Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Away we rambled across the Ure to a small wooded hollow at the foot of Whitfell, in the hills which shut out Swaledale. It conceals a Hardraw Scar in miniature, shooting from an overhanging ledge of dark shale, in which are numerous fossil shells. From this we followed the hill upwards to Millgill Force, a higher fall, on another beck, overshadowed by firs and the mountain elm, and which Nature keeps as a shrine approachable only by the active foot and willing heart. Now you must struggle through the tall grass and tangle on the precipitous sides high among the trees; now stride and scramble over the rocky masses in the bed of the stream. To sit and watch the fall deep under the canopy of leaves, catching glimpses of sunshine and of blue sky above, and to enjoy the delicious coolness, was the luxury of enjoyment. I could have sat for hours. Wordsworth came here during one of his excursions in Yorkshire; and if you wish to know what Millgill Force is, as painted by the pen, even the minute touches, read his description. But there is yet another – Whitfell Force – higher up, rarely visited, for the hill is steep and the way toilsome. My guide, however, was not less willing to lead than I to follow, and soon we were scrambling through the deepest ravine of all, where the sides, for the most part, afford no footing, not even for a goat, but rise in perpendicular walls, or lean over at the top. Here again the lavish foliage is backed by the dark stiff spines of firs, and every inch of ground, every cranny, all but the impenetrable face of the rock, is hidden by rank grasses, trailing weeds, climbers, periwinkle, woodbine, and ferns, among which the hart’s-tongue throws out its large drooping clusters of graceful fronds. For greater part of the way we had to keep the bed of the stream; now squeezing ourselves between mighty lumps of limestone that nearly barred the passage, so that the stream itself could not get through without a struggle; now climbing painfully over where the crevices were too narrow; now zigzagging from side to side wherever the big stones afforded foothold, not without slips and splashes that multiplied our excitement; now pausing on a broad slab to admire the narrowing chasm and all its exquisite greenery. My companion pointed out a crystal pool in which he sometimes bathed – a bath that Naiads themselves might envy. In this way we came at length to a semicircular opening, and saw the fall tumbling from crag to crag for sixty feet, and dispersing itself into a confused shower before it fell into the channel beneath. We both sat for a while without speaking, listening to the cool splash and busy gurgle as the water began its race down the hill; and, for my part, I felt that fatigue and labour were well repaid by the sight of so lovely a dell.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

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Original

Away we rambled across the Ure to a small wooded hollow at the foot of Whitfell, in the hills which shut out Swaledale. It conceals a Hardraw Scar in miniature, shooting from an overhanging ledge of dark shale, in which are numerous fossil shells. From this we followed the hill upwards to Millgill Force, a higher fall, on another beck, overshadowed by firs and the mountain elm, and which Nature keeps as a shrine approachable only by the active foot and willing heart. Now you must struggle through the tall grass and tangle on the precipitous sides high among the trees; now stride and scramble over the rocky masses in the bed of the stream. To sit and watch the fall deep under the canopy of leaves, catching glimpses of sunshine and of blue sky above, and to enjoy the delicious coolness, was the luxury of enjoyment. I could have sat for hours. Wordsworth came here during one of his excursions in Yorkshire; and if you wish to know what Millgill Force is, as painted by the pen, even the minute touches, read his description.

But there is yet another—Whitfell Force—higher up, rarely visited, for the hill is steep and the way toilsome. My guide, however, was not less willing to lead than I to follow, and soon we were scrambling through the deepest ravine of all, where the sides, for the most part, afford no footing, not even for a goat, but rise in perpendicular walls, or lean over at the top. Here again the lavish foliage is backed by the dark stiff spines of firs, and every inch of ground, every cranny, all but the impenetrable face of the rock, is hidden by rank grasses, trailing weeds, climbers, periwinkle, woodbine, and ferns, among which the hart’s-tongue throws out its large drooping clusters of graceful fronds. For greater part of the way we had to keep the bed of the stream; now squeezing ourselves between mighty lumps of limestone that nearly barred the passage, so that the stream itself could not get through without a struggle; now climbing painfully over where the crevices were too narrow; now zigzagging from side to side wherever the big stones afforded foothold, not without slips and splashes that multiplied our excitement; now pausing on a broad slab to admire the narrowing chasm and all its exquisite greenery. My companion pointed out a crystal pool in which he sometimes bathed—a bath that Naiads themselves might envy. In this way we came at length to a semicircular opening, and saw the fall tumbling from crag to crag for sixty feet, and dispersing itself into a confused shower before it fell into the channel beneath. We both sat for a while without speaking, listening to the cool splash and busy gurgle as the water began its race down the hill; and, for my part, I felt that fatigue and labour were well repaid by the sight of so lovely a dell.

503 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Askrigg (3) ·
• River Ure (7) ·
• Tourism (11) ·
• Wensleydale (4) ·
• White, Walter (10), writer ·
• Wordsworth, William (1770-1850) (6), poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint Lyrical Ballads (1798) ·

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