Simon English
England Revisited

On post in wall up on Black Scar. 3 miles east of Settle.

On a wooden fence post holding up the sheep wire along the top of a dry stone wall on Black Scar. This is not the same post as 1971 in spite of searching the full length, maybe some of the old lichen covered stakes have been replaced during a re-wiring at some time over the last 40 years.

It was late in the evening the last time I was here, with a full moon rising. Were I able to calculate where on the horizon the moon would have been then I may now have a clue as to where and on which wall I put the flag. As it is now the view due north frames the very distinctive outline of Pen-Y-Ghent.

The dry stone wall is limestone made of very eroded rocks, probably originally made from surface collection rather than quarried. It is currently on the edge of the National Trust lands round Malham Tarn. The land within is being grazed by a herd of magnificent brown cattle. The rough grazing is pockmarked with ‘shake holes’ and ‘swallow holes’: many of the first with standing water in and the latter with rocky bottoms. Half a mile away there is a small open pothole.

I should imagine that this area has visually not changed greatly since the walls were built to enclose grazing ground and that it shall remain so bar the slow collapse of sections of wall.

However - Half a mile to the north of point 18, running along the valley bottom was, in the summer of 2010, what appeared to be a newly made gravel road. This is the Gorbeck Road, a ‘Green Lane’ that runs east to west across the moors. In 1971 this was a track used by horse riders and walkers but in the intervening years the introduction of 4X4 recreational vehicles and off road motor bikes into nation’s leisure time has caused a lot of damage to the unmade surface with deep ruts and erosion. To get past areas that got too rutted and boggy users would bypass in ever widening tracks into the surrounding land.

By 2004 the track had got so bad that to bring it up to a standard for a bridleway the parks authority had had to restore the surface. Over 3,000 tonnes of stone were airlifted by helicopter. Contractors used a technique called ‘Grass Gavel’, whereby aggregate is mixed with soil, seeded and rolled on top of a subsoil path and terram membrane. Apparently all this trouble and expense was compromised by continued heavy vehicle use so the parks authority, after public consultation and enquiries in 2008, had the way closed to vehicles. This was challenged in the courts, ‘the inspector’s conclusion was that enclosure awards from the late 18th and early 19th centuries show that the route was indeed open to horses and carts, and that, consequently, the route must now be acknowledged to be open to modern motor traffic.’ So by June 2009 it was open again. Since then the park authority has reassessed and put a secure traffic regulation order on the route prohibiting vehicular use. This is the state of play at the time of our visit, with one place displaying the conflicting interests of the nation.
Points 18 & 22