CHAPTER IX
SETTLE AND THE INGLETON FELLS

The track across the moor from Malham Cove to Settle cannot be recommended to anyone at night, owing to the extreme difficulty of keeping to the path without a very great familiarity with every yard of the way, so that when I merely suggested taking that route one wintry night the villagers protested vigorously. I therefore took the road that goes up from Kirby Malham, having borrowed a large hurricane lamp from the ‘Buck’ Inn at Malham. Long before I reached the open moor I was enveloped in a mist that would have made the track quite invisible even where it was most plainly marked, and I blessed the good folk at Malham who had advised me to take the road rather than run the risks of the pot-holes that are a feature of the limestone fells. This moor is on the range of watersheds of Northern England, for it sends streams east and west that find their way into the Irish Sea and German Ocean.

With the swinging lantern throwing vast shadows of my own figure upon the mist, and the stony road under my feet, I at length dropped down the steep descent into Settle, having seen no human being on the road since I left Kirby Malham. Even Settle was almost as lonely, for I had nearly reached a building called The Folly, which is near the middle of the town, before I met the first inhabitant.

In the morning I discovered that The Folly was the most notable house in the town, for its long stone front dates from the time of Charles II., and it is a very fine example of the most elaborate treatment of a house of that size and period to be found in the Craven district. Settle has a most distinctive feature in the possession of Castleberg, a steep limestone hill, densely wooded except at the very top, that rises sharply just behind the market-place. Before the trees were planted there seems to have been a sundial on the side of the hill, the precipitous scar on the top forming the gnomon. No one remembers this curious feature, although a print showing the numbers fixed upon the slope was published in 1778. The market-place has lost its curious old tollbooth, and in its place stands a town hall of good Tudor design. Departed also is much of the charm of the old Shambles that occupy a

central position in the square. The lower story, with big arches forming a sort of piazza in front of the butcher’s and other shops, still remains in its old state, but the upper portion has been restored in the fullest sense of that comprehensive term.

In the steep street that we came down on entering the town there may still be seen a curious old tower, which seems to have forgotten its original purpose. Some of the houses have carved stone lintels to their doorways and seventeenth-century dates, while the stone figure on ‘The Naked Man’ Inn, although bearing the date 1663, must be very much older, the year of rebuilding being probably indicated rather than the date of the figure.

The Ribble divides Settle from its former parish church at Giggleswick, and until 1838 the townsfolk had to go over the bridge and along a short lane to the village which held its church. Settle having been formed into a separate parish, the parish clerk of the ancient village no longer has the fees for funerals and marriages. Although able to share the church, the two places had stocks of their own for a great many years. At Settle they have been taken from the market square and placed in the court-house, and at Giggleswick one of the first things we see on entering the village is one of the stone posts of the stocks standing by the steps of the market cross. This cross has a very well preserved head, and it makes the foreground of a very pretty picture as we look at the battlemented tower of the church through the stone-roofed lichgate grown over with ivy. The history of this fine old church, dedicated, like that of Middleham, to St. Alkelda, has been written by Mr. Thomas Brayshaw, who knows every detail of the old building from the chalice inscribed ‘? THE · COMMVNION · CVPP · BELONGINGE · TO · THE · PARISHE · OF · IYGGELSWICKE · MADE · IN · ANO · 1585.’ to the inverted Norman capitals now forming the bases of the pillars. The tower and the arcades date from about 1400, and the rest of the structure is about 100 years older.

‘The Black Horse’ Inn has still two niches for small figures of saints, that proclaim its ecclesiastical connections in early times. It is said that in the days when it was one of the duties of the churchwardens to see that no one was drinking there during the hours of service the inspection used to last up to just the end of the sermon, and that when the custom was abolished the church officials regretted it exceedingly. Giggleswick is also the proud possessor of a school founded in 1512. It has grown from a very small beginning to a considerable establishment, and it possesses one of the most remarkable school chapels that can be seen anywhere in the country. It was built between 1897 and 1901, as a memorial of Queen Victoria’s ‘Diamond Jubilee,’ by Mr. Walter Morrison, who spared no expense in clothing it with elaborate decoration, executed by some of the most renowned artists of the present day. The design of the building is by Mr. T. G. Jackson, R.A.

The museum is of more than ordinary interest on account of the very fine collection of prehistoric remains discovered in the Victoria Cave two miles to the north-east of Settle. Besides bones of such animals as the cave bear, bison, elephant, and grisly bear, fragments of pottery were discovered, together with bronze and silver coins dating from the Roman period.

An ebbing and flowing well, which has excited the admiration of all the earlier writers on this part of Yorkshire, can be seen at about the distance of a mile to the north of Giggleswick. The old prints show this as a most spectacular natural phenomenon; but whatever it may have been a century or more ago, it appears at the present day as little more than an ordinary roadside well, so common in this neighbourhood. In very dry or very wet weather the well remains inactive, but when there is a medium supply of water the level of the water is constantly changing. Giggleswick Tarn is no longer in existence, for it has been drained, and the site is occupied by pastures. The very fine British canoe, discovered when the drainage operations were in progress, is now preserved in the Leeds Museum.

The road that goes northward from Settle keeps close to the Midland Railway, which here forces its way right through the Dale Country, under the very shoulders of Pen-y-ghent, and within sight of the flat top of Ingleborough. The greater part of this country is composed of limestone, forming bare hillsides honeycombed with underground waters and pot-holes, which often lead down into the most astonishing caverns. In Ingleborough itself there is Gaping Gill Hole, a vast fissure nearly 350 feet deep. It was only partially explored by M. Martel in 1895. Ingleborough Cave penetrates into the mountain to a distance of nearly 1,000 feet, and is one of the best of these limestone caverns for its stalactite formations. Guides take visitors from the village of Clapham to the inmost recesses and chambers that branch out of the small portion discovered in 1837.

The fells contain so many fissures and curious waterfalls that drop into abysses of blackness, that it would take an infinite time to adequately describe even a portion of them. The scenery is wild and gaunt, and is much the same as the moors at the head of Swaledale, described in an earlier chapter. In every direction there are opportunities for splendid mountain walks, and if the tracks are followed the danger of hidden pot-holes is comparatively small. From the summit of Ingleborough, and, indeed, from most of the fells that reach 2,000 feet, there are magnificent views across the brown fells, broken up with horizontal lines formed by the bare rocky scars. Bowfell, Whernside, Great Shunnor Fell, High Seat, and a dozen other heights, dominate the lower and greener country, and to the west, where the mountains drop down towards Morecambe Bay, one looks all over the country watered by the Lune and the Kent, the two rivers that flow from the seaward side of these lofty watersheds.