Swaledale's field barns

Swaledale mini break 2

The road between Thwaite and Keld winds its way along the valley side around Kisdon Hill. It's a good place from which to see the characteristic Swaledale barns. How many can you count in the photo above? It's a very distinctive agricultural landscape, shaped over at least the past 250 years, and its significance is thankfully now being recognised so that many of the barns are being restored and their history recorded. 

The field barns are locally called 'cow'usses' (cow houses) and are closely tied in with the landscape and seasons, so that hay would be (is still) cut and dried in the meadows, then stored in the barn to be used to feed cattle in the winter. The barns typically have sections, the mew being where the hay is stored and the shippon (byre) where cows were brought in to overwinter. The muck from the cows was then used to fertilise the meadows, in an ongoing cycle. I didn't see many cows in the valley; it now seems to be mostly sheep farming though there may also be some cattle. Certainly Swaledale's meadows are still traditionally farmed and they are world famous for their abundant wild flowers. There's some fascinating information on this website HERE.

Being Yorkshire, there are plenty of the characteristic drystone walls, snaking improbably around the field slopes.  

The River Swale around Keld has some good waterfalls. Kisdon Force is quite a steep drop, though I didn't hike down to it this time. The one pictured - Wain Wath Force - is a gentler cascade, though there was very little water in the river; it has been such dry weather for weeks. 

There are still bikes all over the place, originally, I think, to celebrate the Tour de France stage in 2014, and then left, simply because they are fun. The one pictured was decked with Royal Jubilee bunting.