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The 17th special place from my new book #LostLanes

The 17th special place from my new book #LostLanesNorth is Bempton Cliffs. It's on Ride No.17, "Hockney's Hinterland", a really varied 86km loop from Driffield in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The route passes through Bridlington where David Hockney lived for a while after returning to Yorkshire from Los Angeles as well as a handful of the places Hockney painted for his "A Bigger Picture" exhibition at the Royal Academy. The route links with Ride No. 16 to form a perfect weekend tour from York to the coast, following the band of chalk of the Yorkshire Wolds all the way to here, where the chalk comes to an abrupt halt at the North Sea. ⠀
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As any proud Yorkshire patriot will be happy to inform you, the white cliffs of Yorkshire are higher than the white cliffs of Dover (though they are not quite as high as the white cliffs of Sussex at Beachy Head). But don't just come here for the vertigo. The real stars of Bempton cliffs are its seabirds. As ever, puffins hog the limelight but Bempton is also Britain's largest mainland colony of gannets. In summer the cliffs teem with nesting guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, herring gulls, fulmars and shags. It is run by the RSPB as a nature reserve and the farmland on top of the cliffs is managed as a habitat for farmland birds. Long-eared and short-eared owls have also been seen.⠀ ⠀

I spent a night here last summer, arriving at dusk after a pub supper and finding a sheltered bivvy spot on the edge of a field just outside the reserve. At least I thought it was sheltered. During the night the wind changed direction and powerful gusts woke me up long before my 5.30am alarm, which I had set to catch the sunrise. As I have spent much more time on Britain's south and west coasts I'm accustomed to seeing the sun going down over the sea. On the east coast it's all backwards. The sun rises over the sea, and though it made sense logically, it still felt slightly strange to see the sun peep up over the blue-grey horizon, moving in the wrong direction. It's a small detail but also a big difference and must contribute something to the distictive feel of the North Sea coast.
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#lln30places #yorkshire #bempton #coast #bemptoncliffs ⠀
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For the 16th of my 30 special places from #LostLan

For the 16th of my 30 special places from #LostLanesNorth we head to the Yorkshire Wolds and Ride No. 16 "The Way of the Wolds", a 92km route from York. Of all the great landscapes of Northern England, the Wolds is probably the most overlooked. It's not a National Park, nor even an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It's most often filed under 'best kept secret'. ⠀
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As a landscape of chalk, its whaleback hills and dry valleys have a lot in common with the more famous downland of Southern England, but the Wolds retains its own atmosphere. There's a powerful sense of sparseness - I can't think of another part of the North with as many abandoned villages as the Yorkshire Wolds.⠀ ⠀

By far the most famous is Wharram Percy and this is its roofless church. The village was founded in the 9th or 10th century and flourished between the 12th and early 14th centuries, with the wealthy Percy family building a manor house. The Black Death in 1349 killed off the last of the Percys and reduced the village's population by a third. The rising price of wool – the raw material on which medieval England was built - was tempting many landowners to switch to sheep farming. This meant laying off much of their farm labour and evicting tenant farmers. By the early 16th century the village was almost deserted. The church is the last medieval building still standing. ⠀
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I spent days riding these lanes over two trips, trying to fit in everything I wanted on a sub-100km loop from York. In the end I didn't quite manage it and had to leave Wharram Percy as an optional detour from the main route. Another gem I had to omit was the descent from Uncleby Wold to Bugthorpe. It's a stunner and was singled out for praise by Gareth Lovett-Jones's in his brilliant book English Country Lanes. The Wolds is a perfect place for laneology, even more so if you're prepared to venture off the tarmac roads. As Lovett-Jones says, a good bike ride is all about the detours and diversions, whether planned or spontaneous, and that ultimately it pays to follow your nose rather than being a slave to the guidebook. ⠀ ⠀

#lostlanes #lln30places #wharrampercy #ruinedvillage #ruin #church #yorkshirewolds #yorkshire

