SKIPTON, MALHAM AND GORDALE
When I think of Skipton I am never quite sure whether to look upon it as
a manufacturing centre or as one of the picturesque market towns of the
dale country. If you arrive by train, you come out of the station upon
such vast cotton-mills, and such a strong flavour of the bustling
activity of the southern parts of Yorkshire, that you might easily
imagine that the capital of Craven has no part in any holiday-making
portion of the county. But if you come by road from Bolton Abbey, you
enter the place at a considerable height, and, passing round the margin
of the wooded Haw Beck, you have a fine view of the castle, as well as
the church and the broad and not unpleasing market-place. Beyond these
appear the chimneys and the smoke of the manufacturing and railway side
of the town, almost entirely separate from the old world and historic
portion on the higher ground. When you are on the castle ramparts the
factories appear much less formidable--in fact, they seem to shrink into
quite a small area owing to the great bare hills that rise up on all
sides.
On this sunny morning, as we make our way towards the castle, we find
the attractive side of Skipton entirely unspoiled by any false
impression given by the factories. The smoke which the chimneys make
appears in the form of a thin white mist against the brown moors beyond,
and everything is very clean and very bright after heavy rain. The
gateway of the castle is flanked by two squat towers. They are circular
and battlemented, and between them upon a parapet, which is higher than
the towers themselves, appears the motto of the Cliffords, ‘Desormais’
(hereafter), in open stone letters. Beyond the gateway stands a great
mass of buildings with two large round towers just in front; to the
right, across a sloping lawn, appears the more modern and inhabited
portion of the castle. The squat round towers gain all our attention,
but as we pass through the doorways into the courtyard beyond, we are
scarcely prepared for the astonishingly beautiful quadrangle that awaits
us. It is small, and the centre is occupied by a great yew-tree, whose
tall, purply-red trunk goes up to
[Illustration: THE COURTYARD OF SKIPTON CASTLE
THE buildings of this portion of the castle, although in such good
preservation, are not occupied.]
the level of the roofs without any branches or even twigs, but at that
height it spreads out freely into a feathery canopy of dark green,
covering almost the whole of the square of sky visible from the
courtyard. The base of the trunk is surrounded by a massive stone seat,
with plain shields on each side. The sunlight that comes through this
green network is very much subdued when it falls upon walls and the
pavement, which becomes strewn over with circular splashes of whiteness.
The masonry of the walls on every side, where not showing the original
red of the sandstone, has been weathered into beautiful emerald tints,
and to a height of two or three feet there is a considerable growth of
moss on the worn mouldings. The general appearance of the courtyard
suggests more that of a manor-house than a castle, the windows and
doorways being purely Tudor. The circular towers and other portions of
the walls belong to the time of Edward II., and there is also a
roundheaded door that cannot be later than the time of Robert de
Romillé, one of the Conqueror’s followers. The rooms that overlook the
shady quadrangle are very much decayed and entirely unoccupied. They
include an old dining-hall of much picturesqueness, kitchens, pantries,
and butteries, some of them only lighted by narrow windows on the outer
faces of the wall. There are many large bedrooms and other dark
apartments in the towers. Only a little restoration would be required to
put a great portion of these into habitable condition, for they are
structurally in a good state of repair, as may be seen to some extent
from the picture of the courtyard reproduced here. The destruction
caused during the siege which took place during the Civil War might have
brought Skipton Castle to much the same condition as Knaresborough but
for the wealth and energy of that remarkable woman Lady Anne Clifford,
who was born here in 1589. She was the only surviving child of George,
the third Earl of Cumberland, and grew up under the care of her mother,
Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, of whom Lady Anne used to speak as ‘my
blessed mother.’ Her reverence for the memory of this admirable parent
is also shown in the feeling which prompted her to put up a pillar by
the roadside, between Penrith and Appleby, to commemorate their last
meeting, and, besides this, the Lady Anne left a sum of money to be
given to the poor at that spot on a certain day every year. After her
first marriage with Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset, Lady Anne
married the profligate Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. She was
widowed a second time in 1649, and after that began the period of her
munificence and usefulness. With immense enthusiasm, she undertook the
work of repairing the castles that belonged to her family, Brougham,
Appleby, Barden Tower, and Pendragon being restored as well as Skipton.
We can see in the towers where the later work begins, and the custodian
who shows us through the apartments points out many details which are
invisible without the aid of his candle.
Besides attending to the decayed castles, the Countess repaired no less
than seven churches, and to her we owe the careful restoration of the
parish church of Skipton. She began the repairs to the sacred building
even before she turned her attention to the wants of the castle. In her
private memorials we read how, ‘In the summer of 1665 ... at her own
charge, she caus’d the steeple of Skipton Church to be built up againe,
which was pull’d down in the time of the late Warrs, and leaded it over,
and then repaired some part of the Church and new glaz’d the Windows, in
every of which Window she put quaries, stained with a yellow colour,
these two letters--viz., A. P., and under them the year 1655....
