Words & Photos Ian Battersby

December 03 2009

England’s finest limestone pavements completely surround Ingleborough. There’s no right of way, but by using CROW, and with luck, I hoped to devise a round. I had to gamble on getting through the walls, but with a good tactical approach I’d have the land to myself, and the thrill of discovery.

Fortune favoured me. The lie of the land was mostly unproblematic, and gates or stiles appeared on cue.

I reached the Open Access land by using an older access area allowing climbers onto White Stone. The sheer grey cliffs presented a striking counterfoil to the hazy green valley, while the ghost of Ingleborough lurked in the backdrop. The limestone pavement began sporadically and later was curiously colonised by great swathes of dark green juniper. Its shattered rock was unstable, and a far cry from the boot-polished, solidity rock I’m used to. From the top Pen-y-ghent’s profile was handsomely silhouetted in the low, early sun.

The land remains open as far as a fault line that snakes across the limestone, where a fence restricts movement further north. No matter, my route lay along the edge of Moughton Scars, a continuation of the previous edges, with the view of Ingleborough beginning to assert itself.

I used a short stretch of paths to get to Nick Pot, from where another sustained sweep of open land extends to the northern limits of Ingleborough. Using the pavements by the wall, I passed an enclosed reserve where the natural flora thrives under its protection. Two walls lay across my path. I aimed for a track hoping for nearby gates. The gamble paid off, and the quest continued, but the track had steered me far from the easy walking limestone grasslands, into a more difficult, tussocky area, slowing the pace.

To the rescue came the new Ingleborough Ridge Trail, descending from Park Fell, traversing easy limestone pastures around the northern nose of the ridge, and ushering me on past the immense chasm at Great Douk Cave, and Souther Scales reserve, where a thick but stunted wood emerges from the limestone. I was back with the crowds for an instant, but once over the wall beyond Great Wife Hole I turned south-west with the wall, gambling and discovering a stile through the last remaining cross-wall between me and onward exploration of more desolate pavements, and a successful circumnavigation.

The Black Shiver frowned down on my cheeky passage, and a goosander took off from a small tarn, flying enquiring circles around me. “Don’t worry, I mean no harm” I wanted to tell it as I continued, leaving only transient foot prints here and there.

Distance: 18 miles/29km Ascent: 2395ft/730m Time: 8-10 hours Start/finish: Clapham Church (GR: SD 746694) Maps: Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer sheet OL2 (Yorkshire Dales - Southern & Western areas) Information: Settle TIC, 01729 825192

Technical Spec
Bridleway E from Clapham to Wharf. Bridleway NW above cottages 200m. N through gate to wall gap. Left then right through second gap. N to stile on crag. Follow edges N. E to trig point. N to Moughton Scar. Edge NW to Sulber Gate. Path NE then WNW to stile. N for one mile to gates. Path NW to gate. NE towards wall. Take marked Ridge Route SE then N to New Close, gradually turning SW to Great Douk Cave. Paths W then S across Souther Scales to wall beyond Great Wife Hole. Follow wall SW to stile. SW then S along White and Grey Scars to path descending to Newby Cote. SE into Clapham.