Riding The Settle & Carlisle by David Mather, Silver Link, priced £17.99 (From York Press)

Riding The Settle & Carlisle by David Mather, Silver Link, priced £17.99

12:03pm Saturday 3rd December 2011 in Books

STEPHEN LEWIS enjoys an armchair journey through the glorious Yorkshire Dales, thanks to a new book about the Settle & Carlisle Railway

THERE are few landscapes, in England at least, quite as awesome as the Yorkshire Dales. Bleak in winter, green and welcoming in spring, they have an unrivalled capacity in any season to lift the heart.

Unless you’re young and fit, however, parts of the Dales can be pretty inaccessible. Not everyone has the will or the legs to climb to the top of Pen-y-ghent in a howling gale.

Fortunately, thanks to the determination and engineering genius of Victorian railway engineers, there is another way to see this glorious landscape: from the comfort of a train.

The Settle and Carlisle railway is legendary and the photos on our pages today give an idea why. As the train chugs over viaducts, along the side of valleys, or emerges into sunlight from tunnels, the views are stunning.

David Mather, who until a few years ago was head of science at York’s Millthorpe School, has spent many happy hours travelling and photographing the line.

The result is a book which will delight lovers of the railways or anyone who enjoys an armchair journey through wonderful scenery.

Riding the Settle & Carlisle takes you on a journey through time as well as along the route of the wonderful old railway. It is illustrated with David’s own photographs – some recent, some dating back to the late 1970s – which give you a view of the unfolding landscape, and of the many quirky stations along the way, almost as though seen from the carriage of the train.

The book is much more than a travelogue. It also gives an informative account of the building of the railway, starting with the story of York’s ‘Railway King’, George Hudson.

“It tells a tale of bribery and corruption, leading to the downfall of George Hudson himself, who was eventually imprisoned in York castle as a debtor,” David says.

“As a result of this man’s vision, the railway navvies on the high moors struggled against the elements to construct an alternative route to Scotland. One yarn tells of a navvy who was blown off the top of Ribblehead Viaduct, through an arch, and back on again.”

It might be worth sparing a thought for that poor man next time you decide to ride the Settle & Carlisle yourself.

• Riding The Settle & Carlisle by David Mather is published by Silver Link, priced £17.99. It is available from Amazon and all good bookshops.