Saturday 4 January 2014

Reeth, the Arkle Beck and the River Swale

A New Year Visit to God's Own County

North Yorkshire

Some places make you feel better just for being there. Everybody has a personal list, but mine includes the Mekong Delta, the Backwaters of Kerala, Corsica, the Algarve and the Yorkshire Dales.

Like everywhere else, these places look their best in the sunshine. We arrived in the Dales on Wednesday, a midwinter day when the rain had been continuous and daylight hardly bothered to put in an appearance.

Reeth is the main centre of population of Upper Swaledale. It has 750 permanent residents, but seemed much busier this week as the village’s plentiful supply of holiday cottages were doing good business. Presumably, it will be even busier in the summer, but the next few weeks may be quiet indeed.

Francis had rented Fellsman Cottage and we joined him there along with Trevor and Mike and Alison. The cottage is a mid 20th century link built between two older buildings, but we only knew that because it does not exist in the 1920s photograph on the cottage wall. It looks tiny, but so does the TARDIS, and it accommodated 6 adults in reasonable comfort.

Fellsman Cottage, Reeth

Like many Dales villages Reeth is built round a large village green, which would make it difficult to photograph even if the green was not a sloping plateau and the roofs of the houses on our side were level with the basements on the other.

Reeth Village Green

01/01/2014

New year Fireworks

A firework display filled the green on Wednesday evening. The rest of the world had set off fireworks the previous night to welcome the New Year but Reeth preferred an early evening show on the 1st. They do things differently in Yorkshire. I had watched them setting up in the afternoon drizzle and feared the event could be, literally, a damp squib, but when the time came the rain eased and we joined the rest of the village, visitors and residents, to watch half an hour of loud and colourful pyrotechnics.

Fireworks, a day late but dodging the rain

02/01/2014

A Walk up Arkengarthdale

On Thursday, as storms and huge seas battered the west coast, Swaledale awoke to a morning of watery sunshine. We donned our boots and headed for Arkengarthdale, the most northerly of the Yorkshire Dales which conveniently joins Swaledale at Reeth. Arkengarthdale is a wonderful word, somehow capturing the essence of Yorkshire in four syllables.

We walked to the edge of the village where a used car showroom (or more accurately showfield) stands incongruously beside the fine old stone bridge over the Arkle Beck (for photo see end of post).

Crossing the river, we walked alongside the beck which risesat the head of Arkengarthdale and discharges into the Swale a few hundred metres downstream from the bridge. According to the map there are several paths which make their way up the dale, but few seem to be signed.

Lynne and Francis beside the Arkle Beck

We soon realised our path beside the river – or fallen into the river at one point – was too low, so we climbed the valley side. At this point the sole of Francis’ left boot detached itself. The boots - expensive and of a well-known brand - were not that old and he was less than delighted. The leather casing, though, continued to keep his foot dry and he decided he could press on despite one leg now being a centimetre shorter than the other and with no grip on the slippery mud.

Higher up the valley side, Arkengarthdale

The sky above us was blue, but clouds hung over the far side of the valley and waves of drizzle were blown across our path. We came as near to the end of a rainbow as I have ever been, but nobody else wanted to bother searching for the pot of gold.

Nearly at the end of the rainbow, Arkengarthdale

Today, agriculture and tourism support the dale’s small population, but things used to be different. The population peaked in 1811 at around 1500 when coal and lead mining were thriving. Lead has been mined here since Roman times. An ingot stamped with the name of Hadrian was found in the early 19th century and given to the British museum, who have subsequently lost it. Lead mining was conducted by 'hushing'; dams were built on the hillside and when sufficient water had collected they were broken causing a deluge that stripped off the topsoil and exposed the deposits below. The results can still be seen on the valley side. Lead mining ended in 1914, but a little small scale coal mining continued until 1940.

