Day 5: Part II: Rocks and Plots and Sex in the Dales
With the day beginning to wane at 5pm, I had no idea where I was going to sleep, having inadvertently neglected to plan beyond Hawes. A little envigorated by this unknown, I rolled back into the village centre, bought some vegetable soup and fresh bread from the small supermarket I'd seen, then headed east. With the sun at my back, I cruised down the A684, tracking the river Ure.
I've never liked cycling on major roads since a car hit me from behind about a decade ago in America. My bike went under the car, I went over it. Nothing broken but bike, skin and dignity, yet the next day my body felt like it'd been gleefully dismembered then viciously kicked back together. As my job at the time was very physical, I was off work for over a month. I had to undergo four weeks of physical therapy and two courses of pain meds and muscle relaxers, which was easily the stuporous highlight of the year (which is saying something, because I like to get my stupor on quite regularly). I didn't get much of anything done that month, but by Odin, it was fun not doing it. Since then I've shied away from cycling on busy roads when there's a sidewalk, and fully intend to keep doing so. The law can bugger off.
If I'd thought about it, I'd have headed up to the tops to camp, but thinking is for the unweary. I stubbornly put my head down and grinded out mile after mile looking for somewhere suitably discreet.
I passed a hillock on my left at one point, obviously man-made and ancient, surmounted by an apparently purposeless stone wall.
With no mention on the map and no one around to ask, I resolved to enquire about this curiosity in the next village, with the faint hope of obtaining permission to camp there so I could investigate further.
I wobbled up the climb into Aysgarth on dying legs, but was immediately distracted from my quest by the Aysgarth Rock Garden, a ridiculously modest name for such a stunning tumble of boulders. This seemingly haphazard jumble is to regular rock gardens what Bradley Wiggins is to, well, me.
The new owners were just leaving after a maintenance session, but I managed to persuade them to give me a quick tour. What followed was as pleasing a dawdle as one could hope for. Adrian and Rosemary went out of their way to guide me through their rocky warren, explaining the alpine flora they tended and the history of the habitat.
There's something tremendously antediluvian about this manufactured grotto. It tapped into that primitive satisfaction one feels as a child after building a particularly well-concealed den, an emotive reward no doubt evolved to counter predation. Very fetching and cosy, with hidden coves, aesthetic nooks, a spring-fed pond and well-placed benches that must be heaven to exploit during a summer's day with a good book and a frosty beverage.
I must admit, I was a little disappointed to discover it wasn't a natural phenomenon; maybe some freak moraine; where prehistoric priests could've cobbled together romantic yarns about ice giants kicking pebbles into a heap, or a lovers' retreat moulded by the hands of a pervy old Earth Mother.
Ah, the despair of missed bullshitting opportunities.
It is testament to the workmen's skill I didn't immediately twig the telltale signs of artifice, but the first stone lintel over an archway eventually gave it away. The garden was commissioned at the turn of the last century by the eccentric owner of the cottage opposite (now Heather Cottage, a pleasant-looking B&B), one Frank Sayer Graham, and built by a firm from York, sixty miles distant, over a period of eight years. The massive boulders were dug up on the surrounding highland and transported down by horse-drawn cart, a feat I could doubly appreciate with my newfound respect for brakes and steep hills.
Frank had quite the story: his father, Francis Sayer, was a farmer who lived in the same cottage and used the pre-rockery plot as a kitchen garden. In what I'm sure at the time was quite the village curtain twitcher, he impregnated Elizabeth Graham, his housekeeper half his age, and she moved in. They never wed.
Goodness me.
After his death in 1871, she and Frank continued to live here until he married and she moved to another house in the village, only to pass away shortly thereafter.
Frank made his living as a fur trader, cultivating the commercial rabbit population on Ladyhill, just up the dale. The luxuriant silver-grey fur of these rabbits was in such demand for the lining of expensive car coats he made a fortune, enough to afford two live-in servants (here we go again...), and his pet project became the rock garden. But not as a public work, oh no, only for him, his wife and invited guests (incidentally his first wife died when she was 45, so he went on to marry her sister. Aysgarth is rapidly starting to resemble an uncensored episode of Up Pompeii!).
Local children, especially, were discouraged from exploring the site, which is remarkably selfish, because the childlike mindset is precisely what finds this kind of thing appealing. But then, with this family, I shudder to think what went on within. So maybe the exclusion was a singularly moral move by the dirty old codger?
After his death in 1946 it eventually fell into disuse and grew over. Luckily, the previous owners to Adrian and Rosemary spent a few years rescuing it from the ravages of nature and opened it to the public.
Quite chuffed with my discovery I said goodbye to my new friends and headed on, the mysterious mound and wall completely forgotten.
It was seriously getting dark before I found the perfect field to camp in; no gate, no farmhouse in sight, no crops, and a stone wall high enough to hide me from the road. I settled down for the night and dreamed of giants.
(Sorry, that's poetic bollocks. I actually dreamed of three uncharacteristically agreeable ex-girlfriends all at the same time. Just as things were starting to get nice and Aysgarthian a passing truck woke me up. Cursing, I exasperatedly wrote a quick note to buy some earplugs.)
