Lady Anne's Way - Nateby to Kirkby Stephen

Monday 3rd August 2026

I continue this camapign for walking Lady Anne's way in bits. Unfortunately at my ration of 4/5miles I am only walking half the distance on the route having to return to the start by a circular route. I am not at all bothered about that, it is just  such a great pleasure to be walking and exploring any new terrirory, and today I rekon my curate must have bought fresh eggs because it was "all good."

I am driving via Sedbergh and the twelve mile stretch from there to Kirkby Stephen on the A683. This road is almost devoid of traffic. I have driven it twice now in both directions and have not had another vehicle in front or behind or overtaking and the road progresses in a series of enjoyable bends with great views almost all the way into the Howgills on the western side

There is a good lay-by just south of Nateby at exactly the point where thr LDP meets the road. After good paths into Nateby the way follows a sunken medieval lane but with good views and thoughts of the old traders  and perhaps pilgrims with pack animals. making their way from village to village.

At one point I notice a large boulder built into the wall with an inscription. It is unreadable firstly through weathering and secondly because of a difficult stylised script. Later in Kirkby Stphen I detoured to the Visitor Centre to see if they had some information. Two jolly ladies sold me a booklet for £2.00 which details Meg Peacock's eleven poem poetry trail, the poems having been been skilfully engraved into stones along the way by artist Pip Hall.

Now here I have to say that there is a kind of friendly rivalry going on between my friend Bowland Climber and myself about who has or has not visited venues we both come across on our wanderings. Back home I perused the booklet which has a map with the poems numbered one to eleven but unfortuntely those numbers are not collated with the script where each peom is only dentified by the month of the year to which it refers, and also there is no showing of the poems themsleves. Wanting to see the poems I turned to Google and the first hit, top of the first page, was Bowland Climber's post from November 2023 on which I commented. BC had walked the whole trail and his post is superbly detailed and enhanced with really good photos especially as there was a lively abundance of water in the rivers and streams. I highly recommend you to visit.

https://bowlandclimber.com/2023/11/28/the-poetry-path-kirkby-stephen/

BC had found the text of the poems and here are the two I found before I knew there was a whole trail, the second one being a little further on from the one decribed above. It was strangely plonked in the middle of a stream and not easy to get close to. Apparently whilst being manoeuvred into position at the time it fell conveniently into a perfect resting place and so was left as was.

Here is the text from the two I found.

From field and fell run cols run small. I am the rain tear in the eye blood in the vein I am the sea. 

Coltsfoot, celandine, earliest daisies. Twin lambs race to the mother, baby cries, Mam! Mam! Jolt out of them and now they jostle the ragged ewe, boosting each split hoof high off the bitten turf. Pinching jaws and hard curled coats are braced against these April suns and sleets. 

I will have to see if rhe next section of this campaign takes me to somewhere that may be new to BC, not easy!

Just past that second stone I crossed a footbridge over a tributary of the River Eden and on the other side was a gate with a footpath sign pointing back down to the riverside. It seemed unlikely but I followed the river round rhe corner for about thirty yards before retreating, but a huge crag of red sandstone towered over the stream on the far bank contrasting with the white limestone of the stream bed itself, an interesting bit of geology.

Pleasant walking took me to Kirkby Stephen and a joining with the Coast to Coast LDP  at Frank's Bridge. Frank was the proprietor of a brewery, long gone I learned. After the Visitor Centre detour I came back and continued to my turning point at Low Mill Bridge where I noted good parking for the start of my next section. I returned by pleasant lanes, good field footpaths and some tarmac to my car. It seems I am following stretches of the river Eden so I am filling in a bit more of the Eden Way that I abandoned a while back after several forays from further north.

Just leaving the car park lay-by. I had to squeeze uncomfortably through that stile.

Sunken medieval lanes, expecting the burbling Jabberwock 

Nateby

From the Internet: "The dismantled railways around Kirkby Stephen include the historic Stainmore Line and the Eden Valley line, which closed between 1952 and 1962. Today, parts of the old trackbed form popular scenic walking and cycling paths featuring magnificent restored Victorian viaducts..." 

Bowland Climber refers to the viaduct trail in his post mentioned above.

The first of the poetry stones...

...and the second. Not easy to photograph

The gate left of other end of bridge lead me to wlk round the corner of the stream before coming back to reveal the red sandstone cliff, photo below

I think may be a Lady Anne's Way marker. The first I have seen

Red sandstone contrasting with limestone stream bed

Frank's Bridge

Kirkby Stephen

Outside the Visitor Centre

Looking back to Tailbridge Hill and Great Bell (I think)

Pennine journey and definitely Lady Anne's Way

Low Mill Bridge, my turning point from Lady Anne's Way

Kirkby Stephen industrial estate

Nearly every gate over a wide area of square miles had identical fastenings. There must have been good haberdashery salesman in the area some time back?

