The Land of the Lune - Drakkar Press

Pen-y-Ghent (far left), Ingleborough and Whernside (to the right) from East Baugh Fell
the quiet becks and limestone crags within the high
moors. As long as the new developments are in keeping
with the traditions of Grisedale – as they appear to be –
they must surely be welcomed as Grisedale evolves into
a new role.
After gathering a few more becks from East Baugh
Fell, Grisedale Beck becomes Clough River and passes
over Clough Force, a neat, curved waterfall only 3m or
so high. Just below the A684 the Clough is joined by
Black Gutter, which leaves Garsdale Low Moor heading
purposefully towards Wensleydale only to swing west
at Dandry Mire. According to experts, all the becks that
flow east off Baugh Fell used to join the River Ure but
were blocked by glacial debris and so were diverted west.
At the watershed of Dandry Mire there’s an impressive
12-arched viaduct, which provides our first encounter
with the famous Settle-Carlisle railway line. It is a mire
indeed for the original plan to build an embankment had
to be abandoned when the earth tipped here just sank
into the bog.
The Clough heads west through the valley of
Garsdale, perhaps the least highly regarded of all the
Yorkshire Dales, at least, by tourists. It is a narrow
valley so enclosed by the steep, grassy, featureless
slopes of Baugh Fell and Rise Hill that in winter the sun
can barely reach. The busy A684 runs by the Clough,
crossing it eight times in all.
Clough River 75
The conifer plantations in Garsdale have been made
a Red Squirrel Reserve, one of sixteen set up in 2005
by the North of England Red Squirrel Conservation
Strategy. It is thought that the numbers of red squirrels
have increased as the conifers have reached maturity,
providing the cones upon which red, but not grey,
squirrels thrive.
The Settle-Carlisle railway line is the most spectacular
in England. It runs for nearly 120km, with 325 bridges,
21 viaducts and 14 tunnels, on a route through some of
the finest scenery of northern England. It was completed
in 1876, after 6½ years building, at a cost of £3.5m and
many lives. It is regarded as the last great Victorian railway
engineering project.
The 15km of the line that is within Loyne includes
four dramatic viaducts and two long tunnels and is all at a
height of 300m or more, providing fine views of the dales
and hills (except when in the tunnels, of course).
In the 1980s there were plans to close the line: freight
traffic was diverted, passenger services were withdrawn,
and the infrastructure was allowed to decay. However, after
a long, high-profile campaign the line was reprieved, which
pleased tourists and also freight operators, who came to
value it as an alternative to the crowded west coast main
line. In 2005 it found an additional role: to carry six trains a
day bringing coal from Scottish mines to Yorkshire power
stations.
This is Chapter 4 of The Land of the Lune (2nd edition), http://www.drakkar.co.uk/landofthelune.html, Copyright © 2010 John Self