Читать книгу Great Mountain Days in the Pennines. 50 classic hillwalking routes онлайн

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Onwards the path descends easily to and through a sheepfold and across a wide, walled tract of rough ground, scented in spring and early summer with gorse, to a large ruined barn and farm building at Wythwaite (NY654317), from where there is a fine retrospective view of Great Dun Fell in particular. Once at Wythwaite, turn through a gate and follow a surfaced lane to pass a curious feature marked on the map as the Hanging Walls of Mark Antony.

Precisely what are, or were, the Hanging Walls of Mark Antony is open to question, but the generally accepted view is that they are cultivation terraces, possibly as much as 3500 years old. There is a contrary view, however, which suggests that while they are indeed agricultural terraces, they date only from the seventh century, and that the naming of them on maps is a mistake, which ought to place them nearer to Culgaith. William Camden in Britannia refers to ‘the river Blencarne’ and ‘the confused ruins of a castle called the Hanging walls of Marcantoniby’.