The effects of hushing can be seen on the top of the hillside opposite, Arkengarthdale

There was some suggestion we might take the bridleway up to Langthwaite near the head of the dale where the pub may or may not still be functioning, but to the relief of some (Lynne notably) the plan began to fade as we kept losing the path and having to track up and down the valley side to find it. Eventually even Francis admitted he was unsure where we were and after spotting a footbridge we made our way down to the beck. After some discussion we decided which bridge we were at, crossed it and climbed up the less complicated side of the valley to the minor road. We then discovered we were not at the bridge we had thought; our wandering up dale and down dale meant that in an hour and a half’s walking we had made remarkably little progress along the dale. The walk down the minor road back to Reeth took much less time.

Francis plods up the 'less complicated' side of Arkengarthdale

Dinner at The Buck, Reeth

Reeth is barely bigger than Swynnerton, but where we have a post office and a struggling pub, Reeth has a post office, three pubs, two general stores, a gift shop, an outdoor shop and a Christian bookshop, not to mention a café and museum, though they were closed for the winter. One end of the village green even forms a mini central business district.

Reeth 'Central Business District'

Of the pubs, we selected The Buck for dinner on Thursday, though largely at random. Trade was roaring, as was the log fire. The fare was standard pub food, but done as well as it can be and reasonably priced. Gammon steak, fish and chips and sausage and mash count as comfort food (see Dandly’s personal, idiosyncratic, unscientific and deeply prejudiced food classification system.), Mike’s Thai fish curry might be sliding towards pretentious but was redeemed by evident customer satisfaction and Lynne’s steak and ale pie, completely encased and cooked in short crust pastry, ticked the boxes for good food. It was substantial and she needed a little help to finish it. I didn’t mind.

Dinner at the Buck Inn, Reeth
Alison, Francis, Lynne, Mike Trevor

02/01/2014

A Market on the Green

The green was home to a market of sorts on on Friday morning. Only three stalls, but at the butcher's half a dozen substantial slabs of local lamb looked perfect for our dinner while the greengrocer provided the wherewithal for an accompanying salad. The cheese stall offered a range of cheeses from across Europe as well as local favourites. Although my preference is for strong flavours, I appreciated the subtlety of the Wensleydale. Alison said that as pale, mild, crumbly cheeses go she preferred Cheshire, though there might be an element of native pride in that judgement – and why not (and I’ll put in a word for Caerphilly, the mild, crumbly cheese from Lynne’s native heath). Despite a willingness to appreciate subtle flavours, the Swaledale goat’s cheese – even paler than the Wensleydale – convinced nobody that it had anything to offer beyond a pleasing texture.

The Little Yorkshire Cheese Stall at Reeth

Later we went to Richmond, which is far too fine a place to be paragraph in Reeth's post. One day I will return for an in-depth look. [Oct 2020: still waiting. Once this Covid thing has gone, maybe]

A Walk Beside the Swale

Friday afternoon seemed an appropriate time to make the acquaintance of Reeth’s 'big' river. The River Swale rises at the head of the dale and has been joined by a multitude of side streams by the time it reaches Reeth. The name derives from an old English word for ‘rapid and liable to deluge’ and the river lives up to its name being capable of rising as much as 3 metres in 20 minutes. The village is set well above the flood plain and we walked some way to reach it. There was no rain, but it was bitterly cold with a biting wind.

The flood plain of the Swale, Reeth

The river occasional changes its route across the flood plain, and the tumbling mass of water resulting from the week’s downpours seemed to be busy seeking alternative channels to the current overworked mainstream.

The 'Swing Bridge', Reeth

A couple of hundred metres upstream is a footbridge. The ‘Swing Bridge’ as it is called for no obvious reason, was first built in 1920. It survived many floods but in 2000 was demolished by a large tree carried down in a torrent. The new bridge is identical to the old one.

Mike crosses the 'Swing Bridge', Reeth

Over the river we crossed the flood plain to a path on higher ground. Here it was sheltered and felt much warmer. Francis was making good progress in his wellies, but Trevor slipped over and dived gracefully into the mud. I had my camera raised, but waited for him to get up, I am far too much of a gentlemen to take advantage of a temporary loss of dignity – though not so much a gentlemen as to overlook it entirely.

