Dale delights
Dentdale isn’t for sissies. It’s approached by several hairy roads carved through a spectacular landscape of moors, fells and becks that tumble over limestone beds. Dent station is more than four miles away from its village, at 1,500ft, on the Settle-carlisle line. Both are worth a visit, as is, to the north, the town of Appleby – especially in June when it hosts the Horse Fair.
The drive through Kingsdale, Barbondale and Garsdale is breathtaking, leading to peaceful Dent, which has that Sleeping Beauty quality, for little seems to have altered its historic quaintness. You can tread the cobbles as Dales folk have always done, past the Shap granite memorial to local lad Adam Sedgwick, Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge from 1818 to 1873. There are a couple of inns, and beer from Dent Brewery, which is located up in the clouds, to be relished after a day’s walk along a network of routes.
Kirkby Lonsdale, a small town, is handy, as is busy Kendal – they were once the most important wool towns in the north. The honeypots of the Lake District are half an hour beyond that.
Two roads lead from Dent to nearby Sedbergh, which is a modest book town, and to Farfield Mill, an ambitious venture with four floors of artisan crafts, and a café. It is a place to linger before pressing on to Wallace and Gromit country – Hawes in Wensleydale, home of the
famous cheese in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales.
My favourite small bed and breakfast of all time is Dentdale bolthole The Old Craft Barn. Hosts Joe and Carrol offer unbeatable food and hospitality. Maggie B Dickinson