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