Maiden Castle above Reeth and the extensive fortification surrounding the summit of Ingleborough are amongst the most spectacular examples.
Although the Romans did establish a permanent fort at Bainbridge around AD80, they never really subjugated the hill tribes. In fact there appears to have been a relatively peaceful co-existence with lowland farmers, who would have found ready markets for their produce in the Roman economy until the eventual withdrawal of the occupation forces a little over three centuries later. The enigmatic patterns of those small Celtic fields still survive in several places, most notably above Malham and Grassington.
The early years of the seventh century saw the arrival of Angle settlers, who continued a tradition of arable farming along the dales, reserving the higher, less productive ground of the valley sides for woodland and grazing. The lynchets (ridges) of their open field systems, created by ploughing with teams of oxen along the slopes of the valley sides, survived through the medieval period, and are still visible above Malham and around Clapham and Reeth. The process of sporadic settlement continued throughout the Dark Ages, as successive waves of immigration brought the Vikings, their presence reflected in place names such as Yokenthwaite, Hawkswick, Appletreewick, and indeed the word ‘dale’ itself.
The next millennium heralded the new age of the invading Normans. After he had won the day, William the Conqueror consolidated his position by beating the northern part of his kingdom into submission with a heavy and cruel hand. The overlords ruled from peripheral fortress towns such as Skipton, Richmond and Barnard Castle, exploiting the remoter reaches of the Dales as hunting forests, and establishing markets that thrived serving the larger centres of population.
During the succeeding centuries, much of the region was gradually encompassed within vast monastic estates. Fountains Abbey and the priory at Bolton Abbey became the greatest landowners, but houses such as Furness on the Cumbrian coast and Bridlington far to the east also held significant tracts of land here. Under the careful administration and watchful eyes of the abbots and priors, the farms made their money from wool, as well as growing a range of staple crops. The monasteries also exploited the mineral resources of the region, mining for coal, lead and other metals.
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, ownership of much of the land eventually fell to individual freeholding farmers. By the 17th century, agricultural improvements and an expanding lead industry began to engender a climate of growing personal prosperity, and brought with it a new confidence that was translated into building in stone. It is from this era that the earliest domestic buildings survive, sturdily constructed from rough stone, with dressed blocks being reserved for corners, lintels and window openings. They reflect the local geology, in limestone, gritstone, and heavy stone flags for the roofs. Although largely utilitarian and lacking ornate decoration, individualism is nevertheless displayed in the carvings of dates and initials on lintels above doorways.
From the ruin of the Quaker Meeting House to the burial ground at East Scale (Walk 9)
Grouped in compact villages, often overlooking a green, or spread as individual farms along the valley, they are one of the endearing features of the Dales countryside. Long and narrow, the farmhouses often included an attached barn – or laithe – for the animals, and in some areas, notably Swaledale and Wensleydale, isolated barns were built in the valley fields to store summer hay and house livestock over winter.
Industry and enterprise
The relative inaccessibility of the region protected it from the burgeoning development of the Industrial Revolution, for, even though it held abundant raw materials in stone, coal and metal ore, the difficulties of transportation often rendered large-scale growth uneconomic. Yet, despite its comparatively small scale, mining and quarrying did become important local money-making activities, sometimes worked on a part-time basis to supplement income from farming. The abandoned ruins of pit-head buildings, smelters and disused quarries are to be found scattered throughout the region, often in the most inhospitable of places.
Veins of lead ore occur in the limestone throughout the eastern and northern parts of the Dales, and have been mined sporadically since the arrival of the Romans. Following the Industrial Revolution, the industry peaked during the middle 18th and early 19th centuries, but then fell into decline because of high transport costs, competition from foreign imports, and the simple fact that many seams had been worked to their economic limit. Nevertheless, over the centuries huge amounts were produced, and it has been estimated that over half a million tonnes of metallic lead have been excavated from Swaledale alone, with more than half of this coming solely from the Old Gang mines above Surrender Bridge.
Where there is lead, there is often silver too, albeit it small amounts, and the Duke of Devonshire’s Cupola Mine above Grassington produced a significant amount of silver as a by-product before it closed in 1885. In the area further west, around Malham, copper and zinc ores were also discovered, and more recently deposits of baryte and fluorspar have been worked in the Dales.
Old Gang mill (Walk 18)
Such enterprise brought with it a dramatic increase in population, attracting miners and ordinary labourers from across the country. Some came on their own, but others brought their families too, expanding the tiny villages. In Muker, for example, the new part of the village by the main lane is quite distinct from the old heart, and in many villages you will find chapels, village halls and reading rooms that all resulted from this boom. Inevitably, as the lead industry declined, the population drifted away, some heading northeast to continue their trade in the coal mines, while others went to try their hand in the textile valleys of Lancashire and west Yorkshire.
To the north and on the high ground, the Yoredale rocks contain thin seams of coal of varying quality. These were intermittently mined from the beginning of the 14th century until the railway age, often from small workings called bell pits. The coal supplied domestic needs as well as being used on a larger scale to fire smelt furnaces and lime kilns. On the bleak top of Fountains Fell, coal was even processed in an oven to produce coke, a trouble worth taking to reduce the weight of the product to be carried down the hill. Another important source of fuel both for the home and the mines was peat, cut from turbaries (places where turf or peat is dug) on the upland bogs.
All these activities have long since finished, but not so the extensive stone quarries around Horton in Ribblesdale and at Linton, which serve the chemical industry and provide aggregate for building, roads and railways. Sadly, these massive workings are a scar on the landscape, a far cry from the earlier, small-scale operations that produced stone for local building and walling, and to produce lime fertiliser. At first glance, these old, abandoned workings are now barely distinguishable from their natural backdrop, something their modern-day equivalents might find harder to achieve once they have been worked out.
Any other enterprise that developed was only ever on a limited scale. Fast-flowing streams in the main valleys powered grist and, later, other mills, with textiles becoming significant in some corners, such as Grassington and Aysgarth. Just as important was the widespread cottage textile industry, carried out in individual farms and cottages, not least to the northwest, where gloves and stockings fell off clattering needles, wielded by woman, child and man alike, in such prodigious quantities that these people become known as ‘the terrible knitters of Dent’.
The major inhibiting factor for industry was a lack of suitable transport to main industrial centres. Turnpikes through the Dales were few, and the canal age touched only the southern portals at Gargrave and Skipton. The engineering determination of the Victorians served them better, as the entrepreneurial spirit pushed the railways deep into the heart of the region, along Wensleydale and into Wharfedale.
Ambitious
