Dent and Flinter Gill

Sunday 21st June 2026 

A strange and exhausting day.

I have perviously ascended Flinter Gill from Dent.

Where it forms a T jinction with Green Lane,  an old dales briddleway, I had turned left to complete a circular back to Dent. We so often see an alternative on our walks and it is something of a cliché when we posit a return visit at some time.  Well today I acted on my posit opting to take the right turn on that bridleway.

I wakened early to the miaowing of Pancake,  my son's cat, now my adopted companion since son has found his own lodgings. Pancake is allover black and that combined with her feline stealth makes it difficult to keep track. It seems that somehow she had locked herself in the spare room where I do my scale modelling. All of  that had upset my  precisely detailed morning routine which makes that Morecambe and Wise breakfast sketch seem like a shambles but eventually I was off at 8:00. 

Dent's car park charges £5.00 for 4 hours, then £7.00 for 24 hours. My walk estimate was 4 hours. I paid the £5.00. After messing about putting on boots and other faffs quarter of an hour had passed since I fed the machine, so I was now under stress hoping to be back before I got a ticket.

Flinter Gill climbs steeply on a rugged stony path with the gill deep down on the left and hidden by trees, but quite audible today. Memory Map gives my route 907ft. of ascent which is mainly accounted for by this ascent, but I went well in the shade. There is a welcome bench a few yards before joining Green Lane and I sat looking at extensive views back down Dentdale and across to Aygill Pike, it was great to be bak in my limestone dales.

Levelish and pleasant walking on the old bridleway was now welcome in the increasing heat. Middleton Fell and Calf top above Barbondale reared ahead. I joined the Barbondale road for a stretch before branching off on a footpath back to Dent.

That path went through more fields than I can now enumerate. At one point a rotten stile overhanging back towards me created a tough problem and to start with I thought I may not be able to conquer it, but after much precarious effort and expended energy I was over, but now beginning to feel the heat and also some apprehension about my time schedule. Further on yet another field had a herd of sbout twenty mature bullocks rampaging up and own as a combined pack as if trying to find an exit from this steeply inclined and hillocky field. There was no way I was going through that gate. I followed the wall downhill to a corner where acouple with a baby were just ascending. They had seen the bullocks and diverted lower down round the bottom of some rrees  well out of way and sight of the bullocks now back up at the top of the field. With some trepidation I manged to reverse rheir route and crossed the field without being seen by the herd.

Further on the path became obscure and I wasted more time searching and making minor corrections until I arrived at a substantial ribbed concrete farm road descending steeply to the farm before my uncertain path would branch off  for a short stretch back to Dent village. As I was rejoicing at the firm grip of my Vibram soles on the concrete path I hadn't noticed a patch of wet from water seeping across the path from the right. My first step onto that patch was like butter off a hot knife. I landed hevily on my forearm and jarred one of fingers quite badly and I was lying with the water soakng into my pants. I managed to shuffle to the edge of the concrete where the grass descended giving me the ability to get back up - that is not easy with my two replacement knees which I am loathe to kneel on.

The combination of being shaken up, the heat, the car park problem, snd the number of difficulties crammed into that short part pf the walk after leaving the Barbondale road had me whacked. I got back to the car fifteen minutes after parking expiry time and thankfully no ticket.

P.s. I had not eaten my prepared sandwich or partaken of my coffee. The sandwich formed the substsnce of my evening meal back home later.

A short bit of tarmac leading to Flinter Gill, and below

Now onto the path proper, climbing steeply

Lime kiln. seems an odd locstion

This amd below. Flinter Gill just before it drops steeply into the goge - good looking imestone country

The welcome bench - Green Lane bridleway just through the gate, and from the bench...

Aygill Pike, and...

...looking back down Dentdale. The village is hidden

Starting on the righthand branch of Green Lane

The agressive herd of bullocks charging around en-masse

On my forearm just below my elbow