15th - 24th
September 2023

Wednesday 20 Sept 2023

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W14: Cross Fell and Great Dun Fell - new

Leave Station car park at 9.00am. Start at the top end of Milburn Village Green outside the Village School (GR: NY 656 294, What3Words: ///occupiers.space.refusals ) at 10.15am. 13.5 Miles.2,700 feet of climbing. Hard. £7

Cross Fell (893 m) is the highest fell on The Pennine Way and many will know its smaller neighbour Great Dunn Fell with its 'Golf Ball' visible from the A66. We set off across farmland passing Kirkland Hall before climbing up the steep flanks of Cross Fell. Views can be spectacular, with fells all around you. We pass the source of the River Tees on the way to the two Dun Fells and the radar station, before we descend past the disused Silverband mine and return to Milburn crossing the 'Crowdundle Beck'.

 

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W15: Arkengarthdale – River Trust Discovery Walk

Leave Station car park at 9.15am. Start Langthwaite car park (charges) (GR: NZ 005 023, What3Words: ///ticket.until.yummy) at 10.00am. 7 Miles. Moderate but with one very strenuous climb. £7

We repeat our successful walk of last year, led by a member of the team at the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust. The second of our Discovery Walks will include an opportunity to see how the Trust is working on a project to implement natural flood management interventions, and we will learn how these will assist in an area of the Dales that was badly affected by the floods of 2019. From Langthwaite we go downstream alongside Arkle Beck. There will be a steep climb up Fremington Edge, walking west, down again and through the delightfully named hamlet of Booze before returning to Langthwaite. Whilst mainly “moderate” please note there is one very steep climb which will be taken at a pace to suit the party.

Supported by: The Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust   

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W16: Rokeby Park and its Historical Setting – Walk and Visit

Leave Station car park 9.15am. Start Greta Bridge roadside parking by the bridge (GR: NZ 086 132, What3Words: ///rollover.clutches.mixture) at 9.45am. 6.5 Miles. Easy. £15 to include the guided tour of Rokeby Park

We are pleased to repeat this sell-out walk from 2022. The history of the Rokeby Estate, and the families who have lived there, is fascinating – and links to a number of important places that we will visit on our walk.  Starting at Greta Bridge we will learn about the roman settlement and fort that existed there alongside the old roman road.  We will walk into the Rokeby Estate and learn about the history of Mortham Tower. We will share the connections to Sir Walter Scott and JMW Turner and the romantic setting of Waters Meet. We walk alongside a delightful, wooded stretch of the River Tees to Egglestone Abbey. Returning to Rokeby Park, the main part of the afternoon will be taken up by a guided tour of the house and the fascinating history of the families who have lived there. We will walk back to Greta Bridge through landscaped grounds alongside the Greta and then along the carriageway that led to the house in times gone by, emerging at the old gatehouse in time to visit the Morritt Arms and hear about further links to the history of the Estate, and a chance to see Gilroy’s famous wall mural. There will be time for refreshments. With the walk and visit this will be a full day – and you are sure to learn something new.  A guide from Rokeby Park will be with us all day and can tell us about the connections between the landscape and the history of the estate.

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E12: Nigel Watson and "Guardian of the Dales: The Story of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority"

The Station, Richmond DL10 4LD | 11:00am to midday| £8 | Café/restaurant, bookstall, disabled access.

For its first 20 years, the Yorkshire Dales National Park operated on a shoestring, with one warden in the south and one in the west. At its start in 1949 the concept was controversial, provoking hostility from local authorities and landowners. The Authority was created by new legislation in 1974. There was no precedent for the Authority and it had to balance local interests with the interests of conservation and the environment. The outbreak of foot and mouth in 2001 was a turning point. It brought farmers and the Authority’s officers closer together as they worked to overcome the impact of the disease. But in bringing tourism to a halt, it showed clearly how important visitors were for the local economy.

The Authority today is a much more complex and sophisticated organisation, drawing on the experience of its pioneers nearly 50 years ago. It has played and continues to play a central role in ensuring the unique character of the Yorkshire Dales is sustained for future generations.

Nigel Watson’s history of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority was commissioned to capture the recollections of many of the people who helped to establish the Authority in its early days.

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T2: Exploring Richmond

Meet outside the Town Hall at 12.00 noon. Free but donations to the Richmond Mayor’s Charity most welcome.

Your costumed guide, a Richmond policeman of 1842, takes you for a walk back in time lasting just over one hour.


E13: Bookbinding Workshop

The Station, DL10 4LD | 2.00pm to 5.00pm | £50 (including materials) | Café/Restaurant, disabled access.

Have you ever wondered how fine and antiquarian books were made? The art and craft of book making dates back over 2000 years, but whether works from ancient China, Islamic bookbinding, or stately-home libraries, the principles are similar: papers are sewn together and secured within a protective casing. In this workshop led by local bookbinder, Delphine Ruston, you will make two books of your own to take away – a 3-hole pamphlet (or chap book), and a single-section, hardback notebook.

Tickets available from The Station


E14: Joanna Williams and “The Great Miss Lydia Becker: Suffragist, Scientist and Trailblazer”

Richmond Town Hall, DL10 4QL | 7:30pm | £10 | Refreshments, bookstall, disabled access.

Fifty years before women were enfranchised, a legal loophole allowed up to a thousand women to vote in the general election of 1868. This surprising event occurred due to the feisty and single-minded Lydia Becker, the acknowledged, though unofficial, leader of the British women's suffrage movement in the later 19th century.

Brought up near Manchester, Lydia broke away from convention, remaining single and entering the sphere of men by engaging in politics. Lydia addressed innumerable audiences, not only on women's votes, but also on the position of wives, the abuse of women, and their rights at work. She kept countless supporters, all over Britain and beyond, abreast of the many campaigns for women's rights through her publication, the Women's Suffrage Journal.

Lydia influenced MPs in a way that no woman, and few men, had done before. In the 1860s the idea of women's suffrage was compared in the Commons to persuading dogs to dance. By the time of Lydia's death in 1890 there was a wide acceptance that the enfranchisement of women would happen. The torch was picked up by Lydia's younger colleague Millicent Fawcett, and by a woman she had inspired as a teenager, Emmeline Pankhurst: the rest is history.

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