Trevor is back on his feet

Just over a mile later we reached Grinton with its fine stone bridge over the Swale, welcoming pub, which we did not visit, and its long low sturdy church.

Past Grinton Church to Grinton Bridge

Once over the river we took the path across the flood plain back towards Reeth. Some of this path was above water, some of it not and various approaches were taken to deal with this.

One way to deal with damp conditions

We soon found ourselves walking along the bank of the Arkle Beck, which had joined the Swale between the Swing Bridge and Grinton Bridge.

Back to Reeth beside the Arkle Beck

Reaching the road we re-crossed the Swale over another of the stone bridges which are so plentiful in the region and made our way back to Fellsman Cottage. Nothing else remained of our New Year break other than to cook the excellent slabs of lamb and make a small but determined dent in the world’s wine lake. Saturday offered only packing up and the long drive home.

The Arkle Bridge, Reeth

A good time was had by all, and some thanks are due:

to Francis for organisation
Mike for cooking bacon and eggs for breakfast every day
Alison for ‘The Boer War’ and an excellent dessert
Trevor for the mud-surfing exhibition
and Lynne for the clean-up while the rest of us were walking along the Swale..

Tuesday 17 December 2013

North Korea and Our Visit: Can it be Justified?

Executions and Human Rights

Three months ago Lynne and I spent a week in North Korea. The blog had not been completed when this was first posted, but it has been subsequently. Links to all nine posts can be found at the end of this post.

The Death of Jang Sung Taek

The DPRK has been much in the news this week. Ten days ago Jang Sung Taek was vice-chairman of the National Defence Committee and the second most powerful man in the country. On the 8th of December he was dismissed from this and all his other posts and expelled from the Worker’s Party of Korea. His arrest at a Politburo meeting was shown on television and this was swiftly followed by his trial and execution.

Jang Sung Taek
(Copyright Yonhap News - I hope they don't mind)

What this tells us of the inner workings of the North Korean regime – other than that they are brutal – has been the subject of much speculation. South Korean news agencies were quick to link the death of Jang to the public executions of 80 petty criminals in November and of the execution of 11 members of the girl band Ponchobo Electronic Ensemble in August. ‘A new reign of terror,' some said, 'has started in North Korea.’

Oddly ‘pornography’ was alleged to be an issue in all three cases. The girl band had performed in a pornographic video, many of the petty criminals had been distributing pornography, while Jang had merely possessed pornographic photographs. I am unsure what this tells us about the North Korean psyche, but the thought crossed my mind that in a country where the most obscene act you can commit is to disrespect the leader, ‘pornography’ might not mean what we think it does.

Kim Jong Un
Is this 'pornography' in the DPRK?

Some of the reports of executions come from South Korean agencies whose reporting of the north has often been more sensational than accurate [see update at end]. That said, no one seriously doubts the execution of Jang Sung Taek. Writing in the Independent, John Everard, British ambassador to North Korea 2006-8, said: ‘North Koreans in the military will be particularly nervous. One of Jang’s alleged crimes was to plot a coup against Kim Jong-un, involving the military old guard…. I suspect that the complicity of such officers in the “plot” will now be investigated, and that some at least will be dismissed….or worse. I doubt that Jang will be the last person to die in this purge.’

North Korea: The Amnesty International View

On Sunday (15th Dec 2013) North Korean Prison Camps provided the basis of an Amnesty International double page advertisement in The Observer (and, for all I know, other Sunday newspapers). I have been unable to find a copy of the full text to link to, so I have scanned a couple of paragraphs. They form part of one of half a dozen case studies and are representative of the rest of the advertisement.

Extract from Amnesty International advertisement
The Observer, 15/12/13

Is it all true? Unlike some campaigning groups, Amnesty tends not to exaggerate. They say 100,000 people are being held while other sources claim up to 300,000. The case studies come from former inmates (and one former guard) who have been released or escaped and subsequently made their way to South Korea. The North Koreans, as Amnesty admits, ‘say the defectors are lying and flatly deny the existence of any camps.’ Amnesty funds satellite photography of the relevant area and say that not only do they exist, but some are being expanded. The ‘defectors’ have an axe to grind, and there are many in South Korea and beyond who are eager to believe anybody who tells them what they want to hear. On the other hand if just a fraction of what Amnesty describe actually happened, the camps rank with the worst the world has seen. We have been to Auschwitz (and I blogged about it here) and are scheduled to visit the Cambodian ‘Killing Fields’ in February [we did, you can read about it here]; I do not make these comparisons lightly.

