Another Kirkby evening stroll. The heron was there, fishing in much the same spot as last time.
The water looked cool and inviting. I watched as fish jumped from the water to take flies. I felt sure that I would be able to see them swim away under the water, but I couldn’t. Just once I managed to follow the fish briefly, but it was soon lost against the background of rocks and pebbles.
Under Devil’s Bridge some lads were swimming. Very wise.
Ruskin’s View.
Another Wednesday evening with training at Underley Park. Once again I walked down to Devil’s Bridge and here I am posting the same views as I have before. But…here’s my excuse – look at the view above: right in the centre is Brownthwaite Pike, the most prominent hill in the view. It’s illusory, Brownthwaite Pike is not half so prominent as it appears to be: there’s higher ground just behind, and much higher hills behind that, but remember Brownthwaite Pike for a forthcoming post.
Here’s the church again, because….well, because the lengthening evening meant that I was there to see it with the sun still shining on it.
In the Lune, I watched a Heron fishing…
…seemingly quite unperturbed by my attention, and I wished that I didn’t only have my phone with me. I don’t learn, the same thing happened a week later.
The village center had been closed to traffic and there was clearly filming going on…
The square looked to have been dressed to hide any modern features with crates and market stalls. The tarmac was hidden under a layer of soil and several horse-riders were whirling around the small space. They must have finished just after I passed, because the horses and their mounts came past me on their own way back to Underley Park…
I shall look forward to the film.
These photos are from a couple of weeks ago now. The dying embers of a beautiful sunny evening. As usual, I was in Kirkby Lonsdale for the boys Rugby practice on a Wednesday, and went for a wander along the Lune…
…past Ruskin’s View, through the churchyard and on to Devil’s Bridge. The display of Daffodils by St. Mary’s, and other flower strewn churchyards I’ve seen since, have had me digging out Francesca Greenoak’s book ‘God’s Acre’ which is about the flora and fauna likely to be found in a British churchyard, and, in turn, the title of that book put me in mind of the 10,000 Maniacs song ‘Lilydale’.
Come as we go far away
From the noise of the street
Walk a path so narrow
To a place where we feel at ease
Strange how my mind works: I haven’t listened to that album, ‘Songs from the Wishing Chair’, for years, but, at one time, I listened to it so frequently that I seem to be able to play it mentally on demand on some kind of internal radio.
Meanwhile…
April’s milage keeps me on course for my arbitrary 1000 mile target for the year. Once again, I didn’t match the early enthusiasm of January or February, despite the lighter evenings, but a couple of bouts of illness go some way to account for that. Not to worry, as of today I’ve clocked just over 450 miles so far, so I’m still ahead of schedule.
Right – off to find ‘Songs from the Wishing Chair’, time to get reacquainted with an old favourite.
I know that I posted photos of this view only recently, but I thought you might like to see what it looks like when the sun shines and with an added dusting of distant snow.
Ruskin’s view panorama. Click to see larger image.
The snow-capped hills are at the southern end of the Middleton Fells – Castle Knott and Calf Top. The prominent hill on the right of the first photo is Brownthwaite Pike, which is a bit of an oddity, because when you’re on it, it doesn’t seem very prominent at all: there’s higher ground just behind and then the ridge curls to the east and much higher tops. Still, it’s a great view point and a good place for a picnic on a summer’s evening. I’m intrigued by the Kirfit Hall in the middle distance, which looks to have some sort of tower incorporated into the building.
Millenium Footbridge over the Lune.
Half-baked projects have been a feature of this blog. Some of them – following the length of the Kent over several outings, bagging the Birketts, last year’s Lune Catchment outings – have been moderately successful, in their modest way, not that any of them have reached a conclusion, but they’ve been enjoyable and have all taken me to places I might not have visited otherwise. There have been other ideas which I’ve floated from time to time, but even the ones on which I haven’t made much progress – learning birdsong springs to mind – have given me pleasure despite the lack of significant gains. All of which being the build-up to the announcement of another hare-brained scheme of mine, but first, an aside…
This…
…is Greyhound Bridge in Lancaster. It was closed today for repairs. Built in 1911, it was a railway bridge until the line was closed in 1966. In 1972 it was reopened as a road bridge. It will be closed for at least 6 months. Apparently the repairs are necessary because the bridge is deteriorating at a rate which means that by 2029 it will be unfit for traffic. In the meantime, traffic will be diverted over Skerton Bridge, which will have to accommodate the traffic currently carried by both bridges, and which, built between 1783 and 1787, is considered to be rock-solid. There’s a moral in there somewhere.
Anyway, my little projects: last weekend, after I had been admiring the many handsome buildings in Kirkby Lonsdale, I decided to see what I could find out about one or two of them, and it occurred to me to search the internet for listed buildings there. It transpires that Wikipedia has a handy page which gives some details on them all. Whilst I was reading through that list, it occurred to me that a similar page for Lancaster probably exists and that seeking out the buildings on that list would add some interest to my lunch time strolls.
St. John the Evangelist’s Church.