Ride No.15 from #LostLanesNorth "A Sentimental Jou

Ride No.15 from #LostLanesNorth "A Sentimental Journey" is heavy on good food and grand buildings, exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to find in this upmarket corner of North Yorkshire. The Hambleton hills are just east of Thirsk and a northern extension of the sash of oolitic limestone that runs diagonally across the heart of England, through the Cotswolds and all the way to Portland Bill. ⠀ ⠀

But it's not a ruined abbey or a cosy country pub that I've chosen as my special place but somewhere that combines three equally English specialities: model railways, miniature villages and front gardens. ⠀
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Model railways have been around almost as long as real railways but they really took off as a hobby in the Edwardian era. Miniature villages date from around the same time and were a mainstay of the British tourism scene right through the twentieth century. And as for front gardens, just head over to YouTube and look up a priceless 1970s TV documentary called The Front Garden presented by the late Candida Lycett-Green, and you'll see what I mean.⠀ ⠀

In the village of Bagby, retired printer Eric Marshall combines all three forms in a pièce de résistance that comes complete with a fully functional cable car. ⠀⠀
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"I make all the houses and stations from plywood and the tiles on the top are made from cedar wood. All the tiles are stuck on individually, so everything is more or less weather proof. I use anything I can find around the house, like floor tiles - I never throw anything away." ⠀
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Come Christmas the whole scene is festooned with miniature illuminations which take Eric, now in his 80s, a full month to install. Over the years Eric and his wife Jean have raised thousands of pounds in public donations for cancer charities. My photograph fails to capture the virtuosity of his creation - it's much easier to photograph a ruined abbey! You'll just have to ride there and see it for yourself. ⠀

We're now half way through my 30 special places from my new book Lost Lanes North. To see the others, click on the hashtag #lln30places.⠀
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#modelrailway #modelvillage #frontgarden #yorkshire⠀

Here's my 14th special place from #LostLanesNorth,

Here's my 14th special place from #LostLanesNorth, from Ride 14 "Awheel in Wheeldale". There are three bridges in this photograph. The old road bridge over the River Esk, its modern replacement cross and the railway bridge which crosses both the road and the river.

The old bridge was built in 1619 and is known as Beggar's Bridge. Whether or not you believe the cute romantic backstory (you can look it up for yourself) there's no denying it's a beauty, a miniature Mostar in the lush valley that marks the northern boundary of the high country of the North York Moors. Given Eskdale's vertiginous topography, it's a miracle the Victorians managed to squeeze a railway line in here. It's an even bigger miracle that the line survived the Beeching cuts. Yes, you can still trundle along the single track railway from Middlesborough to Whitby. And you absolutely should. ⠀
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The railway keeps to the valley floor, as railways must. Travellers by road have no such luck and riding around here means a lot of climbing. Be prepared for double digit gradients and single digit speeds. But once you have accepted that you're not going anywhere fast, you can relax and appreciate the beauty around every bend. ⠀

#lostlanes #lln30places #northyorkmoors #yorkshire #cycling #cycletouring #eskdale @northyorkmoors #bridges #bridgesofinstagram

