The deserted hamlet of Thorns

Our destination for the camera club outing at Ribblehead was the long deserted hamlet of Thorns. Situated on an ancient packhorse route, at one time drovers passed through, taking livestock and goods to market. Census and other documents tell us that in 1538 there were five inhabited properties here. By 1841 there were three households and the hamlet was uninhabited by 1891. Presumably passing traffic ceased and more reliable employment was to be found in the towns as the Industrial Revolution changed society. 

What remains - stone walls, the foundations of houses and barns, is evocative of another time. You can imagine washing hanging on a line, children clambering over the boulders left in the fields by glaciers, the clatter of the drovers passing through. It must have been a scratched existence at the best of times. 

There is evidence of a small ford (below) and some of the barns have been more recently used by farmers, though they are all now derelict. 

All around, the grandeur of the scenery (Ingleborough, below), calling birds, bleating sheep, ever-changing weather. Bleak and yet beautiful.