The Far North of the Far Eastern Fells - no photos today
Today I am visiting a corner of the Lake District that I haven’t been to before, I parked the car near St. Peter’s Church at the top of the steep zig-zagged road between Howtown and Martindale.
Hallin Fell wasn’t on the plan for today but seeing that I was there I decided to include it. A 25 minute climb was all it took to reach its impressive summit cairn, the path up on grass was steep enough to stretch my calf muscles but easy enough for anybody to manage.
What a superb little fell, excellent mountain scenery all around and views along Ullswater that are well worth the 45 minute round trip and that included some exploration of some of the other viewpoints. By the time I arrived back at the church I had become warm enough to take off my jacket and continue the walk in my tee shirt.
Back to the plot, walked behind the church and followed the track to the little footbridge over Fusedale Beck. Up the drive towards Mellguards, an unassuming but impressive place to live if I could afford the Bentley parked on the drive.
Through the gate at the side of Mellguards and almost immediately straight up the steep, grassy slope of Swarth Fell, I soon found the path that is easy to navigate but it is hard on the calf muscles. The path is in a groove that seems unlikely to be of natural formation but if man-made it has no clear function. The path becomes unclear at the top of a dry streambed, there is a branch off to the right and there seem to be several other grooves on the fellside to the right.
I set off diagonally over the grass having taken a compass bearing I arrived at the ridge path exactly where I wanted to be, a little bit of luck mixed in with good navigation. The conditions were excellent: hazy sunshine, a light breeze and reasonable visibility.
Followed the path to the insignificant summit of Bonscale Pike, there is an easy scramble down to the man made pillars that mark excellent viewpoints that really are on the edge. There are more grooves around that seem to be used as footpaths, I don’t believe that they could have been constructed for recreational purposes.
Walk across grass towards a ruined sheepfold and cross Swarthgill Beck just before it and take yet another grooved path up to Arthur’s Pike, were these grooves build by the Romans as supply lines for their High Street?
Soon pick up the path of the old Roman Road, a long trudge over to Loadpot Hill, you’d find it difficult to get lost even in mist following the path over this flat, featureless moorland. Continue past the OS pillar that somebody had decorated by placing a sheep skull on the top, another long trudge over to the undistinguished summit cairn on Wether Hill.
Then over slightly more interesting ground, with High Street in view to the rocky summit of High Raise where it became cold all of a sudden, time to replace the jacket and put my gloves on for the first time today.
Walk over to Rampsgill Head for a marvellous view of the valley of Ramps Gill, then down to the normally busy crossroads at the Straits of Riggindale, passing the steep sided, desolate Riggindale itself.
Time to get back to my starting point, I tried something different, walk over a shoulder of Rampsgill Head on the opposite side of Well Gill to The Knott. There are a couple of cairns which must be viewpoints for the crags of Rampsgill Head and the valley of Ramps Gill. Continued down the shoulder and then down the grassy, bouldery slope to Ramps Gill for a very pleasant 45-minute walk until reaching the road at Howe Grain. The sign on the other side of the gate said “Private – No Right of Way”, not many walkers would have passed this way.
A very peasant walk along the road back to Martindale.
Andy Wallace 23rd March 2002