Leyburn (From York Press)

Leyburn

12:17pm Saturday 30th January 2010

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Leyburn has The Shawl, which is the town’s main walk and is signposted from the Market Place by an ornate fingerpost. People have been encouraged to take the Wensleydale airs along The Shawl since 1841, and it’s popular with good reason.

A minute or two after we started, there was the first bench, and given a warmer day we might have sat to watch the hunt as they checked out the fields of the wide valley floor.

The flat-topped mass opposite is Penhill, it was streaked with snow and cast a chill. We moved on and warmed to our very gradual climb, under the pines, above some cliffs, bench by bench, along two miles of lofty limestone terrace, in dog walking time. There is a supposedly romantic myth concerning The Shawl. When the doomed Mary Queen of Scots was jailed at Bolton Castle, a few miles away, she was allowed out to hunt, so would have known the land. The queen escaped, headed Leyburn way, snagged said article of clothing on a thorn, and was caught by the dastardly English and their dogs. Is this more romantic than Lady Algitha’s Cave which is nearby?

We had our moment an hour or so later, but on with the walk.

And it is, as you can see, a walk on a stalk, a lollipop shape. The end is not sticky and sweet but rather sombre and spooky. For there, backed up against rock faces, are the ruins of a large lead mine, from the rather nasty ivy-entangled subterranean engine house you wouldn’t want to topple into, to a towering and dicey-looking chimney. By now, and out quite late, the enthusiastic hunt was drawing the high-level woods, the hounds yelping.

This reminds me, you’ll notice that on a windless day the valley is a resonant sound box. A flock of gulls filled it with screaming. Sometimes the sound was the low irregular rhythms of heavy guns from the military firing ranges to the north.

And so came our magic moment. It was quite late, the sky dark, but slashed with a wide diagonal of orange sunlight that missed the snowy peaks but warmed a patch of valley floor. And through the light flew a flock of curlews, hundreds of them, and they filled the valley with their piping calls.

We got back to Leyburn, where there’s many a welcome, and popped into the walking shop where they had go-faster trekking poles and, more appropriate, green waterproof coats.

Fact file

Distance: Five miles.

General location: Yorkshire Dales.

Start: Leyburn.

Right of way: Public.

Dogs: Legal.

Date walked: January 2010.

Road route: A1, A684.

Car parking: Roadside or pay and display.

Lavatories: Leyburn.

Refreshments: Leyburn.

Tourist and public transport information: Leyburn TIC 01748 828747.

Map: Drawn from OL Explorer OL30 Yorkshire Dales northern and central.

Terrain: Valley side.

Difficulty: Moderate.

Please observe the Country Code and park sensibly. While every effort is made to provide accurate information, walkers set out at their own risk.

Directions

When in doubt look at the map. Check your position at each point.

Keep straight on unless otherwise directed.

1From Memorial Cross, cross road (ornate metal fingerpost The Shawl), 100 yards, dead-end road (signed), 150 yards, left then right.

2 Through snickelgate on to The Shawl path (sign), four successive gates.

3Stile out of wood (two waymarks), downhill 50 yards, snickelgate on left (waymark), one o’clock on grassy path, snickelgate (waymark), two o’clock across field, snickelgate 4 Contour across field and head for wood and 11 o’clock when two thirds across, snickelgate (waymark). Left to track downhill, fieldgate 5 At four-way tracks junction, either downhill on track to see lead mine and return. Or left through farmyard (waymark post), fieldgate, fieldgate out of farmyard, stay on track by wall, four successive fieldgates.

6 At fieldgate with angled waymark, 100 yards on track then ten o’clock on grassy path uphill across field to join track outside wood, fieldgate/squeezer (waymark). Rejoin outward route at top of hill.

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