159 



THE YORE DISTRICT (No. 7). 



The upper part of Wensleydale is very different from that 

 of either Teesdale or Swaledale. In Teesdale there is no high- 

 road on the Yorkshire side of the river westward of Holwick 

 and on the Durham side that which runs between Middleton 

 and Alston leaves the neighbourhood of the Tees not far above 

 the High Force and turns towards the north to cross the 

 summit of drainage. Higher than this there is nothing to be 

 seen during the ten miles which intervene before the low country 

 at the foot of the great Pennine escarpment can be reached 

 but a single farm-house and a nobleman's shooting box, 

 surrounded by crags and streams and the wide waste of trackless 

 moorland, over which Mickle Fell and Cross Fell reign supreme. 

 Swaledale is hemmed in and isolated by its guardian crescent 

 of high undulated peaks and the way out at the dale head is 

 by a lonely little road which winds between them over a steep 

 mountain pass 1700 feet in elevation. But Wensleydale, even 

 at its upper part, is a broad open hollow, with good highways 

 leading out of it in three different directions into Mallerstang, 

 Garsdale, and Ribblesdale, over passes the ascent to which is 

 very gradual and the highest of which does not attain 450 yards 

 above the sea-level. 



The Eden for a very short but very interesting portion of its 

 early course is the county boundary. The three streams, Eden, 

 Swale and Yore, all rise within a short distance of one another 

 amongst the group of hills to which the crescent peaks of 

 Swaledale belong. Beneath these on the west is a broad open 

 hollow, with a group of dark rugged hills rising abruptly upon 

 the opposite side of it, of which Wild Boar Fell (2323 feet) 

 is the highest, but none of which belong to the North Riding. 



??pt. 1888. 



