Treasures from the Northern Moors

Let me introduce you to some of my favourite pleasures. Here is one of my favourite samplers from the Reeth Museum in Swaledale. It could well be a local Quaker sampler but we have as yet to trace the school. Swaledale is the most northern dale or valley in Yorkshire and stills bears the imprint of Norse conquests in times long past. (The Vikings came to the valley circuitously by way of Ireland and the Lake District). The very word Dale comes from North European Taal and the valley has more tangible evidence too of those origins, the valley bottom is dotted with distinctive remains of old barns, themselves the remains of land tenure under a Norse sytem of land inheritance. Many of the dialect words I grew up with can still be heard in Oslo today.

The landscape you can see here has my heart engraved deeply into it. This the limestone of upper Airedale. Here is good walking in most weathers, but you have to watch for the deep clints and grykes on the limestone pavements which can snap an ankle in a rigid boot in less time it takes to cry warning. Deep in the crevasses you find beautiful hartshorn ferns and shade-loving plants. It is here that rain is filtered, disappearing into swallow hole cisterns to re-emerge as the River Aire which powered the woolen industry and formed the character and substance of my home town and my ancestors, nearly all of whom were spinners or weavers. If ever you want to find me, you will be certain to find me here.