The Land of the Lune - Drakkar Press

The Lune from the Rawthey ...
The Lune and the Rawthey meet as the arms of a Y
to form a deep pool and then proceed south. The
rivers are of comparable size, as the catchment
areas of the Lune up to this point and the Rawthey are
much the same. The headwaters of the Rawthey on
Baugh Fell, Wild Boar Fell and Whernside are higher
than those of the Lune on Green Bell but the western
branch took precedence because, I assume, it was the
obvious continuation of the lower Lune for early Britons
travelling north towards what we now call the Lune
Gorge. At all events, the Lune is now established as a
mature river and flows more sedately as the valley opens
out. Beyond a wide curve, the Lune is joined by Hall
Beck from the west and Middleton Hall Beck from the
east.
Hall Beck begins life in the marshes on New Park near
Lily Mere. New Park is a wilderness area of heather and
bracken, with small islands of conifer plantations. It is an
The Lune from the Rawthey ... 95
area of rare flowers: well, most flowers seem rare to me,
for I can only identify the bluebell, daffodil and perhaps
a dozen others. Outside that set I have to pick the flower
and take it home to look up in a book. No, of course not:
I take a photograph. The flower shown on the following
page is, I believe, a hybrid of the heath spotted orchid
and common spotted orchid, and therefore probably not
rare at all, although very pretty, to my inexpert eyes.
Hall Beck runs beside the Old Scotch Road, the
drove road that left us at Low Borrowbridge, and by
Three Mile House, a drover’s service stop. It then drops
down through Springs Wood to Killington, a village
whose size today does not reflect its past importance.
Not long ago, Killington had a school and a pub,
as well as the still-active All Saints Church. Killington
Hall half-survives. The older part is in ruins but the part
Above: The Rawthey (from the right) joins the Lune
(from the middle distance).
Two pages before: Middleton Fell at Brown Knott.
This is Chapter 6 of The Land of the Lune (2nd edition), http://www.drakkar.co.uk/landofthelune.html, Copyright © 2010 John Self