Читать книгу Walking in the Yorkshire Dales: North and East. Howgills, Mallerstang, Swaledale, Wensleydale, Coverdale and Nidderdale онлайн

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But even before that, Wensleydale had a major thoroughfare in the form of the Richmond–Lancaster turnpike, and for this reason of all the dales it is the only one to have a market town of any size in its higher reaches. In appearance too Wensleydale is different to the other dales, being broad and flat-bottomed for much of its length, where its pastures supported a much richer farming industry than was possible in the other dales. There was mining for both lead and coal as well as quarrying for stone, but these were scattered in small pockets, bringing diversity of occupation rather than the focus of an all-consuming enterprise.

Nidderdale is the one major valley that no longer has a through road, although in earlier days strings of mules and pack-horses crossed the bleak moorland pass into Coverdale. Nidderdale’s exclusion from the Yorkshire Dales National Park appears to have been because of the chain of reservoirs built to supply the expanding population of Bradford, but although something was undoubtedly lost in the flooding, few would strenuously argue that the lakes do not now bring another element of loveliness to its upper corners. With limestone gorges at its heart, stretches of luxuriant woodland beside the river, and overlooked by the striking formations of Brimham Rocks, it displays some of the greatest diversity in the whole of the Dales.