deep, narrow ravines, stepped with the walls of ancient waterfalls. Occasionally following heavy rain, rivulets might briefly cascade through, but these bear little resemblance to the overwhelming torrents of meltwater that created them, as the last ice age came to an end. Where rivers flow uninterrupted today, they have usually worn the valley down to a bedrock of impervious stone or else flow over deposits of clay dumped by retreating glaciers.
The extensive clint fields or limestone pavements also have their origins in the last ice age. Initially levelled to a bedding plane and stripped clean by glacial action, they were re-covered with clay debris when the ice finally retreated. Seeping rain water subsequently picked out vertical lines of weakness to form the grikes, fragmenting the pavement into blocks – the clints. Eventual erosion of the thin soil cover, perhaps as a result of woodland clearance or grazing by early man’s livestock, has once more revealed the bare pavements that are now such a striking feature. Accumulating soil in the base of the grikes holds moisture, and their shelter creates micro-habitats that are home to an astonishing variety of plant life, rare on an otherwise quite barren landscape.
Heading into Trow Gill (Walk 41)
Also composed of limestone, although of a different formation to the Great Scar, is a striking line of small hills between Malham and Grassington. Termed reef knolls, they are the remnants of a coral barrier reef that marked the edge of a shelf in the shallow sea. Erosion of the later, overlying softer deposits has revealed these submarine hillocks once more, distinctive because of their conical shape.
Away from the Great Scar, the scenery is no less stirring – a great plateau of high ground fragmented by deep valleys to create long, broad-backed ridges. The level bedding of the rocks has resulted in an almost uniform height at around 610m, with just a few mountain tops daring to poke their flat heads above the rest. Most famous amongst these are the Yorkshire Three Peaks – Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-y-ghent – planted well apart around the head of Ribblesdale. Although not one of the Dales peaks culminates in a dramatic pinnacle summit, their flanks climb steeply out of the surrounding valleys, rising in terraces through the Yoredale Series. Alternating bands of springy grass and lines of sink holes, heather heath, and then marsh reflect the nature of the changing geology underfoot, culminating in an undulating upland bog held upon the sandstones and gritstones capping the northern hills. It is this layering too that is responsible for the impressive waterfalls in Wensleydale, in particular the falls on the River Ure at Aysgarth and the great cascade of Hardraw Force above Hawes.
While geology and subterranean force may have laid the foundation for the Dales landscape, it is the natural elements that have been responsible for moulding it. And nothing has been more dramatic in its effects than the action of ice. During the last half-million years of its history, Britain has been subjected to at least three major ice ages, when vast glacial sheets many hundreds of feet thick, inexorably fanned out from the mountain areas across much of the country. Although the general topography of the area had already been set before the ice ages began, each new advance scoured the land back to the very bedrock, gouging valleys ever deeper and straightening their erratic fluvial courses.
When the thaws came, boulder and clay debris were dumped far from their origin and unimaginable volumes of water were released. What we see today are just the finishing touches left by the latest glacial period, whose icy tendrils left these valleys 12,000 years ago.
Dropping off the steep southern snout of Pen-y-ghent (Walk 35)
The legacy of the ice can be traced throughout the Dales in characteristic rounded hills, straight U-shaped valleys and the dramatic cliffs of truncated spurs. The moving ice carried boulders far from their origins and moulded underlying clay into distinctive egg-shaped hills called drumlins. With the thaw, the unstable sides of overly steep valleys slumped in landslide, and layers of boulder clay were dumped along the base of valleys allowing surface rivers to flow over limestone. Some dales were dammed with terminal moraines that held back lakes, but all but two of these – Malham Tarn and Semer Water – have subsequently silted up or drained away. The deluge of meltwater cut spectacularly narrow ravines through the rock and created majestic waterfalls. Some of these still carry water today – although mere trickles by comparison with the former torrents of their creation – and are well worth looking out for.
Human settlement
Homo sapiens appeared in Europe some 40,000 years ago and, during the warm interludes between glaciation, wandered into Britain. But with each ice age driving them back south and wiping the archaeological slate almost clean, those early incursions of people and the beasts which they followed for food have left few traces. Stone Age peoples eventually returned to the Dales around 9000 years ago, small bands of hunter-gatherers eking a nomadic existence in a steadily warming climate. Although artefacts are thin on the ground, they left their mark by beginning the clearance of primeval woodland, a process which gathered momentum with the later development of agriculture and the transition to a more settled lifestyle. The many caves and crevices in the limestone hills served as shelters for living and burial, a fact which perhaps explains the relative absence here of the constructed internment chambers, cairns and henges found elsewhere in the country. By the time of the Bronze Age, large areas had been cleared for grazing and agriculture, but a deterioration in climate led to the spread of extensive blanket bog across the upper plateaus.
While habitation sites and field systems of earlier eras are known, their more prominent traces have been largely obliterated by later settlement, and there is little visible evidence pre-dating the Iron Age. The area fell within the territory of a British tribe known as the Brigantes, and many settlement sites and earthwork structures have been identified. 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 80AD, 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.
Looking back past Winterburn Grange to the tiny hamlet (Walk 23)
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 side, survived through the medieval period and are still visible above Malham and around Clapham. The process of sporadic settlement continued throughout the Dark Ages as further waves of successive 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 to serve 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,
