The Land of the Lune - Drakkar Press

Kingsdale Beck
Most visitors to Kingsdale intend to go through
or under it, which is less than it deserves. They
are either using the road between Dent and Thorntonin-Lonsdale
or they are aiming to tackle the potholes
arrayed along the sides of Kingsdale.
Kingsdale is a fine upland valley, flanked by
Whernside to the east and Great Coum and Gragareth
to the west, with its limestone scars below the millstone
grit tops providing superb views. It can be lonely and
wild but also, on sunny summer days, balmy and serene.
It would perhaps have its deserved appeal to tourists if
it reverted to its full name of Vikingsdale – some of the
names here (Yordas, Braida Garth) are of Norse origin,
as indeed are ‘beck’ and ‘dale’.
The valley runs straight from north to south for
7km with only 1½ farmsteads in it – Braida Garth and
Kingsdale Head. The other ½ of the latter is a holiday
cottage. The head of Kingsdale is 3km above Kingsdale
Keld Head Scar in Kingsdale
Kingsdale Beck 133
Head, where the road between Whernside and High Pike
begins to drop down steeply to Dentdale. Kingsdale
Beck gathers off the peaty slopes of Great Coum and
Whernside but, like Barbon Beck to the north, comes
and goes a few times. It has usually gone between
Kingsdale Head and Keld Head. This is convenient for it
means we can follow the new ‘conservation path’ across
the beck to investigate the Apronfull of Stones. This
20m-diameter ring of stones, with gaps to the east and
west (the latter probably from beck erosion), is a Bronze
Age burial cairn.
Directly opposite is Yordas Cave, which was one
of the first tourist attractions in the Dales. The aforementioned
Reverend Hutton said of Yordas Cave:
“Having never been in a cave before, a thousand ideas
… were excited in my imagination on my entrance
into this gloomy cavern … As we advanced ... and the
gloom and the horror increased, the den of Cacus, and
the cave of Poliphemus came into my mind [sadly, our
knowledge of Greek mythology is not what it was] …
This is Chapter 8 of The Land of the Lune (2nd edition), http://www.drakkar.co.uk/landofthelune.html, Copyright © 2010 John Self