Besides, she raised up a noble Tomb of Black Marble in memory of her
Warlike Father.’ This magnificent altar-tomb still stands within the
Communion rails on the south side of the chancel. It is adorned with
seventeen shields, and Whitaker doubted ‘whether so great an assemblage
of noble bearings can be found on the tomb of any other Englishman.’
This third Earl was a notable figure in the reign of Elizabeth, and
having for a time been a great favourite with the Queen, he received
many of the posts of honour she loved to bestow. He was a skilful and
daring sailor, helping to defeat the Spanish Armada, and building at his
own expense one of the greatest fighting ships of his time,
Elizabeth--who, like the present German Emperor, never lost an
opportunity of fostering the growth of her navy--being present at the
launching ceremony.
The memorials of Lady Anne give a description of her appearance in the
manner of that time: ‘The colour of her eyes was black like her
Father’s,’ we are told, ‘with a peak of hair on her forehead, and a
dimple in her chin, like her father. The hair of her head was brown and
very thick, and so long that it reached to the calf of her legs when
she stood upright; and when she caused these memorials of herself to be
written (she had passed the year 63 of her age), she said _the
perfections of her mind were much above those of her body_; she had a
strong and copious memory, a sound judgment, and a discerning spirit,
and so much of a strong imagination in her as that at many times even
her dreams and apprehensions beforehand proved true.’ The Countess died
at the great age of eighty-seven at Brougham Castle in Westmoreland, and
was buried in the Church of St. Lawrence at Appleby.
We cannot leave these old towers of Skipton Castle without going back to
the days of John, the ninth Lord Clifford, that ‘Bloody Clifford’ who
was one of the leaders of the Lancastrians at Wakefield, where his
merciless slaughter earned him the title of ‘the Butcher.’ He died by a
chance arrow the night before the Battle of Towton, so fatal to the
cause of Lancaster, and Lady Clifford and the children took refuge in
her father’s castle at Brough. For greater safety Henry, the heir, was
placed under the care of a shepherd whose wife had nursed the boy’s
mother when a child. In this way the future baron grew up as an entirely
uneducated shepherd lad, spending his days on the fells in the
primitive fashion of the peasants of the fifteenth century. When he was
about twelve years old Lady Clifford, hearing rumours that the
whereabouts of her children had become known, sent the shepherd and his
wife with the boy into an extremely inaccessible part of Cumberland. He
remained there until his thirty-second year, when the Battle of Bosworth
placed Henry VII. on the throne. Then the shepherd lord was brought to
Londesborough, and when the family estates had been restored, he went
back to Skipton Castle. The strangeness of his new life being irksome to
him, Lord Clifford spent most of his time in Barden Forest at one of the
keeper’s lodges, which he adapted for his own use. There he hunted and
studied astronomy and astrology with the canons of Bolton.
At Flodden Field he led the men-at-arms from Craven, and showed that by
his life of extreme simplicity he had in no way diminished the
traditional valour of the Cliffords. When he died they buried him at
Bolton Abbey, where many of his ancestors lay, and as his successor died
after the dissolution of the monasteries, the ‘Shepherd Lord’ was the
last to be buried in that secluded spot by the Wharfe.
Skipton has always been a central spot for the exploration of this
southern portion of the dales, and since the Midland Railway has lately
put out an arm to the north, there are lines going in five directions.
The new branch that goes into Wharfedale stops just before it reaches
Grassington, and has an intermediate station with a triple name in
consideration of the fact that it is placed at almost exactly the same
distance from the three villages of Hetton, Rylstone, and Cracoe.
Whether we go by road or rail, we have good views of Flasby and Rylstone
Fells as we pass along the course of Eller Beck to the romantically
situated village made famous by Wordsworth’s ballad of ‘The White Doe of
Rylstone.’ The site of the old manor-house where the Nortons lived may
still be seen in a field to the east of the church. Owing to the part
they took in the Rising of the North in 1569 the Nortons lost all their
property in Yorkshire, and among the humble folk of Rylstone who shared
in the rebellion there was Richard Kitchen, Mr. Norton’s butler, who
lost much more, for he was executed at Ripon. From Hetton we follow a
road to the west, and passing the hamlet of Winterburn, come to Airton,
where there are some interesting old houses, one of them dating from
the year of the Great Fire of London. Turning to the north, we come to
Kirby Malham, less than two miles off. It is a pretty little village
with green limestone hills rising on all sides; a rushing beck coming
off Kirby Fell takes its way past the church, and there is an old
vicarage as well as some picturesque cottages.
