Clapham

I started off in the pretty village of Clapham. It has pretty cottages, a pretty river and a pretty church. I'm sure that the residents are pretty too, but it was pretty early and nobody was about. I took the tube out of Clapham, specifically two tunnels that take you from the village to Fell Lane beyond. The tunnels were built by the Farrar family of the Ingleborough Hall Estate, presumably so that their eyes wouldn't be offended by the plebs carrying out their business. On Thwaite Lane I came across a man staring intently through some binoculars into a field. At first I thought he was a birder, but as I got closer I suspected he was a farmer. I game him a cheery 'hello' and received a grunted reply for my effort. His eyes didn't leave the binoculars.

Robin Proctor's Scar

I crossed a field towards Robin Proctor's Scar, a huge limestone crag that stretched across the hillside and glowed white in the morning sun. It was hard to judge the scale of the crag. On my return to Clapham, later in the day, I heard voices up on the crag and was surprised to see how tiny the climbers looked. I skirted its base and ended up at a lonely four-way fingerpost that just seemed to have been place at a random location. One finger pointed northwards to Norber; I'd be returning from that direction later in the day. For my outward journey I followed the finger that pointed to Crummack.

Crummack Dale

A couple walked about 200 metres ahead of me as we field hopped along the start of Crummack Dale. It was a bit like a slow-motion steeplechase. Just as I thought I might catch them, they turned off left on to a farm track and away from me. I reached what is know as the Wash Dub (a dub means pool); a picturesque beck crossed by a couple of stone bridges. An information board told me all about its history. In the days before chemical dips sheep would be washed in the beck to remove lice and parasites from their fleece. On boon-day (meaning a day's work given by neighbour to neighbour) the beck would be dammed and a pool created. The sheep were driven into the pool and men gave them a good scrubbing. A photo from the 1930s show fully clothed men stood in the pool cleaning the sheep. It must have been a cold and miserable procedure. It can't have been much fun for the farmers either.

There is a sense of walking back in time in Crummack Dale. I joined a high stone walled lane that was only wide enough for one person. It was obviously built when pedestrian access to the fields was all that was needed. I had to place my back to the stone wall and breathe in at one point, as two walkers wanted to pass the other way. The stone walls deteriorated the further up the valley I walked until one side had fallen down completely. A gradual slope delivered me up to the plateau rim of Moughton Scars.

Life On Moughton Scars

It is an alien landscape that greets you. Miles of broken limestone pavement in all directions. If NASA wanted to test their next Mars rover then Moughton Scars would provide a suitably challenging environment. Despite a line of Tweed Trouser gun emplacements promising grouse, there doesn't appear to be much life up here either. The sheep have obviously figured out that losing one of their legs down a limestone crevice is likely to be the last mistake that they make, and are notable by their absence. I also took great care when walking over the broken pavement. It would be so easy to twist an ankle or trip up. I had intended following the rim of the Crummack Dale valley around to Suber Gate, but in the end I decided to follow a line of cairns across the pavement that took a more direct route. I thought that the cairns might indicate an easier path, but I found no evidence of this. I just met two other people carefully walking the other way. They had a dog with them who was concentrating so much on his footing that he totally ignored me. At last I got to the other side and the intriguingly named Suber Gate on the OS map. It is in fact just a normal wooden gate through a stone wall that transports you out of this amazing landscape.

Long And Thwaite Scars

I enjoyed the luxury of walking on soft grass to the large cairn at Long Scar. I say a large cairn, but it could equally be called a pyramid. Maybe some Anglo Saxon king is buried deep inside it. I'm not sure why such a large, well built cairn was constructed at this point, but it does provide a great foreground for your photos. There is an option here to follow the Pennine Bridleway down the valley to the southeast back to Clapham. This is easier from a navigation point of view. Instead I followed a vague track southwards over Thwaite Scar. Much of this scar was grass and was far easier walking than the shattered pavement of Moughton Scars. The track disappeared occasionally and then started descending down into the Crummack Dale valley. At first I thought it had brought me down off the scar too early, but fortunately it delivered me to a stile over a high stone wall. I think it is probably essential to hit this stile in the walk, since without any ropes and karabiners, there doesn't appear to be any other way to get over the wall.

Norber Erratics

The other side of the wall was a landscape almost as curious as that of Moughton Scars. It was like a sculptor had placed rocks in surreal positions on to the hillside. Large rocks seemed wedged in mid-air by smaller ones. Holes of daylight could be seen through oddly stacked boulders. I'd walked into the land of the Norber Erratics. Erratics is a geological term meaning 'out of place'. It is thought that the boulders were deposited on to the hillside when the glaciers retreated. The Silurian boulders sit atop small carboniferous limestone columns (about 50 centimetres in height), which have been progressively worn down by weathering. This has left the boulders looking like they have been 'perched' on small stones. I'd not been expecting this unusual display and it seemed rather weird at the time. I followed another vague track down through this surreal landscape and eventually I dropped down to the lonely four-way finger post that I had walked past this morning.

Return

The grumpy farmer that I'd so cheerfully greeted this morning had disappeared from Thwaite Lane. He had been replaced by the young members of a school outing that were making so much noise that I would have paid handsomely for a set of ear defenders. Four teachers tried to introduce some order into a chaotic world. Near to Clapham church a couple of elderly walkers approached me. 'Are you local?' one asked with a hint of desperation. I confessed that I wasn't. Despite my negative answer and the fact that I was walking into the village, he asked me if I knew if the café was open at the other end of the village. My wealth of knowledge doesn't extend to the opening times of cafés in Clapham and so I broke it to him firmly but gently that I most definitely had no idea.

The walk had been excellent. Crummack Dale is a gem and Moughton Scars and the Norber Erratics are amazing natural wonders that should not be missed.