Coming back through Nateby, only a few hundred yards back to the car

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Today's route purple. Green: Lady Anne's Way

WW2 in the Yorkshire Dales

 Friday 31st. July 2026

My latest scale model effort ran way with me.

I think all my models have had some kind of iconic value  either universally or personally. As one who was born at the outset of WW2 and grew up in its aftermath I have memories of  that monumental upheaval  and I  continue to take an interest.

When Germany invaded Russia they eventually had to admit defeat but with horrendous losses on both sides. The Germans had superior tanks, but the Russians had the cheap, basic, and easy to manufacture T34 which they produced in huge numbers giving them a fighting chance from shear number superiority. The T34 took on legendary status and is remembered now, I wouldn't say with affection, but with much respect.

I researched photos showing Russian infantry raunning alongside the T34s as they charged forward and I had the notion to model that  in action. I found a kit with about eight Russian infantry but each figure consisted of five or six pieces and at 1/35 scale they were unreasonably fiddly and from experience I knew these mouldings do not go together well.

What happened in my mind I'm not sure but Russian infantry were sent on leave. I modelled the terrain, and then without too much thought a dry stone wall and a limestone crag appeared making a striking depiction of Yorkshire Dales limestone country. 

There was no going back.

I ended up with the fantasy scene of a Russian WW2 tank charging through verdant pasture somewhere in Upper Wharfedale proudly flying the Russian hammer and sickle flag with a mad revolver waving commander.

 Just for good measure I added a couple of bemused Swaledale sheep. 

Lady Anne's Way - Pendragon to Nateby

 Wednesday 29th July 2026

Looking at recent walks I realised I was eating up sections of Lady Anne's Way. I realise I am not going to backpack this as a continuous route, but along with other unfinished campaigns I intend, for the moment, to see if I can keep doing short sections with circular walks. The route does seem to lend itself to that approach with adjacent footpaths and escape routes. I feel it is appropriate at this stage to outline the history so here is a chunk of Wikipedia for you to digest.

" In 1605, Lady Anne Clifford was disinherited from her father's estates by his death and the act of it passing on to the next male heir. 38 years later, it came to her when the last males in her family lineage died, and despite ideas that females could not accede to baronies, she became Baroness Clifford of Westmorland and Vecsey.^[1] She then set about repairing the castles and houses that she owned and when completed, she continually travelled between them all taking her household retinue with her.^[2]

In 1995, Sheila Gordon created a path that linked all the castles and fortified structures that Lady Anne Clifford used to travel between.^[3] The walk crosses from Airedale, Wharfedale and Wensleydale in North Yorkshire to the Vale of Eden in Cumbria.^[4] The route links Skipton Castle in North Yorkshire with Brougham Castle in Cumbria. The route then continues into Penrith, where it finishes.^[5]

As the route became more popular with walkers, funding was obtained to allow the entire route to be waymarked in 2018.^[6]"***

***I reckon I have now walked about 15 miles on the route and I've never seen one dedicated way mark, although conventional standard undefined ones appear. sporadically.

I have been keeping walks to around 4 miles in view of my advanced years and my respiratory problem but I seem to have been coping quite well and today's effort looked fairly easy, but it creeps up to 5.5 miles, however I have to say I felt more spritely at the end of this than recent lesser distances.

The first half of the route was the means to gaining the next section of Lady Anne's. That followed a previous walk, but for a change, in the opposite direction. There was perfect lay-by parking on the east side of the road about a kilomtere south of Nateby.

There was a hint of rain from time to time but otherwise it was all good country country wslking on estsblished paths and spirits were high. I noticed later when downloading my photos that this overcast weather often produces  better landscape photos with enriched colours than bright sunny days.

Wherever paths crossed fields later on they were well defined and easy to follow, and that was before I was on the LDP which I joined at my furthest south at Pendragon Castle. After some field work the route crosses the B6259 then branching off that road after a few hundred yards to pass through Southwaite Farm. Here they have a barn that may qualify in the Guinness Book of Redords for the largest corrugated iron building? Two farmers were repairing a strange piece of agricultural equipment. That turned out to be a feeder for lambs with access holes only big enough for lambs' heads but not big enough for adult sheep, fascinating. These two farmers were complaining at having to keep on those nameless long dingy fraincoats which look as though they have been gadged* up from some disused agricultural material, and here we are with our hundred pound plus designer outdoor waterprrofs -  each to his own.

*a verb which I think my mother, who had way with words, invented. My online dictionary does not oblige. My weighty Chambers lists only a noun with the brief definition of "an instrument of torture."