Our Visit: Can it be Justified

Should we have gone to North Korea? We thought it through before we went, but the events of the past week have prompted a rethink.

We travel because we are curious, curious about the world and about the lives of our fellow human beings. North Korea is unique and thus uniquely attractive. ‘Terrible lies are told about our country,’ the guide told us just before we left. ‘You have seen the truth, now go home and tell people that truth.’ I think our guide really believed that, if we were fair-minded and honest, we would go home and tell of the 'Worker’s Paradise’ that is the DPRK. But it is not a worker's paradise.

By not going we would have had no effect, so to justify our visit we need only to show that our selfish urge to satisfy our curiosity did not, on balance, strengthen the regime. If, in some small way, we improved the situation, then that is even better, though the effect of two people - or our group of 15 - can only be tiny.

We were certainly milked for hard currency, €20 for Museum entrance, €100 for the Airarang Games, €2 for a small cup of luke-warm Nescafé (and Euros is the currency we were asked to pay in), so we helped finance the state. And against that….? There was little we could say to the guides, they seemed genuinely committed to a system which continually tells them it is the best there is. To convince them otherwise risks putting them in the prison camps whose existence they would deny, and I would not want that on my conscience. What we, and every other tourist, could do was show our open-mindedness and curiosity, qualities that are frowned on in the DPRK, and which, if they caught on, would inevitably undermine the regime. Travellers are the only contact relatively ordinary Koreans have with the outside world, the only access to another point of view. But was that enough? I do not know. From a selfish point of view I am glad I went (and equally glad I do not have to go again) and it would be hypocritical to urge others to make different choices, but I remain unsure as to whether we did more harm than good.

Update. The widely reported story that Kim had Jang Sung Taek torn apart by a pack of wild dogs originated from a satirical post on Weibo – China’s homegrown twitter service. It was picked up by a Hong Kong news agency and then went worldwide. It is extremely unlikely to have any basis in fact. North Korean executioners are known to favour the machine gun.

The North Korean Posts

Beijing to Pyongyang
Pyongyang (1): A Day for Bowing
Pyongyang (2): A Day for Waving
Panmunjom and the DMZ
Sariwon and Nampho
The Nampho Barrage and back to Pyongyang
Last Day in Pyongyang (1), Gifts and the Metro
Last Day in Pyongyang (2) Serious Study and Juche Thought
By Train out of the DPRK

Saturday 30 November 2013

Morridge and Onecote: Cowpat Walk No. 8

A Peak District Circular Walk: Abundant Mud and the Morridge-Mixon Anticline


Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Moorlands
In March, I started the Crowdecote (Cowpat 6) post with a grumble – aimed at myself as much as anybody. ‘In the days when we all worked,’ I wrote, ‘it was easy to know where people were on a Saturday and it was usually possible to choose one when most were free. Now that the majority of potential participants have retired it has become harder to find a Saturday when everybody is in the same country, or even on the same continent, never mind available.

Cowpat 8, then, was a minor miracle; all six ‘regular’ participants walked – though not all at the same time. Francis, Alison and Brian were only available on the 23rd of November so formed the ‘Pioneer Group’, while Mike, Lee and I followed on the 30th. Both were days of bright (though not warm) November sunshine, though the intervening week featured grey skies and rain.

The approximate locations of the Peak District Cowpats

I asked the Pioneers for their comments. Alison’s can be paraphrased as ‘Moan. Moan. Moan. Moan. Moan, but overall it was a good experience.’ Alison is not normally so negative. I saw Brian and Francis on Friday evening. They offered some advice and then talked at length of mud, slurry and impending doom. Brian, in particular, seemed to relish our forthcoming discomfort.

