conradwalks: March 2024

Tuesday 5th March 2024

AT LAST...

...with leg wounds not healing and many other factors the last proper walk I did away from home was on 12th November 2023.

Wounds now healed and weather more friendly I was off to continue a vague project to follow the river Eden from its source which I visited on 18th November 2019

https://conradwalks.blogspot.com/search?q=Aisgill+Farm

A large lay-by about quarter of a mile south of Aisgill Farm provides parking. From there the road descends to Aisgill Farm quite steeply but provides a sting in the tail at the end of the walk. As one descends the extent of the Eden valley is revealed and you are conscious of the splendidly named Wild Boar Fell on your left. Snow is still clinging to the tops on Mallerstang Edge high away to the right - all in all a magnificent setting.

From the farm a hardly discernible path on the ground traverses the hillside with a series of well constructed stone stiles, snd passing by a number of isolated farmsteads. Those stiles are well constructed but evermore awkward for my advanced years and that awkwardness is augmented by a massive fear of inflicting even the slightest wound to my lower legs. The path is above the line of cultivation - just rough sheep pasture with large areas of reeds and boggy moss but with care I was able to do the whole walk wearing only trail shoes keeping my feet totally dry.

I have had breathless problems since October 2022 culminating in a hospital stay in January 2023 with blood clot problems. Since then I have been passed from Acute Medical, to Cardiac, and then to Respiratory with all sorts of tests and appointments and the problem has hardly improved and I am now accepting it is something I will have to live with. Whilst It was hugely uplifting to be back out in semi-wild country and absorbing that ambience I was huffing nd puffing much of the way and taking many brief stops, and walking ever so slowly, but not quite enough to spoil the return to doing what I enjoy so much. I had measured the route roughly at six miles but later plotting it in detail it turned out to be just short of seven and that was certainly enough, especially with the final climb from Aisgill back up to the car.

There is a higher path on this valley side dating back back to Roman Times and it has now been incorporated into Lady Anne's Way as an LDP I have walked sections of before. My route also intermingled with A Pennine Journey, the LDP created by Wainwright and published in his book of the same name.

I descended back to the valley road for a long stretch of tarmac before another footpath diversion back on to the valley side lead me to my furthest point at Outhgill with its archetypal collection of stone built centuries old stone cottages and a church. One house is named Faraday Cottage. It seems the parents of Faraday of electrics fame lived there, but unfortunately for otherwise insignificant Outhgill they had moved to London where Michael was born so Outhgill could not claim his birthplace. However, naming the cottage seems like a brave try.

The church was locked, but as always they had a bench and it was midday so I sat with my sandwich and coffee with a rewarding view of Wild Boar Fell. A guy carrying a kind of fishing net in one hand and a specialised vessel of water in the other, and wearing waders approached from the path down through the churchyard to the river. He was from the Environment Agency. I asked if he had found anything adverse with the water but he was reserved and perhaps living under something akin to the Official Secrets Act and just suggested that I looked at the website.

My return journey followed the river more closely with footpaths, but in the wrong direction (to my way of thinking.) If I am following the river from its source I prefer to do so travelling downstream and in retrospect I could have done it that way round. Eventually I had to go back to the road for the long trudge back to the car. I was well tired, but it was great to be back out again in the outdoors and exploring new territory.

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Two extracts from Wikipedia:

The dale is closely associated with Lady Anne Clifford, and the ancient road to the east of the river is now part of a long-distance path known as Lady Anne's Way in memory of the Countess of Pembroke, who often travelled along this track while moving between her many castles. It is, however, much older than this and was used by the Romans as a route between Wensleydale and their forts along what is now the A66. A local shepherd found a hoard of Roman coins on Mallerstang

Two brothers from Clapham, Yorkshire, moved to the area in the late 18th century. Richard Faraday became a notable businessman in Kirkby Stephen, where a road is named after him. His younger brother, James, set up as a blacksmith in Outhgill (in the house now called Faraday Cottage). As he moved to London a year before their third child was born, the area narrowly missed being able to claim the great scientist Michael Faraday as a Mallerstang man.

PLEASE CLICK PHOTOS TO ENLARGE. THE WEATHER WAS BETTER THAN THE SMALLER PHOTOS SEEM TO SHOW

The lay-by parking is just behind me.

Wild Boar Fell, the morning cloud just clearing

Aisgill Farm down below in the Eden valley

Crossing the Eden at Aisgill Farm

I reckon these moles must be bumping into each other underground

Mallerstang Edge with snow

Wild Boar now clear of cloud

I think somebody must have given them the paint for that porch

Mallerstang Edge overshadowing Corrugated Iron Shanty Town.
For goodness sake, there should be at least some basic planning regulations?

My son W researched this and tells me this model is going for £2k on Ebay. Let's hope the crims. don't find out.

A dry stone waller - he was a man with a large white beard and few words. He was the only other person apart from Mr Environment Agency I met on the whole walk