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When in the early years of life one learns for the first time the name of that range of mountains forming the backbone of England, the youthful scholar looks forward to seeing in later years the prolonged series of lofty hills known as the ‘Pennine Range.’ His imagination pictures Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough as great peaks, seldom free from a mantle of clouds, for are they not called ‘mountains of the Pennine Range,’ and do they not appear in almost as large type in the school geography as Snowdon and Ben Nevis? But as the scholar grows older and more able to travel, so does the Pennine Range recede from his vision, until it becomes almost as remote as those crater-strewn mountains in the Moon which have a name so similar.

This elusiveness on the part of a natural feature so essentially static as a mountain range is attributable to the total disregard of the name of this particular chain of hills. In the same way as the term ‘Cumbrian Hills’ is exchanged for the popular ‘Lake District,’ so is a large section of the Pennine Range paradoxically known as the ‘Yorkshire Dales.’

It is because the hills are so big that the valleys are deep, and it is owing to the great watersheds that these long and narrow dales are beautified by some of the most copious and picturesque rivers in England. In spite of this, however, when one climbs any of the fells over 2,000 feet, and looks over the mountainous ridges on every side, one sees, as a rule, no peak or isolated height of any description to attract one’s attention. Instead of the rounded or angular projections from the horizon that are usually associated with a mountainous district, there are great expanses of brown tableland that form themselves into long parallel lines in the distance, and give a sense of wild desolation in some ways more striking than the peaks of Scotland or Wales. The thick formations of millstone grit and limestone that rest upon the shale have generally avoided crumpling or distortion, and thus give the mountain views the appearance of having had all the upper surfaces rolled flat when they were in a plastic condition. Denudation and the action of ice in the glacial epochs have worn through the hard upper stratum, and formed the long and narrow dales; and in Littondale, Wharfedale, Wensleydale, and many other parts, one may plainly see the perpendicular wall of rock sharply defining the upper edges of the valleys. The softer rocks below generally take a gentle slope from the base of the hard gritstone to the river-side pastures below. At the edges of the dales, where waterfalls pour over the wall of limestone—as at Hardraw Scar, near Hawes—the action of water is plainly demonstrated, for one can see the rapidity with which the shale crumbles, leaving the harder rocks overhanging above.

Unlike the moors of the north-eastern parts of Yorkshire, the fells are not prolific in heather. It is possible to pass through Wensleydale—or, indeed, most of the dales—without seeing any heather at all. On the broad plateaux between the dales there are stretches of moor partially covered with ling; but in most instances the fells and moors are grown over at their higher levels with bent and coarse grass, generally of a browny-ochrish colour, broken here and there by an outcrop of limestone that shows gray against the swarthy vegetation.

In the upper portions of the dales—even in the narrow river-side pastures—the fences are of stone, turned a very dark colour by exposure, and everywhere on the slopes of the hills a wide network of these enclosures can be seen traversing even the most precipitous ascents. Where the dales widen out towards the fat plains of the Vale of York, quickset hedges intermingle with the gaunt stone, and as one gets further eastwards the green hedge becomes triumphant. The stiles that are the fashion in the stone-fence districts make quite an interesting study to strangers, for, wood being an expensive luxury, and stone being extremely cheap, everything is formed of the more enduring material. Instead of a trap-gate, one generally finds an excessively narrow opening in the fences, only just giving space for the thickness of the average knee, and thus preventing the passage of the smallest lamb. Some stiles are constructed with a large flat stone projecting from each side, one slightly in front and overlapping the other, so that one can only pass through by making a very careful S-shaped movement. More common are the projecting stones, making a flight of precarious steps on each side of the wall.

Except in their lowest and least mountainous parts, where they are subject to the influences of the plains, the dales are entirely innocent of red tiles and haystacks. The roofs of churches, cottages, barns and mansions, are always of the local stone, that weathers to beautiful shades of green and gray, and prevents the works of man from jarring with the great sweeping hillsides. Then, instead of the familiar gray-brown haystack, one sees in almost every meadow a neatly-built stone house with an upper story. The lower part is generally used as a shelter for cattle, while above is stored hay or straw. By this system a huge amount of unnecessary carting is avoided, and where roads are few and generally of exceeding steepness a saving of this nature is a benefit easily understood. Any soldier who served in South Africa during the latter part of the war would be struck with the advantages that these ready-made block-houses would offer if it were ever necessary to round up a mobile enemy who had taken refuge among the Yorkshire fells. Barbed-wire entanglements, and a system of telephones to link them together, would be all that was required to convert these stone barns into block-houses of a thoroughly useful type, for they are already loopholed.

The villages of the dales, although having none of the bright colours of a level country, are often exceedingly quaint, and rich in soft shades of green and gray. In the autumn the mellowed tints of the stone houses are contrasted with the fierce yellows and browny-reds of the foliage, and the villages become full of bright colours. At all times, except when the country is shrivelled by an icy northern wind, the scenery of the dales has a thousand charms. By the edge of fine rivers that pour downwards in terraced falls one finds hamlets with their church towers, gray and sturdy, and the little patch of green shaded by ash-trees, all made diminutive by the huge and gaunt hillsides that dominate every view. Looking up the dales, there are often glimpses of distant heights that in their blue silhouettes give a more mountainous aspect to the scenery than one might expect.

In some of the valleys, such as Swaledale, the nakedness of the yellow-brown hills is clothed with a mantle of heavy woods—but enough has been said by way of introduction to give some notion of the general aspect of the dales, and in the succeeding chapters a closer scrutiny can be made.

The ways of approaching the Dale Country from the south are by means of the Great Northern, Midland, or Great Central routes to York, where one has all the North-Eastern service to choose from. Ribblesdale is traversed by the Midland Main Line, so that those who wish to commence an exploration of these parts of Yorkshire from Settle, Skipton, or Hawes, must travel from St. Pancras Station.