Wharncliffe Crags
I took these photographs twelve-to-fifteen years ago on several hikes to Wharncliffe Crags.
This is just beyond the junction of my parents' road and the busy A61, looking west to rising land. The farm buildings you can see are en route to the Crags.
The lane by the farm runs to Woodhead Road, from where this picture was taken (looking east). For hikers, this forms part of the Trans-Pennine Trail and the Upper Don Trail. Somewhere faraway to the horizon is the river Trent.
This is a view on Wharncliffe Chase, on Lodge Lane, looking East. Sheep, rather than deer, run here these days.
This old, wrought iron gate is on Lodge Lane, looking to the west.
A view to the south. These farm buildings are close to the Crags themselves, as witness the large boulders of millstone grit.
To the south of Wharncliffe Crags is what I believe is called Oughtibridge Heath (pronounced Ooterbridge). In the summer it's a sea of bracken. This is a view approximately to the west, Wharncliffe Wood to the left of the picture.
Brightholmlee is a hamlet visible from Oughtibridge Heath, near Wharncliffe Crags.
The tenacity of a bilberry plant. Bilberries are common, especially onto the moors proper. I recall collecting the fruit with my family so that my mother could make pies. In those days people used to collect a fair amount and considerately leave enough for others, but the modern approach appears to be to take industrial quantities, which can't be good for wildlife.
Above is Wharncliffe Lodge on the edge of the crags, overlooking the Don Valley. Originally built in the 16th Century as a hunting lodge, the existing building was largely constructed in the 18th Century and remodelled to some extent in the 19th. The edge of Wharncliffe Crags itself is immediately to the right of the lodge. An inscription on a stone within, from the original structure, reads (with modern spelling):
Pray for the soul of Thomas Wortley |
These images were taken near the brink of the Crags, looking west over the Don valley towards Moore Hall Reservoir, Ewden village and the farther Broomhead reservoir. Beyond that lies moorland.
And now here are some photos from, and of, the eastern slope of the Don valley showing the tree-covered rocky outcrops of Wharncliffe Crags.
It is, as you can imagine, a good place for youthful adventure.
The scattered, broken stones of the crags give rise to this verse of the poem The Dragon of Wantley:
All sorts of cattle this dragon did eat, |
I may have just made myself homesick!
Part of Roaming South Yorkshire.