Taken from

The King’s England: A New Doomsday Book of 10,000 Towns and Villages

Yorkshire West Riding

Editted by Arthur Mee, first printed 1941.

Arthur Mee (21 July 1875 – 27 May 1943) was an English Writer, journalist and educator.

This extract is the villages up Wharfedale from Grassington. The book contains all the villages in the former West Riding and a separate book is available for the North Riding. If anyone would like these books then please let me know: Keith P.

Arthur Mee’s note: The visitation of Yorkshire for the King’s England series was completed in the early months of the Hitler War and is a picture of the county before the aerial bombardment of the Island. It is not possible here to take note of changes the war has brought about in some churches and buildings.

2003 note: The images presented are from the book and therefore provide a snapshot of our villages towards the end of the 1930’s.

Sternly beautiful is the narrow cleft in which this village lies, far up the valley where the Wharfe comes through Langstrothdale from the wild country about Cam Fell. The fells are like huge walls on both sides of the village, with Buckden Pike 2302 feet up. The river flowing under great trees, the few old houses by the bridge, and the rugged church in a churchyard where time is forgotten, make Hubberholme a charming discovery.

The churchyard has an old cross and a sundial. Stones of all sizes and shapes are in the walls of the church, which was once flooded so deep that fish swam in the nave. Much of it has stood 700 years. The sturdy tower is without buttresses, and the nave arcades are rough-hewn, one of the arches 22 feet wide. There are windows with massive mullions, an old seven-sided font with two queer faces and a cover like a crown, and an old door. On the floor is a bell of 1601, looking almost new.

The chief treasure of the old woodwork is the remains of one of the few ancient roodlofts left in Yorkshire; it is painted red and yellow and black, and has an inscription and the Percy crescent and locklet. Remembered in a memorial is George Hobson, who bult a bridge over the Zambesi.

The grandeur of green hills and the sombre dignity of purple fells and mountains is about this small village far up Wharfedale, an old friend of the little river which has come only a few miles of its long journey to the Ouse. So cradled is it in the heights that we seem to be inside a stupendous bowl as we stand where the farms and cottages and the ivied inn are gathered by the green. We look north-west to Chapel Moor rising beyond Langstrothdale. Across the valley the fells rise 2000 feet above the sea, , and the deer roam the wooded slopes coming down to the river. On its own side the village is sheltered by rock-strewn slopes know as the Rak and East Side, with a stream flowing between them from Buckden Pike 2300 feet up. We can climb this towering hill from Buckden, Starbotton and Cray in Wharfedale, or from Ausgarth in Wensleydale by way of Bishopdale and Kidstones Pass; and there are magnificent views to reward us.

It has a tragic memory of a day in 1686 when a cloudburst sent the River Wharfe roaring down the valley, drowning people and carrying away their homes; but all the grandeur of hills and fells is still about this peaceful spot, with cottages about a twisting bit of the road which runs between steep slopes, rising 2000 feet at Tor Mere Top behind the village, and nearly as high where Old Cote Moor Top stretches like a stupendous embankment across the river.

2023 note: The Chapel in the middle distance no longer exists. Assuming the bridge is still in the same place, it is interesting to consider why subsequent buildings moved the road to a less logical place.

It has been a market town and is now a village, but its lovely setting in Upper Wharfedale has not changed. Great Whernside and Old Cote Moor rise grandly on each side, and into the glorious view down the dale comes Kilnsey Crag, as bold and severe as a castle wall. The charming road bringing us up the valley is like a maze threading between grey walls. Under a bridge in the village a stream from the slopes of Whernside comes prattling, and below its meeting with the Wharfe the river is crossed by a fine old bridge and stepping stones. In a churchyard like a garden, entered by an oak Lynchgate, lies Isaac Trueman, who is locally believed to be 117 when he died in 1770. The Church is rebuilt, but it shelters a fine tub font carved in the 12^th Century with simple leaves and an animal’s head, and has an east windows showing an angel appearing to soldiers in the front lines in Flanders.

Litton village lies between Halton Gill and Arncliffe, and gives the dale the name we know. Its older name of Amerdale lives in Wordsworth’s White Doe of Rylstone:

The White Doe followed up the Vale
In the deep fork of Amerdale

2023 note: The building on the left on the way into Arncliffe is Amerdale hall and was a hotel in the 1980’s

It is the chief of four villages evenly spaced in Littondale. A mountain valley through which the River Skirfare runs to the Wharfe near Kilnsey. The little river is one of Yorkshire’s most enchanting stream, and Arncliffe has an exquisite share of the valley, the village deep-set like a jewel between the wooded closes of the moors and fells. The houses are round a green, and the Cowside Beck falls into the stream before it flows under a beautiful bow bridge and cascaded by the churchyard.