We find our way to a decayed lych-gate, whose stones are very black and
moss-grown, and then get a close view of the Perpendicular church. The
interior is full of interest, not only on account of the Norman font and
the canopied niches in the pillars of the nave, but also for the old
pews. The Malham people seemingly found great delight in recording their
names on the woodwork of the pews, for carefully carved initials and
dates appear very frequently. All the pews have been cut down to the
accepted height of the present day with the exception of some on the
north side which were occupied by the more important families, and these
still retain their squareness and the high balustrades above the
panelled lower portions. One of the parish registers has the rare
distinction of containing Oliver Cromwell’s signature to a marriage.
There is also the entry of the baptism on November 7, 1619, of John
Lambert, who became famous as Major-General in the Roundhead army.
Just under the moorland heights surrounding Malham Tarn is the other
village of Malham. It is a charming spot, even in the gloom of a wintry
afternoon. The houses look on to a strip of uneven green, cut in two,
lengthways, by the Aire. We go across the clear and sparkling waters by
a rough stone footbridge, and, making our way past a farm, find
ourselves in a few minutes at Gordale Bridge. Here we abandon the
switchback lane, and, climbing a wall, begin to make our way along the
side of the beck. The fells drop down fairly sharply on each side, and
in the failing light there seems no object in following the stream any
further, when quite suddenly the green slope on the right stands out
from a scarred wall of rock beyond, and when we are abreast of the
opening we find ourselves before a vast fissure that leads right into
the heart of the fell. The great split is S-shaped in plan, so that when
we advance into its yawning mouth we are surrounded by limestone cliffs
more than 300 feet high. If one visits Gordale Scar for the first time
alone on a gloomy evening, as I have done, I can promise the most
thrilling sensations to those who have yet to see this astonishing
sight. It almost appeared to me as though I were dreaming, and that I
was Aladin approaching the magician’s palace. I had read some of the
eighteenth-century writers’ descriptions of the place, and imagined that
their vivid accounts of the terror inspired by the overhanging rocks
were mere exaggerations, but now I sympathize with every word. The scars
overhang so much on the east side that there is not much space to get
out of reach of the water that drips from every portion. Great masses of
stone were lying upon the bright strip of turf, and among them I noticed
some that could not have been there long; this made me keep close under
the cliff in justifiable fear of another fall. I stared with
apprehension at one rock that would not only kill, but completely bury,
anyone upon whom it fell, and I thought those old writers had underrated
the horrors of the place. Through a natural arch in the rocks that faced
me came a foaming torrent broken up below into a series of cascades, and
the roar of the waters in the confined space added much to the fear that
was taking possession of me. It was owing to the curious habit that
waterfalls have of seeming to become suddenly louder that I must own to
that sense of fearfulness, for at one moment the noise
[Illustration: GORDALE SCAR
THIS is one of the most astonishing sights in Yorkshire. The gorge is a
result of the Craven Fault--a geological dislocation that has also made
the huge cliffs of Malham Cove. The stream is the Aire. It can be seen
coming through a natural arch high up among the rocks.]
sounded so suddenly different that I was convinced that a considerable
fall of stones had commenced among the crags overhead, and that in a
moment they would crash into the narrow cleft. Common-sense seemed to
urge an immediate retreat, for there was too much water coming down the
falls to allow me to climb out that way, as I could otherwise have done.
The desire to carry away some sort of picture of the fearsome place was,
however, triumphant, and the result is given in this chapter.
Wordsworth writes of
‘Gordale chasm, terrific as the lair
Where the young lions couch,’
and he also describes it as one of the grandest objects in nature.
A further result of the Craven fault that produced Gordale Scar can be
seen at Malham Cove, about a mile away. There the cliff forms a curved
front 285 feet high, facing the open meadows down below. The limestone
is formed in layers of great thickness, dividing the face of the cliff
into three fairly equal sections, the ledges formed at the commencement
of each stratum allowing of the growth of bushes and small trees. A
hard-pressed fox is said to have taken refuge on one of these
precarious ledges, and finding his way stopped in front, he tried to
turn, and in doing so fell and was killed.
At the base of the perpendicular face of the cliff the Aire flows from a
very slightly arched recess in the rock. It is a really remarkable
stream in making its début without the slightest fuss, for it is large
enough at its very birth to be called a small river. Its modesty is a
great loss to Yorkshire, for if, instead of gathering strength in the
hidden places in the limestone fells, it were to keep to more rational
methods, it would flow to the edge of the Cove, and there precipitate
itself in majestic fashion into a great pool below. There is some reason
for believing that on certain occasions in the past the stream has taken
the more showy course, and if sufficient cement could be introduced into
some of the larger fissures above, a fall might be induced to occur
after every period of heavy rain. All the romance would perhaps
disappear if we knew that the effect was artificial, and therefore we
would no doubt be wiser to remain content with the Cove as it is.
SETTLE AND THE INGLETON FELLS