Leek to Morridge Ridge

We made an early start and parked on Mount Road, a lane running along a ridge just outside Leek, shortly after 9 o’clock.

Lee (left) and Mike, Mount Road, Leek

We set off eastwards with fine views north to the Ramshaw Rocks, Hen Cloud and the Roaches.

Ramshaw Rocks on the right, Hen Cloud in the middle and the southern end of the Roaches just disappearing round the tree

The problem with starting on a ridge with the intention of climbing to a higher one is that first you must descend. We dropped into a valley with an apparently nameless brook at the bottom. The approach was muddy and dotted with molehills, but it is inappropriate to make a major issue out of these. The descent was tiresome; moderately steep, very slippery and made unnecessarily narrow by a barbed wire fence.

Lee descends to a nameless stream

Reaching the bottom, we crossed the footbridge and ascended the other side to Stile House Farm. We had climbed through a field which, though muddy and pockmarked by cattle, was still frozen so we skipped lightly over the top of the ground – insofar as I ever ‘skip lightly’. Beyond the farm we emerged into Norman Lamont’s fabled ‘sunlit uplands’, and Lee felt the need to shed some outer clothing.

The pockmarked frozen field below Stile House Farm

From here a swing left took us up to a barn, recently built and right across the path. New fences have been erected around it and an old stile led into an area from which there was no exit. The Pioneers had spent some time finding a way through, but we benefitted from their experience, following a farm track and climbing over a wooden fence.

There is no obvious path to Easing Farm....

Lee and Mike discuss the lack of obvious path to Easing Farm

....but we had to cross another brook, and after descending by what felt like the natural route, we arrived at a footbridge – though it might have been harder to find behind summer foliage.

Lee finds the footbridge

We climbed the bank beyond. There are missing stiles in this area, while others are blocked off by strands of barbed wire. We were just outside the Peak District National Park, where walkers are more carefully looked after, but the footpaths were on the map, so they will be regularly walked. If farmers do not like it, it is in their best interests not to be obstructive but to ensure that paths are clearly signed and stiles properly maintained, otherwise walkers will wander all over their land and could damage fences by climbing over them.

Climbing the bank to Easing Farm

We turned right up Easing Lane, leaving it after 400 metres to follow a field path up to Morridge, which is not a place, just a long ridge of elevated moorland. The right of way passes through a hollow where the main stream is joined by two others rising on the hillside to the right. Brian’s advice was to ignore the official route (there is no actual path) and go round to the right staying as high as possible.

A very wet hollow below Blakelow Lane

Good advice, but even so there were 100m where we could only proceed by hopping from tussock to tussock. The ground between was so soft it swallowed the bottom metre of my walking pole under its own weight. Had any of us had slipped off a tussock we might still be there.

We reached Blakelow Road which runs along Morridge Ridge some 40-50 below its summit, and crossed it into the National Park. The rest of our climb was up a farm track, gently inclined but lon enough to make arrival at the summit a relief.

Along the Mixon-Morridge Anticline

We had intended to pause here for coffee, but the track, which ends in a muddy parking place beside a phone mast, was covered in litter - plastic bottles and cans crushed ready for recycling but unaccountably dumped here.

Turning our backs on the high point of the ridge 1.5km the north and 15m higher than our 448m we headed south along the broad, wet, grassy top of what is technically called the Mixon-Morridge Anticline. An Anitcline (I had to llok it up!) is an archlike fold on the earths surface - the opposite of a syncline. Despite its grandiose name, it was not a pretty place, the muddy sheep fields were scarred by tractor tracks and the ridge was too broad and flat to give a good view into the Hamps Valley to our left.

Across the top of the Mixon-Morridge anticline

Here the temperature was several degrees lower and the breeze had a cutting edge. We eventually paused for coffee......

Pausing for coffee above Mixon

.... beside a frozen water trough..

Mike prefers his coffee on ice

We started to descend into the Hamps Valley, passing the dour old farmhouse at Mixon Grange. The path forks here, one branch descending sharply to an 18th century copper mine but we took the higher path continuing our gentle descent along the ridge.