It would be hard to imagine a lovelier setting for the Church, a simple place with a grey medieval tower peeping over a mantle of trees. All but the tower was refashioned a century ago. The fine black and white roof has six tie beams with traceried gables. The beautiful vaulted screen, with it’s tracery like a pattern of wild roses in lace, is in memory or William Boys, who was vicar for 58 years. There are two old chairs, a bell of 1350, and inscriptions to the 68 men of the dales who went to the wars. Of the 34 who went to the Great War all but two came back; of the 34 who went to Flodden field 400 years earlier, we read that two were from Hawkswick, 22 form Littondale, and from Arncliffe 9 bow and billmen and “one with able horse and harness”.

We pass Hawkswick on our way from Wharfedale, along the road which threads Littondale to Halton Gill. If we take the longer way from Stainforth the journey over the fells is magnificent, climbing to 1430 feet, rising under Pen y Ghent and dropping down to Littondale, where the road swings round at Halton Gill. Seen from the heights, this tiny place is a charming huddlement of grey farms and cottages and the little church, alone in a silent world, sheltering under the steep slope of Horse Head Moor with its wonderful carpet of green and tawny brown. Its own stream tumbles in to the hurrying Skirfare near a bridge. The Church is only a nave and chancel, joined to a school with 1626 over the doorway; they share the bellcot between them.

2003 note: Arncliffe has a strong TV history: It was the original setting of Emmerdale farm and Annie Sugden was married in the church. As the show became popular the outdoor shooting moved to Esholt and is now on the Harewood estate. In modern times “All Creatures Great and Small” uses the outside of a building in the village.

In a local facebook page a postcard of Dales Post Offices was posted. It transpires that the Arncliffe post office in 1912 was part of the Smithy near the bridge. It was later moved to “The Old Post office” on the green.

Looking over the Wharfe to Conistone sheltering under its Beacon, and linked to it by a bridge with a string of arches, Kilnsey has a barn (with Tudor windows) build by the monks of Fountains Abbey. Buts its fame is in its Crag, a limestone cliff towering above the road, an impressive spectacle in this broad green starch of the dale. It has a lacy drapery of grass and trees which cling to its rugged face and end in huge overhanging masses of rock.

Lonely and impressive is this stretch of the valley of the Wharfe, striking in its perfect harmony of green fields and hills, grey walls and rocky crags. From its meeting with the Skirfare (which flows through Littondale) over a mile away, the river comes to a fine stone bridge crossing to Kilnsey, where the famous limestone crag rises boldly from the broad vale. Sheltering under Conistone Beacon are the houses and barns and church. The tiny square and the maypole. The lowly church has been made almost new, but the nave arcade has two Norman and two medieval bays, and the crude font may be Norman. There is an old almsbox, and an old bell stands on the floor. The doorway has been rebuilt in Norman style.

2023 note: The bodies of the cavers involved in Britain’s worst caving disaster at Mossdale Scar were interred here. They have now been returned to where they died in Mossdale Scar cave system.

Many people in search of health or lovely scenery have been to this small town 700 feet above the sea, looking down on the Wharfe in the broadening valley, and up to majestic moors. North of the town are the ramparts of an ancient encampment, above Cove Scar; the road to Conistone skirts the charming Grass Wood; and near a great sycamore by the road to Hebden is a 16th-century Barn. Linton across the river has a beautiful waterfall, and a church which Grassington shares.

The old grey buildings are packed in narrow cobbled ways and round the small market square. Hiding behind the square is the old hall in a lovely garden, two windows in a gable end telling of its medieval origin, though much of it is Tudor.

2023 note: This image is taken from above the Town Hall and shows the Methodist Chapel towards Grass Woods. Note the amount of modern in-fill building that has occurred ncluding the Octagon, which was a Millenium project, one of only eight in the country.

Once famous for plays given in an attic, Grassington remembers that Edmund Kean acted here in 1807, and that the audience recognised his worth long before London flocked to hear him. His stage was dimly lighted with six half penny candles, and his audience was chiefly farmers and man from lead mines. In an opera box the squire sat splendidly aloof among wooden laths and brown paper painted to look like velvet curtains. The stage manager was a countryman who insisted on wearing his clogs when he played King Richard; and among the poor players was a little dressmaker who wore a red petticoat to keep herself warm when she could not afford to buy coal. She was Harriet Mellon, who became a famous actress and married Thomas Coutts, the richest man in London.

Allwords taken from “The King’s England: Yorkshire West Riding edited by Arthur Mee”. 2023 notes added by Keith P.

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