It turns out that Lancaster has well over 300 listed buildings. So plenty to go at. A small number have appeared here before. So, should I start from scratch? Does each building require a stroll and a post of it’s own? Multiple pictures? Interiors where possible? I shall have to give this some thought, otherwise gawping at and photographing the buildings will become too diverting and I shan’t be racking up the miles which was my original intention. Still, I think that this idea has legs.
Today has been a slightly odd Sunday because not only I have not been to Underley Park, home of the Rams, Kirkby Lonsdale RUFC, but I also haven’t been to any other muddy, wind-blown, rain-lashed venues to watch boys play rugby. But that’s this Sunday, which will have to wait for a post of its own. Last Sunday I was at Underley Park, as I so often am.
Having said that, I haven’t been there as much this season. The boys fixtures used to generally coincide so that they would both be at home or both be away at the same venue. But this year they mostly have different fixtures, so that often one is at home and the other away. Sometimes they are both away. I’m the designated driver for away games, and TBH now does home fixtures and training.
Last Sunday, however, both boys had training. In fact, I think that all of the junior teams had training. As a result, it had been decided that some of the senior players would lead a strength and fitness session. With my ‘little and often’ head on, I decided that this was a great opportunity for me to log a few bonus kilometres, before the actual rugby was underway.
Underley park, the rugby ground, is within Underley Park the grounds of Underley Hall one of Ye Stately Homes of England.
I think that this Hansel and Gretel house may have been a gatehouse to the Hall…
This is Underley Business Park…
…once a stable block perhaps? There was also a small pond which was dammed, I wondered whether the other buildings behind this one were a former mill, but I can’t find any history on the web.
You can sort of see the Hall here…
…partially shielded by trees.
This is the current house…
…in its heyday. I’ve shamelessly lifted this from wikipedia and they have it from A Series of Picturesque Views of Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland by Francis Orpen Morris in 1879. There was a hall before this one, and this building has been extended since this painting.
There’s actually a good view of Underley Hall from the rugby club. Here’s a photo I took back in 2014, but never used on the blog…
And with a zoom…
It was a very changeable day.
Anyway, back to last Sunday, I followed this Leat…
..which took me to the banks of the Lune (but with too many trees between me and the river for a good photo) and a little gate which let me back into the rugby club…
The gate was unexpected, but very handy because I had to meet TBH and A. I had realised that the girls’ team were training and had rung to let A know, because she has decided that she no longer wants to be left out and now she’s going to play rugby too! Quite how we will get all three of them to matches and training in potentially three different locations, I’m not sure.
More photos from 2014. The clubhouse as it was then…
…it’s been extended since then.
One thing Underley Park definitely has is great views. Here’s B’s team warming up…
…and here they’re playing, you can see that the weather has changed…
It’s a very exposed spot. You’ll just have to imagine the cold and the wind.
Here’s B. Not in a ruck, which is unusual. I realise that I have no other photos of him playing and none at all of Little S. I shall have to rectify that.
Another taxi-Dad related walking-window which involved staying in Lancaster after work to wait for A. I started on the footpath which runs between this field, which the kids tell me is called ‘The Heights’, and the Haverbreaks housing estate, which my former colleague Dr PH used to call ‘The Magic Kingdom’ when we ran along its private roads during our lunch breaks years ago.
I’m not sure whether Lancaster is built on seven hills like Rome, but it certainly does lay on a series of modest heights, some of which, like this one, give excellent views. The hills in the background are Arnside Knott and the long ridge of Cartmell Fell, with the higher Lake District Fells behind.
Lancaster Castle.
The path took me down to the Lancaster Canal and I turned south-west along the towpath for a time. On the far side of the canal, some of the gardens of the Haverbreaks houses run down to the canal bank. The gardens always look very pleasant, but I was more interested in the flowers growing in the shallow margins of the canal itself…
White Water-lily.
Flowering Rush
Meadowsweet and Marsh Woundwort.
A house in Aldcliffe.
I left the canal to take the lane into the tiny hamlet of Aldcliffe. This is less than a mile from where I’ve worked for the past 20 years (nearly), but I’d never been here before!
From Aldcliffe a path snakes down towards the Lune. For most of its length it was hemmed in by two very tall hedges and seemed to be a haven for a wealth of insect life, notably butterflies including several Red Admirals, some Speckled Wood and…
Comma.
Salt marsh by the Lune.
I had a choice of paths around Aldcliffe Marsh, but took the shorter, eastern option because I was already realising that I had underestimated the length of the walk, or at least how long it would take me.
Rosebay Willowherb.
There were a wealth of flowers and plenty of butterflies along this section of the walk, but I took only a few photos because I was hurrying now.
Great Willowherb.
Green-veined White on Bramble.
Gatekeeper.
A (very vigorous) Melilot.
Bumblebee with very full pollen basket.
Embarrassingly, after a stomp through town, I arrived, hot and sweaty, half-an-hour late for my rendezvous with A. Fortunately, she was very forgiving.
This route, and variations on it, have great potential for walks from work, just as long as I’m more careful with my time-keeping in future!
