Winskill

This is another walk I did a lot when I was very young, but I actually didn’t recognise it at all as I was walking – not until I got onto the bit I’ve done a few times in recent years, anyway.

I’m not hundred percent sure how much the name ‘Winskill’ refers to. There’s definitely a Winskill Farm, and a Winskill Stones Nature Reserve, which are both at the top of a little cliff/hill, which I want to call Winskill. There are signposts with just that on them, but I can’t find anything else indicating it’s an official name, and the signs could be pointing to the stuff at the top.

Warrendale Knotts Round Walk

I wasn’t sure whether to do a post about this walk, because I’ve written about Warrendale Knotts before, and I did go up by the same route, which was in itself an extension of a walk to Victoria Cave I’d written about previously. So it feels like cheating to write about it again.

But last time I went up and down the same way, and this time I made a circular of it, and the extra bit was actually very nice, so I wanted to write about it. So I’ll think of this as more of an update post.

Smearsett Scar

Smearsett Scar is a small hill near Stainforth in North Yorkshire. It’s another of those walks I did a lot when I was a child, but I think it’s been over a decade since I last went up there.

I started from the carpark in Stainforth, and went the same way I go when I visit Stainforth Force. I left the carpark by a path leading under a road bridge, then to a track where I turned left and crossed the railway, before turning right as the track became a path.

Walk Above Settle

When I started this walk, I was intending to do a route I’ve done – and written about – before. But as I’ve noted in the past, I know the Settle area well enough that I can wander off-course a bit without worrying about getting lost. And this time I ended up wandering so far off-course that I can call it a different walk, without having to stretch the definition of ‘different’.

I’ll take Greenfoot Carpark in Settle as a starting point, although it wasn’t quite mine. I left it along a road called Lower Greenfoot, then turned left onto Ingfield Lane, which I walked up until I reached a track going off to the right. This is labelled on GoogleMaps as Brockhole Lane, bit I’ve always called it Watery Lane, and I think that’s a local name rather than my family just getting it wrong.

Walk Around Settle

I’ve been doing a few walks around the Settle area recently, but mostly ones I’ve written about before. This was a new one – albeit largely from familiar parts – because what it really was was me wandering somewhat randomly around Settle and its neighbouring villages. I had an idea of where I wanted to be, and I know the area well enough that I didn’t need to think too hard about how to get there.

But my walking posts are accounts rather than guidelines for the best walks to do, so onwards with the post.

I started from Ashfield Car Park in Settle, and walked out onto a road called Kirkgate, just down and across the road from an old theatre called Victoria Hall. I turned left and walked under a railway bridge, then continued forwards down Kirkgate, passing a pretty little benched area, and the car park of a Booths supermarket, before turning off to the left just before the fire station.

Langcliffe to Stainforth

I’ve written about a large part of this walk before, and debated with myself whether I could justify a new post. But I decided there were enough differences – and changes since my last visit – to write one.

The walk was between the villages of Langcliffe and Stainforth in North Yorkshire. ‘Langcliffe’ means ‘the long cliff’, evidently referring to the long, steep slope that goes down to the River Ribble here. And apparently the whole village has been a conservation area since 1978, which explains why it’s barely changed in all the time I’ve known it (which is my whole life); I thought it was just kind of forgotten about.

‘Stainforth’, meanwhile, means ‘stony ford’; apparently, this is after a ford which linked two settlements on either side of the river. It shares its name with a town in South Yorkshire.

Pen-y-ghent

I’ve written about a walk up Pen-y-ghent before, but that was from the back, and as it was a significantly shorter route, I did feel a bit like I’d cheated. It’s quite some years since I climbed it from the standard starting point, which is Horton-in-Ribblesdale.

As it turned out, this actually wasn’t as long of a walk as I was anticipating. It’s a proper fell walk, I’m not saying it’s short, but last time I did it was also some years since the previous time, and on that occasion, it was longer than I’d remembered, so I think that got exaggerated in my mind in the intervening years.

Walk Around Settle

This is another one of those walks that I did a lot in my early childhood and which is still imprinted on some part of my mind, despite not having walked some parts in years, and others for the better part of two decades. There’s always something special about walking around the Settle area.

I started from Ingfield Lane, then turned off onto what I’ve always known by the name Watery Lane, but which GoogleMaps calls Brockhole Lane. I’ve found a couple of pictures online that are labelled with the first name, so I’m going to assume it’s a local name, rather than just me being wrong. There is another Watery Lane in Settle, I suppose there can’t be two in the same town.

I walked along here, passing some houses and allotments. The reason for the Watery Lane name is that a stream runs into and along it for a short while, so the lane becomes just a little footpath alongside the side until the water flows out again.

Simon Fell

I did this walk three weeks ago, but I had a bit of a backlog of posts – hence why I did two last week. I like having a little bit of backlog, because it’s nice to know for definite what the next two or three posts are going to be. But it was getting to be a bit much.

Anyway. Simon Fell is classed as a subsidiary summit of Ingleborough; there’s a ridge with three summits – the other one being Park Fell. I think most people who do the non-Ingleborough ones do all three in one go, but I’m not the type to go for more than summit at a time (although if I had to do three, it would probably be these ones, since it’s not down and up again).