Читать книгу Walking in the Yorkshire Dales: South and West. Wharfedale, Littondale, Malhamdale, Dentdale and Ribblesdale онлайн

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Farming in the Dales

The beauty of the Dales landscape is the culmination of its history and it is one of those few places where human influence can be said to have improved upon Nature, albeit unintentionally. Even the ravages left by historic mining and quarrying have faded, and the grassed-over spoil heaps, collapsed hollows and moss-grown ruined buildings have now assumed an almost natural quality. Working life in the Dales seems naturally to have evolved to run largely in accord with its environment, to create a balance that could be sustained through the passing seasons and from year to year. For example, primeval forest was originally cleared for crops and grazing, but some woodland was always retained to provide fuel and timber. And although the bare upland fells eventually returned little more than rough grazing, they freed lower land for arable farming and the production of hay.

By and large, the farming here has always been relatively unintensive, working within the limits of the generally poor-quality land and traditional boundaries. Getting on for 5,500 miles (8,851km) of stone walls divide the valleys into a mosaic of small fields and fan out up the steep hillsides to define far-reaching territories that meet along the watersheds on the high moorlands above. The walls are everywhere, except around Dentdale, where hedges prevail, and on the Howgills, where boundaries are few. Although some walls only date back a couple of hundred years to the Enclosure Acts, a few are truly ancient and hark back to the time of the first tentative farmers. Together with the tidy villages, compact farmsteads, isolated field barns and sporadic lime kilns, they create a built environment that has a visual harmony completely at one with its setting.