Arriving at Mixon Grange

Views into the Hamps Valley began to open up and we could see the village of Onecote at the foot of the hill.

The Valley of the River Hamps

Descent to Onecote

Approaching Onecote Grange we stuck to the footpath across the field. The Pioneer Group, however, did not. Francis wrote ‘we make no apologies for following a metalled farm road down to Onecote Grange. Here, Brian made the mistake of walking on what looked like a flat hard standing but sunk in nearly to his knees in something much more smelly’.

There is a lesson here: if you do not follow the official right-of-way you end up in a slurry pit.

Lunch in the Jervis Arms, Onecote

We continued through Onecote to the Jervis Arms on the ‘main’ road (actually the B5053). The pub has a garden beside the River Hamps which is a pleasant spot to sup a pint in the summer months, if not November. Last week Brian crossed the garden to clean his gaiters in the river.

The Jervis Arms, Onecote

In the pub he washed his hands. Then he washed them again, but as he ate his sandwich the odour still lingered. On Friday evening he had been unsure if the slurry pit had been in Onecote or Mixon. Francis is sure it was Onecote, which is a shame as ‘Mixon’ is derived from the old English for ‘dung heap’.

The Jervis Arms, named after Admiral Jervis (a native of Stone and the victor at the Battle of Cape St Vincent - see Algarve (6) The West Coast) resembles many of the country pubs that have closed in recent years. It is, though, still open, probably because it offers well-kept, high quality beer and good food. I can vouch for the beer but, in several visits, I have never gone beyond the sandwich menu. Today’s ham sandwich (eaten with clean and fragrant fingers) involved good bread and ham freshly cut into satisfying slabs. My grandmother’s unfailing reaction to thinly sliced meat was to give it a look of disgust and say, ‘you can still taste the knife on that.’ Two generations on, I have different attitudes to many things, but on this issue Granny knew best.

Onecote to Hopping Head

Leaving the pub we walked back through Onecote village. The name – meaning ‘remote cottage’ - was first recorded in 1199. The population peaked at almost 600 in 1821 but is now nearer 200. We turned left, back towards the southern end of the ridge, beside St Luke's Church, a handsome building dating from 1750. Had we progressed a couple of hundred metres further up the lane we would have reached Onecote Lane End. A bitter and protracted legal dispute between members of the Cook family of Onecote Lane End Farm in the 1840s came to the attention of Charles Dickens who used it as the basis of ‘Jarndyce vs Jarndyce’ in Bleak House.

St Luke's Church, Onecote

Despite the vagueness of the signs and the missing field boundaries we safely navigated our way up onto the ridge at Hopping Head where we made the right hand turn the Pioneers missed. Francis explained that ‘the low angle [of the] sun straight at us made navigation tricky.’ After our early start we were over an hour ahead of them at this point and had no such problem.

Looking back into the Hamps Valley

Across the Flank of the Ridge Down to Stile House Farm

We re-joined Bleaklow Lane where there were fine views over the Valley of the River Churnet, and beyond that the River Dane with the gritstone cap of the Cloud (Cowpat 4) clearly visible.

Looking across the valleys of the Churnet and Dane with the gritstone cap of The Cloud centre picture.

We descended across the slope on well-marked paths with extant (though sometimes difficult) stiles…

Descending towards Stile House Farm

… approaching Stile House Farm from the southwest over ground thankfully much drier than we had encountered north of the farm.

Mike and Lee approach Stile House Farm

From here we retraced our morning route, down into the valley of the nameless brook and up onto the ridge on the far side, very much a sting in the tail.

Back down to that nameless brook, with the sting in the tail rising ahead

It had been a long walk, Brian had said, not in distance but in time, as every pace required the back foot to be wrestled from the mud’s grasp before it could be advanced. The Pioneers had finished in failing light. We started earlier, learned from their experiences and, by the sound of it, enjoyed a much pleasanter walk, finishing with almost an hour’s daylight left.

Approximate Distance: 15 Km