The key words are “slow” – “imagine” – “listen”
Perhaps journey from Ingleton to Hawes along the B6255 – by car, bicycle, motorbike, or coach, and maybe accompanied by a Blue Badge Tourist Guide. You’ll be travelling along a road that was once an old coaching route between Richmond and Lancaster that was turnpiked 275 years ago, in 1751, to facilitate trade between the port of Lancaster and the inland markets of the Yorkshire Dales: an ancient form of motorway, where tolls had to be paid at “turnpikes” before travellers could continue on their way.
This turnpike trust was wound up in 1868, two years after the Settle-Carlisle Railway Act was passed, allowing construction of a new railway. The packhorse that needed to be fed, watered, and rested was being relegated to history and making way for the new-fangled steam-snorting iron horse…
In this country we are proud to have the oldest railway system in the world. Last year we celebrated 200 years of the modern railway, and this year marks the 150th anniversary of the first passenger train to traverse the full Settle-Carlisle route on 1st May 1876.
And that passenger train passed over the impressive 24-arch Ribblehead Viaduct.
Stop, walk along the footpath, stand under the viaduct, and marvel. You are standing in the dry valley of Batty Moss, looking at an engineering wonder 100 feet (30 metres) above your head, constructed between 1869 and 1874 with the blood, sweat and tears of over 2,000 stone masons and labourers who lived in shanty towns all around you.
Look for the traces in the ground of the foundations of Batty Green village, and imagine the lives those men led. Think about the harsh living conditions, weather, smallpox epidemics, alcohol-fuelled disputes amongst the families who lived there, and deaths from industrial accidents.
Listen – for the chug of a train passing over your head as it makes its way north to Carlisle or south towards Settle, but also listen for the sounds of nature… not far away are the limestone quarries that provided some of the building stone, now Ingleborough National Nature Reserve – home to insects, butterflies, Yorkshire primrose, bloody crane’s-bill, curlews, roe deer, and bats.
And then round off your experience by extending your walk and/or visiting St Leonard’s Church at nearby Chapel-Le-Dale, where the graveyard of the 17th century church had to be extended to accommodate the bodies of many of those who died during construction of the viaduct.
The Settle-Carlisle Railway’s big celebration is happening on Bank Holiday Monday 25th May, when a steam locomotive is scheduled to travel from Carlisle to York, with pick-up stops at Appleby, Settle, and Skipton. Actual timings haven’t been confirmed yet, but I hope to see the locomotive thundering across the viaduct sometime between 09:00 and 09:30 or 20:30 and 21:00 on that day!
This article was contributed by Tess Pike: https://yorkshiresbestguides.co.uk/project/tess-pike/
Image: Moonlit Ribblehead viaduct copyright Pete Collins Diarmond Skies
