernmost point in historic Yorkshire, a watershed up in the hills by Hawthornthwaite Fell. On the map it's amazingly far left, only eight miles from the Irish Sea. You can cycle some of it, on tarmac up to the water works, but beyond (pic) is a bumpy walkers-only track that goes to Longden Castle – despite the name, a shabby little hut for grouse shooters. It's possible to cycle on tarmac in historic Yorkshire and be further west (up by Sedbergh, at Beck Foot near Lowgill). But as part of my Compass Rides, my line westwards out of York finished here.

I paused briefly to admire Miranda, a statue of the guardian nymph of the waters here (pic) which is the reason why this part of Yorkshire isn't called 'Little Copenhagen'.

Then it was down to Clitheroe for the train home, and the completion of another delightful Compass Ride. I had soaked up lots of atmosphere, though perhaps a bit too literally.

Miles today: 25
Miles York to Dunsop Bridge: 89

Back to ← Day 2

W2: Harrogate to Slaidburn

Day 2 of the seventh of my Yorkshire Compass Rides involved some worm-themed naive art, a pervasive smell of kerosene, and rain. Lots. (Back to ← Day 1 • On to Day 3 →)


The weather forecast could be summed up in one four-letter word, though 'rain' is probably a politer one. I set off early to make the most of the dry morning, heading up the lovely railtrail to the charming village of Ripley with its castle (pic). Tea would have been nice, but it was too early for the teashops to be open, thus saving me about ten quid.


It was still way pre-opening-time when got to Pateley Bridge, proud home of Britain's oldest sweatshop. Oh, sorry, 'sweetshop' (pic). I breakfasted in a bus shelter, psyching myself up for the 300m climb up Greenhow Hill into a stiff headwind and the increasingly heavy drizzle. All the cows were sat firmly down. Being a bovine meteorologist today was an entirely sedentary occupation.

Lacking waterproof socks, I recycled the breakfast plastic bags as such. I can report that the Sainsbury's bag failed and let in water after two hours, but the Co-op bag lasted five before inundating.

It was so wet, even Dr Who had given up travel for the day (pic).

Miserable weather, then, but still an enjoyable ride in its own curious way, through hill-country villages, farms and market towns, along quiet narrow back roads (pic).

At a cafe in Cracoe I met several cycle-tourists doing the Way of Roses (west to east, the opposite way to me) and we swopped lively traveller's tales over the sound of dripping clothes.

In one village I was charmed by the homespun worm-related artworks that adorned most of the houses (pic).

Why the nematode theme? Something to do with the name of the village, perhaps – Wigglesworth...?


Eventually I got to my target for the evening: Slaidburn (pic). It feels a typical Lancashire village – except it was in Yorkshire until 1974, which is the whole point of the trip. Yes, even this far west, we're still in the historic county. The beer wasn't great though: that's definitely gone all Lancashire.


With its ruggedly handsome pub and handy youth hostel (pic), it was an ideally placed stopover. I've remembered it ever since. Mainly because the hostel drying room stank of kerosene, as have all my clothes ever since they spent the night there.

Miles today: 50
Miles since York: 85

Back to ← Day 1 • On to Day 3 →