one can meander through, oblivious of the intrusion. The heights on either side offer superb views across the valley, and the twisting gorge of Carlin Gill is one of the Howgills’ particular gems. Entering from the west, Borrowdale is another little-known delight. Simply wandering along the base of the secluded valley is enjoyment in itself, but include the traverse across Whinfell Common and the day could not be more complete.
Motorway and inter-city rail break out of the valley at Lowgill, leaving the river to a gently wooded passage below the lesser hills of Firbank Fell. As the gorge then opens out beyond the Howgills, the River Rawthey joins the flow, bringing with it the River Dee from Dentdale and Clough River out of Garsdale. The hills now take a step back, allowing the river to snake across a broad floodplain that extends all the way south until the valley of the Lune is abruptly constricted once more at Kirkby Lonsdale. The heights of Middleton Fell are a fine vantage, revealing a dramatic glimpse into Barbondale and across to Crag Hill and Whernside, while the dales converging on Sedbergh and the lower hills around Killington offer alternative perspectives on the river’s middle course.
Below Kirkby Lonsdale the valley opens wide again, and the bluffs on the western bank – although lower than the hills rising to the east – tend to nudge the river on its way. Things were not always so, for the Lune’s course over time has been erratic, and old banks, stranded pools and dry channels betray where it once flowed. Rivers from the limestone heart of the Yorkshire Dales enter from the east, where the flat-topped summit of Ingleborough erupts as a dominant landmark. The karst landscape of the area is noted as much for what lies below the surface as above, and an amble into the valley of Leck Beck reveals some of the portals to this hidden world. Further south lie the Bowland fells, another neglected moorland upland where walkers can experience unfettered wandering and expansive panoramas, a contrast to the tracts of ancient woodland to be found in the deep vales that drain it.
Beyond Springs Wood, the path briefly closes with Leck Beck (Walk 25)
Approaching Lancaster, the River Lune becomes tidal and enters its final phase. At the city’s maritime height, the riverbanks were hives of activity, lined with mills, shipyards, quays and warehouses. Some of the old buildings remain, having found new life as residential accommodation, but elsewhere today’s commercial enterprise no longer depends upon the river and instead faces towards the streets and roads. The riverbank now forms part of a Millennium Park that follows the Lune from Caton to Glasson, a pleasant, traffic-free conduit for walkers and cyclists to and from the heart of the city along the line of a former railway. Its centrepiece is a striking modern bridge spanning the river at Lancaster that brings in another trail from the coast at Morecambe.
Skirting a belt of low drumlins, formed from till deposited along the coastal fringe of glaciation, the Lune winds on to its estuary, where it finally breaks free of the land. Enclosure and drainage during the 19th century have reclaimed some of the low-lying moss (coastal marsh) as farmland, but beyond the flood dikes there remains a vast area of tide-washed mud, sandbanks and grazing salt marsh. The Plover Scar Light marks the obvious end of the river, but its channel is mapped between the sands for a further 4 miles (6.4km) to the Point of Lune, where it finally loses its identity within Morecambe Bay.
History
Man’s impact on the Lune catchment and corridor has been, in many ways, less intrusive than it has on many of Britain’s other rivers. Nevertheless, it remains very much a man-made landscape. Prehistoric climate change and clearance of the upland forests for farming have created the open moorland we value today, and the network of field and pasture along the valleys is the product of generations of agricultural management.
Although meagre, visible evidence of man’s ancient presence can be found upon the landscape. While not rivalling the scale of Stonehenge, there are stone circles on the flank of Orton Fell and above Casterton, and there are several known settlement sites, including an area above Cowan Bridge and, of course, the massive fort on top of Ingleborough.
The Romans used the trough of the Lune as a route north from forts at Lancaster and Ribchester. Their road followed the valley all the way to Tebay before climbing over Crosby Ravensworth Fell, and there were camps beside the River Lune opposite Whittington and at the foot of Borrowdale.
Later, the valley fell under the authority of Tostig, Earl of Northumberland and brother of Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England. Tostig’s ambitions for the throne ended with his death at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in September 1066, but Harold’s victory was short-lived, for within the month William, Duke of Normandy landed at Pevensey, and on 14 October defeated Harold at Hastings.
St Mary’s Church in Kirkby Lonsdale is a fine Norman building, although an even older church previously stood on the site (Walk 23)
The Normans quickly established their authority in the southern part of England, but the north was a different matter. The Lune Valley became seen as a strategic frontier passage, and for a time, the Welsh Marches apart, it was one of the most heavily fortified areas in the country, with some ten motte and bailey castles being built in and around the valley between Tebay and Lancaster.
But normality slowly returned, and the Norman age saw the founding of many religious communities up and down the country, with isolated riverside settings often chosen as the site of an abbey. Much of the upper Lune was incorporated within the estates of monasteries as far away as Byland in Yorkshire, yet only three houses were established within the valley itself. The ruins of a small Gilbertine priory can be seen at Ravenstonedale, while St Mary’s at Lancaster is a priory church founded under the Benedictines. The third monastery was on the coast at Cockersand, established by the Premonstratensian order.
The only significant settlement along the river’s course, Lancaster developed as a port and centre of manufacture, but the power of the river and its side-streams was never exploited on an industrial scale in the way of other Lancashire and Yorkshire rivers. As the river was not navigable above Lancaster, the hinterland was left relatively remote from other areas, and any small centres served largely local needs. Thus, when the canal age arrived, there was no industry to justify investment in extending the Lancaster Canal into the Lune Valley. The railway engineers, like the Romans, saw it purely as a convenient route to the north, although Tebay and Barbon saw a brief expansion with the line’s arrival, and the brick industry at Claughton benefited from its passing.
Completed in 1860, the Lune Viaduct carried the railway between Ingleton and Lowgill (Walk 14)
Today’s travellers often pass through the area on the way to the better-known attractions of the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, and earlier travellers were no different. William Gilpin had his sights set upon the lands beyond the ’bay of Cartmel’, and passed through Lancaster on his way to Kendal. The castle failed to impress, ’an indifferent object from any point’, but the Lune he regarded as a ’notable piece of water, [which] when the tide is full, sufficiently adorns the landscape’.
In 1772 Lancaster’s quay was busy with ships, and Gilpin ventured a little way upriver to describe its passage through Lonsdale. His words might very well apply today, ’where quietly, and unobserved, it winds around projecting rocks – forms circling boundaries to meadows, pastured with cattle – and passes through groves and thickets, which in fabulous times, might have been the haunt of wood-gods. In one part, taking a sudden turn, it circles a little, delicious spot, forming into a peninsula called vulgarly, “the wheel of Lune”.’
Three years earlier while on his way to Settle, Thomas Gray had gazed up the valley towards Ingleborough