On the bridge over the river Bain at, strangely enough, Bainbridge
I've never liked cycling on major roads since a car hit me from behind about a decade ago in America. My bike went under the car, I went over it. Nothing broken but bike, skin and dignity, yet the next day my body felt like it'd been gleefully dismembered then viciously kicked back together. As my job at the time was very physical, I was off work for over a month. I had to undergo four weeks of physical therapy and two courses of pain meds and muscle relaxers, which was easily the stuporous highlight of the year (which is saying something, because I like to get my stupor on quite regularly). I didn't get much of anything done that month, but by Odin, it was fun not doing it. Since then I've shied away from cycling on busy roads when there's a sidewalk, and fully intend to keep doing so. The law can bugger off.
If I'd thought about it, I'd have headed up to the tops to camp, but thinking is for the unweary. I stubbornly put my head down and grinded out mile after mile looking for somewhere suitably discreet.
I passed a hillock on my left at one point, obviously man-made and ancient, surmounted by an apparently purposeless stone wall.
Still none the wiser what this is
With no mention on the map and no one around to ask, I resolved to enquire about this curiosity in the next village, with the faint hope of obtaining permission to camp there so I could investigate further.
I wobbled up the climb into Aysgarth on dying legs, but was immediately distracted from my quest by the Aysgarth Rock Garden, a ridiculously modest name for such a stunning tumble of boulders. This seemingly haphazard jumble is to regular rock gardens what Bradley Wiggins is to, well, me.
Aysgarth Rock Garden
The new owners were just leaving after a maintenance session, but I managed to persuade them to give me a quick tour. What followed was as pleasing a dawdle as one could hope for. Adrian and Rosemary went out of their way to guide me through their rocky warren, explaining the alpine flora they tended and the history of the habitat.
There's something tremendously antediluvian about this manufactured grotto. It tapped into that primitive satisfaction one feels as a child after building a particularly well-concealed den, an emotive reward no doubt evolved to counter predation. Very fetching and cosy, with hidden coves, aesthetic nooks, a spring-fed pond and well-placed benches that must be heaven to exploit during a summer's day with a good book and a frosty beverage.
I must admit, I was a little disappointed to discover it wasn't a natural phenomenon; maybe some freak moraine; where prehistoric priests could've cobbled together romantic yarns about ice giants kicking pebbles into a heap, or a lovers' retreat moulded by the hands of a pervy old Earth Mother.
Ah, the despair of missed bullshitting opportunities.
It is testament to the workmen's skill I didn't immediately twig the telltale signs of artifice, but the first stone lintel over an archway eventually gave it away. The garden was commissioned at the turn of the last century by the eccentric owner of the cottage opposite (now Heather Cottage, a pleasant-looking B&B), one Frank Sayer Graham, and built by a firm from York, sixty miles distant, over a period of eight years. The massive boulders were dug up on the surrounding highland and transported down by horse-drawn cart, a feat I could doubly appreciate with my newfound respect for brakes and steep hills.
Frank had quite the story: his father, Francis Sayer, was a farmer who lived in the same cottage and used the pre-rockery plot as a kitchen garden. In what I'm sure at the time was quite the village curtain twitcher, he impregnated Elizabeth Graham, his housekeeper half his age, and she moved in. They never wed.
Goodness me.
After his death in 1871, she and Frank continued to live here until he married and she moved to another house in the village, only to pass away shortly thereafter.
Frank made his living as a fur trader, cultivating the commercial rabbit population on Ladyhill, just up the dale. The luxuriant silver-grey fur of these rabbits was in such demand for the lining of expensive car coats he made a fortune, enough to afford two live-in servants (here we go again...), and his pet project became the rock garden. But not as a public work, oh no, only for him, his wife and invited guests (incidentally his first wife died when she was 45, so he went on to marry her sister. Aysgarth is rapidly starting to resemble an uncensored episode of Up Pompeii!).
Titter ye not!
Local children, especially, were discouraged from exploring the site, which is remarkably selfish, because the childlike mindset is precisely what finds this kind of thing appealing. But then, with this family, I shudder to think what went on within. So maybe the exclusion was a singularly moral move by the dirty old codger?
After his death in 1946 it eventually fell into disuse and grew over. Luckily, the previous owners to Adrian and Rosemary spent a few years rescuing it from the ravages of nature and opened it to the public.
Quite chuffed with my discovery I said goodbye to my new friends and headed on, the mysterious mound and wall completely forgotten.
It was seriously getting dark before I found the perfect field to camp in; no gate, no farmhouse in sight, no crops, and a stone wall high enough to hide me from the road. I settled down for the night and dreamed of giants.
(Sorry, that's poetic bollocks. I actually dreamed of three uncharacteristically agreeable ex-girlfriends all at the same time. Just as things were starting to get nice and Aysgarthian a passing truck woke me up. Cursing, I exasperatedly wrote a quick note to buy some earplugs.)
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