499 Bainbridge Description and Information | Wensleydale

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499 Bainbridge Description and Information

Written by the Wanderlust Team

Friday, 30 November 2007

Lovely weather for ducks

Distance: Five miles.

General Location: The Yorkshire Dales.

Start: Bainbridge.

Right of Way: Public.

Map: Drawn from OS Explorer OL30 Yorkshire Dales northern and central areas.

Dogs: Legal.

Date walked: October 2006.

Road Route: West of Leyburn A684.

Car Parking: Roadside.

Lavatories: Bainbridge.

Refreshments: Pub - Rose & Crown Hotel, and cafés including The Corn Mill.

Tourist & Public Transport Information: National Park Hawes 01969 666201.

Terrain: Riverside and Fell.

Points of interest: Re-energised hydropower at Aysgarth will power 100 houses.

Difficulty: Moderate.

Please observe the Country Code and park sensibly. While every effort is made to provide accurate information, walkers set out at their own risk.

Please click the image below to go to the walking route sketch map and detailed directions, or scroll down to a Google Map of the route, the route description, and an image gallery. Plus you can bookmark this page on your favourite social bookmarking site, and comment on the walk. We hope you enjoy the walk.

Googlemap

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Bainbridge, far up Wensleydale, was described in 1978 by Norman Duerden as ‘one of the most spacious and pleasant villages in the dales’, thirty years on ’tis still so, the wide greens and high fells all around. We needed energising after the long drive, The Corn Mill did the trick, coffee, teacake, Jumping Jack Flash and lively art on the walls.

Around the corner an ancient tractor rusted in rest and the River Bain crashed over fall after angled fall to shake the most muffled senses. Then a climb for the local views, the fells some bright some dark.

We walked almost the length of the river, which isn’t difficult, it’s the shortest in England. And it changes in character from noisy tumult in a deep gorge to silky smooth and brimming fishy in grassland.

Along the way our focus changed, because from the pasture of Bracken Hill there's sight of Semer Water, a natural lake, so rare in Yorkshire a county of reservoirs. Soon we sat by its shore near to its overflow to the Bain, the flooded alders like mangroves, the ducks riding the choppy waters begging for a bit of sandwich, Raydale the valley beyond the kilometre of blue.

The water is at an altitude of 800 feet. Next a climb, a grassland route quite steep to Hawes End at 1350 feet. This brings up some good views, of Semer Water and of Addlebrough - the flat topped summit.

One stile had, instead of a waymark, a walking boot sole nailed to the wood. This was slightly unnerving perhaps only because it was next to a small pheasant pen that had dead jackdaws pushed through the chicken wire as a warning to their mates. Jackdaws being clever long-lived birds with lots of mates can take a hint, whereas a pheasant wouldn’t know a mate from a motor car.

Anyway the sights from Hawes End were cheering, to the upper end of Wensleydale where the ground shapes are exuberant, and up and down the valley to various of its villages.

We dropped down and shot back two thousand years, to the time’s arrow of Cam High Road, straight, stony, between stone walls, it’s the Roman route down to Bainbridge where they had a fort.

There was hardly anybody for a mile, but then a melee of lithe bodies and angled alloy, mountain bikers on mass, clocking into a checkpoint on some marathon ride. Felt rather sorry for them as we took the gravity and they were spinning slowly up the steep, all that energy, the drag of the wide tyres, the big rucksacks on their backs, the girlfriend game a hundred yards behind.

You’ll pass on the outskirts the new Dales National Park HQ. It has the eco -visuals, a ‘green’ roof in part. I was thinking I would be more impressed by the eco-reality of a photo voltaic roof, then I checked, the building is warmed by a ground source heat pump, just the ticket.

Image Gallery

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