Wrapped up against a cold wind on a lovely bright day, eight of us met at Yarnbury to make our way to Bare House, Mossdale scar and back by the Bycliffe Road.
Bare House, known locally as Barras, was occupied by the Capstick family until the 1960’s. The children used to come down Kimper Gill and Intake lane to go to school every day. The school in those days was next to Dales Toffee shop and the Head Master Mr Frankland lived in a house where our President has formerly lived. As the children got older, one got a motorbike and there is a story whereby a young policeman told his Sergeant that he was going to prosecute the lad for riding a motorbike underage on the road. In those days the Police Station was next to the Hedgerow shop in Threshfield, so the Sergeant pointed out of the window and said “See that house on the skyline over there? If you want to go and tell the lad he can’t ride his bike to school then be my guest”. Obviously the younger policeman thought better of it.

Barras was re-stored and re-roofed in the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001 as it sits on a footpaths that the Park wanted to promote. We admired the outdoor bathroom/toilet with possibly the best view in Yorkshire and noted that there are no windows on the windward side of the building.
Heading toward the Bycliffe Road we were treated to a close up of a Curlew calling and then two more which we couldn’t confirm as being Curlews.
Turning just before Mossdale Scar we climbed the steep hill back towards Grassington Moor. At the Cairn there are good views toward Cracoe Fell over the top of Gill House and the wreckage of a Halifax bomber which crashed just after the war.



With the wind still making its presence felt, we lunched on the side of a Spoil heap at Ringleton Mines and dressing floor, before making our way down the Duke’s New Road to Yarnbury and home. A nice day out.

Walk Leader: Heide
For those interested in the mines, we found the following artefacts.
The rusted wire is part of the wire ropes introduced onto Grassington Moor in the 1840’s. They were cutting edge at the time and discussed extensively in the books. However the three pieces we found were not near mines being mechanised in that period which poses a question of how they got there.
The stone structure is the bowl of a smelt mill and its doorway away from the often visited Cupola smelt mills lower down the moor. The bottom of the bowl was filled with brushwood and the ore placed on top. The brushwood was set alight and the resultant lead collected. Again this process is discribed in detail in the books.


