Warton Crag - no fairies

 Friday 22nd. May 2026

"Have an objective for a walk" has been a recurring suggestion of mine.  On Friday Bowland Climber took me up on it wholesale:

Two caves and three boulders.

1. Fairy Hole,    2. Harry Hest Hole,    3. The Thtree Brothers

But for starters we parked under disused Warton Quarry: nearly half a mile of exposed limestone with a height of around 300ft and today shining white against the contrasting clear blue sky - impressive.

Off we set climbing steadily to find Fairy Hole on evermore confusing paths. We had OS Grid references which showed the location perhaps fifty yards off a minor path at the foot of an escarpment, but guarded by woods on perilously steep ground densley populated with trees, fallen trees,  holly, brambles and thick shin deep undergrowth, almost impenetrable. but BC was not dettered and I was similarly keen to find our objective. We both had heroic attempts to no avail and sad to say we saw no fairies out to play. Some may say that octogenarians should have more sense? BC had one more desperate attempt because we thought we could see a vaguely looking possibility but retreat was then made.

We retraced previous steps and I may say joy of joys when we found Harry Hest Hole, but this was a less than impressive affair on the side of the path filled with a dump of dead branches and cuttings which showed little respect for what is marked as a landmark on the map. We pressed on,and our earlier woeful navigation became even woefulier but after  toing and froing, BC heading off in one direction and me in another, we found Three Brothers, huge boulders left behind by the Ice Age, one perched in umlikely balance, but all three almost hidden in dense woodland shrubbery and. brambles and apparently not much visited.

More  footpaths followed often not marked by OS and those those so marked were not accurate according to our GPS. 

Eventually we manged to arrive at the summit of Warton Crag and had a late snacking at around 2:30 I think.

I seemed to have had a block on taking photos on this trip, asnd many of dense green jungle and nothing else have been deleted.

Footpath confusion persisted to the end past the rim of the quarry and back down to the car park. There we chatted to a small party of bird watchers who were monitoring a pair of Peregrin Falcons nesting on the cliff.

I'm not sure how far we walked with all our diversions and jungle thrashing, but not much more than three miles I think but it seemed like more on this the hottest day of the year so far. I was grateful for the hot bath and an evening's chilling back home. With all the intrepid exploration this had been good fun, and as always in excellent company.

It may have been wiser not to show these photos to close relations and friends back home? And to think we used to worry about what our young offspring were up to in those days of parenthood

Only an approximation of our wanderings. Anti-clockwise from the south

Masongill and Tow ScarRoad

 Sunday 10th May 2026

This morning I had trouble finding the screw stopper for my flask. I had another flask in the garage and I I settled for that but I was not happy. My proper flask has more to it than its physical manifestation, it was with me on many of my Munros and hundreds of other day walks, but not backpacking trips where its weight counts it out. It has some little dents on its main body and also on the cup/lid, and all in all I have developed an attachment to this friend which does not apply to many of my possessions. Later, back home I did, much to my relief, find the stopper in the bottom of the dishwasher.

Then I was off down the A65 and turning off for Masongill on yet another thrill a minute single track kilometre hoping I wouldn't meet anything oncoming. I had researched using Google Earth a parking spot next to the telephone box in the village, and after the relief of the unhindered road I was again relieved to find the parking spot vacant. There was a noisy rookery on the other side of the road. 

It was a long uphill haul on trafflickless single tack cul-de-sac tarmac to get to the high point of this walk, but oh! so enjoyable to be in that limestone country when the white rock and the emerald green turf of the fields contrasts stunningly with today's cloudless deep blue sky; reminded me of  films at the cinema prefaced with "This film was made in Technicolor."

Where the tarmac ends there is one of those elevated covered water installations not marked on the map and looking at the remains of infrasrructure it is no longer in use. A right turn onto Tow Scar Road  continued my walk now more or less downhill or level. Tow Scar Road has the limestone crag of  Tow Scar hovering high up on one's left. There could be some minor scrambling or bouldering on those small crags. The lane is one of many such in the Yorkshire Dales following the high ground flanked by dry stone walls and steeped in history from centuries ago when transport relied on foot and domesticated animals.   The sheer extent of the miles and miles of those walls in the Yorkshire Dales is truly beyond comprhension. If you were to consider them all as a singular creation they would rival any other man-made wonders of the world, partly from their method of construction, but overwhelmingly for the combined volume of their proliferation.

Tow Scar road eventually reverts back to tarmac afer an uplifiting kilometre.

I had noticed a waterfall off route when I was plotting this walk and so I diverted. That turned out to be a dried up, steeply descending small  rocky limestone stream bed.

The rest of the walk was mainly through easy going sheep pasture, and passing the disappointing Masongill Hall which,although a decent four bedroom farmhouse hardly lived up to the title of hall.

On my return there were only one or two white slpashes from the rookery on my car.

Ingleborough.
 My camera struggled with this. Orginally Ingleborough was hardly visible, just a gohstly whitish  apparition. I did the best I could with Photoshop Elemnts.

End of the tarmac.Tow Scar Road off to the right. The disused water installation to the left. The onward  track inviting the way to Tow Scar summit and its trig. Perhaps another day?

Looking down Tow Scar Road from the top of the water installation

Tow Scar

There were two of these on the side of the track. See photo below. Something to do with water I guess?

Looking back down the old road

No "waterfall"

This barn had been well restored - see also below

Ok. It's not a tractor but somehow it looked friendly

?

The optimistically named Masongill Hall

Communication

 Tuesday 5th May 2026

I suppose there will be readers who think this is just another cliché "Frustrated from Arnside" missive, but I don't care. I can't help feeling  so cross at being duped whilst dutifully performing one of my my most hated domestic chores.

I have just sent this message to Westmorland and Furness Council recycling department:

At age 86 sorting my recycling is an onerous task but as a good citizen I do this properly all the time. Today I saw your collectors just put all the sorted items into one wheelie bin which was tipped into the collection wagon. That is an insult to the effort I have put into trying to do the right thing, and a deception to the public who  now wrongly assume our local authority is conforming to environmental requirements.

If there is a pragmatic and justified reason for this action we should be informed about it. Communication can avert so much angst but is is so often woefully ignored.