I was now on the Lady Anne route in earnest traversing the rough reedy tussocky sheep pasture on the lower slopes of the Pennine hills,.The paths were always well defined and generally providing easy walking. At one stage a  long stretch through a wood and bracken, and then just bracken had been well cleared; If not it would have been one of those desperate struggles through chest high bracken that we all know sbout.

I am now looking forward to exending this campaign northwards.

WORTH CLICKING PHOTOS TO ENLARGE

Leaving the road a few hundred yards from the lay-by parking

Dropping in to the Eden vlley

Lammerside Castle 14c. Zoom, too far to visit - I have commented before

River Eden, Low due to our current heatwaves

Dalefoot on the B 6259, My route went right before the road following the valley on its higher slopes

Dropping down to the elusive Pendragon. I'm not sure of its location and couldn't see it this time but I have commented before if you do a search on my blog.

From now on we are on Lady Anne's Way

A masterpiece of corrugated iron construction - somebody had a vision.

Well cleared bracken

What a gnarly tree

My route yellow, also overlayed onto Lady Anne's Way, orange.
Ignore green, or watch this space

The High Way from Moorcock Inn

 Thursday 23rd July 2026

A curate's egg walk. However, we start with the good bit.

There is a small lay-by opposite the Moorcock Inn which I knew of but was not sure if it was for exclusive use for Moorcock's customers, fortuntely there was no such indication and at 9:00am it was vacant: a good start.

The Pennine Bridleway climbs from the Moorcock up to the High Way, also known as St. Anne's Way, Old Road, et al. My objective was to fill in part of that track not previously trodden by me. That is one of the very best of those old dales lanes for good easy going and magnificent views.

After only a hundred yards on the track I was rewarded by two black grouse rising up and chortling off as they do. A little further on I had a rare chance to get a photo of what I think was a Red Admiral butterfly which against all my experiences of butterfly photography remained still long enough.  

It is a steep ascent, but I went well. but still restricted by my breathing affliction.

Once on the more or less level High Way it was all delight. I felt I wanted to to make this part of the walk last longer than this relatively short stretch would require. I stopped to sit on a limestone rock for a coffee from my flask soaaking up the  panoramic view and  my ascent from the Moorcock, and away on the horizon The Calf, highest in the Howgills. As I was enjoying all this in the now warm sunshine I became aware of rhythmical steps approaching from behind. A lady backpacker arrived and we chatted. She was walking all of St. Anne's Way and was obviously a veteran backpacker with a good lightweight sack with everything stripped down to a comfortable carrying weight; she was moving quckly and anxious to be off. I am aware of Lady Anne's Way which covers about a hundred miles from Skipton to Penrith. On my return home I researched it a bit more. I would guess this rivals the Dalesway and the Dales High Way for a superbly represntative dales walk.

As I continued focus was now switched from The Calf to Wild Boar Fell ahead. Reluctantly I had to leave The High Way and descend by Shaws with their stone stairway through their garden, then on down to Beck Side and Lunds Church. That part of this walk I had done on a recent walk posted here, but at least this time it was in the opposite direction. I now had the choice of walking out to the road or following footpaths back to the Moorcock as pre-planned. I decided on the latter. That turned out to be the bad part of the curate's egg. From Beck side I walked a couple of hundred yards uphill on the wrong path (see the red line on the map below) and had to trek back down through high reeds and tussocks, supposedly to get back on the proper path. That turned out to be non-existant as were the rest of those paths shown on the map.. I battled on as the now midday sun intensified.  That was hard going through reeds and tussocks and I was becoming decidedly hot and bothered. I looked for the shortest possible route to get back to the road, but even that was still quite long way in that kind of terrain. Fortunately the road only carries light traffice, but motor bikes whizz past at alarming speed.

I would not recommend anybody to use any of that network of paths between Beck side and The Moorcock. Today I had at least the bonus of everything being dry but if wet at all I reckon it would be even more of a nightmare.

I may consider walking other sections of Lady Anne's Way if circular routes cn be plotted without  reed and tussock thrashing in the lowlands.

Just leaving the road from the Moorcock

The old and the new bridges (see next photo)

The infant River Ure - typical limestone streamery

Red Admiral? Admirably still!

Dandrymire Viaduct, built 1869/1875.
OK, it's a great achivement, but 6 years to build!

d

Back down to The Moorcock

Now on the High Waay

Blades. A solitary existence at over 300m.

My earlier viewing of black grouse seems to indicate they are having some success

Unusual limekiln, somebody wanted to try their skills at arch building?

No need for the bridge today. We are in the midst of heat waves - the shape of things to come, all a bit worrying

Reluctantly leaving the High Way for the descent and then Part 2 of the curate's egg

The steps down through the garden at Shaws.

Beck Side. Turn left for reeds and tussocks

Back to the Moorcock

Anti clockwise from the Moorcock. The red lines are diversions from thr plotted blue route