My 13th special place from #LostLanesNorth is Lill

My 13th special place from #LostLanesNorth is Lilla Cross, the highest point of Ride No.13 "Purple Haze". It's the high point in terms of elevation but perhaps for the spirit of the place, though there is plenty of competition on this intensely scenic ride, which starts from Whitby and takes in both high moor and coast, mostly on traffic-free cycleways and moorland tracks. ⠀
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Lilla Cross is over a thousand years old and was a landmark for wayfarers travelling across the often disorientating landscape of the moors and a marker of parish boundaries. It still performs both functions today. Medieval crosses are old but they are not especially rare. Of more than 12,000 that once stood across England, some 2,000 remain in one form or another: just the base; just base and the shaft; or, like this one, complete, its hard edges weathered smooth by the centuries.⠀
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Amazingly, a thousand year old stone cross is a comparatively recent addition to the landscape of the moor when compared to the Bronze age burial barrow on which it stands. There are a few others in the area though they can be hard to spot beneath the heather. Their presence here indicates that people have been attaching special meaning to this place for thousands of years. The biggest recent addition to the moor is the top secret military listening post at RAF Fylingdales. The retro-futuristic triangular radar station was part of the Cold War network that would have sounded the four minute warning of an imminent nuclear attack. As a child growing up in the 1980s I entertained morbid fantasies about what I would do when it sounded, how would I spend those last four minutes before I, my family and everything I knew was vaporised. RAF Fylingdales is still fully operational, watching and waiting. ⠀
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For the psychedelic displays of purple heather, which come with an equally hallucinogenic, 360 degree Dolby surround sound buzzing of bees, the best time to come is between late July and early September. ⠀
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#lln30places #yorkshire #northyorkmoors #heather #lillacross ⠀

My 12th special place from LostLanesNorth is from

My 12th special place from LostLanesNorth is from ride No.12 "The Old North". Bamburgh Castle is a largely Norman structure renovated in the 19th century by Lord Armstrong, the Newcastle industrialist and arms dealer. ⠀
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There was a fortress here long before the Normans came. The Celtic Brittonic tribes of the area had a fort here known as Din Guarie and it may have been the capital of the Gododdin people. Medieval Welsh legends refer to the whole area as Yr Hen Ogledd (the Old North): a time before Anglo-Saxon settlers from continental Europe drove Celtic Britons into the western territories. The castle is steeped in history but what I want to talk about is the field in the foreground. ⠀
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I researched this route along the Northumberland coast with my friend Adam when we were up here for a week with our families. We set off early one morning and reached Bamburgh before 9. After having a quick nose around and snapping a few photos we both felt an urge to press on. As we headed north I spotted a red smudge on the land off to our right. But our route didn't go that way so we carried on. I immediately regretted it. What was that red field? ⠀
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A couple of days later I went back to find out and I'm glad I did. It's the biggest field of red campion I have ever seen. Silene dioica is a regular in the hedgerows of late spring and early summer but you rarely see it en masse like this. ⠀
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Moor Field is famous locally and has even made national newspaper front pages. It has a light, sandy soil and is exposed to wind and salt spray so isn't much good for raising crops. But it's perfect for wild flowers. With the aid of a government grant the farmer sows it with red campion and phaecelia as a habitat for bees, birds and butterflies. On my return visits I also discovered there is a rideable rough stuff route past the field, through the golf club and around the headland, eventually rejoining the main route (it's noted in the book). ⠀
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The moral of the story is this: if you see something in the distance that piques your interest, go and take a closer look.⠀
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#lostlanesnorth #lostlanes #lln30places #moorfield #bamburgh #redcampion #wildflowers ⠀

Disused bus shelter, Llanvapley Monmouthshire. 😥
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#audaxhotel @audaxhotels #dothebusstop

Exactly a year ago tonight I was sleeping here, th

Exactly a year ago tonight I was sleeping here, the most wonderful farm campsite overlooking Hebden Bridge. ⠀
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You get to Old Chamber up an absurdly steep cobbled climb that carries on around the hill on sublime South Pennine bridleways towards Stoodley Pike. ⠀
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At the campsite there's everything you need and nothing more, including the Honesty Box, a beloved local institution where you can have a brew, an ice cream or buy some eggs. An earthly paradise for just £8 a night. ⠀
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#LostLanesNorth #camping #cycling #LostLanes #cycletouring #hebdenbridge #pennines ⠀
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It's my eleventh special place from #LostLanesNort

It's my eleventh special place from #LostLanesNorth, from Ride No.11 "Into the Wild". ⠀
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This is the 'The Nick' or to give it its full name, 'The Blakehope Nick Overlook'. It's one of many sculptures that provide much needed focal points in the sparse and sometimes monotonous landscape of Kielder Forest: vast swathes of conifer plantation, a huge reservoir and long, long unsurfaced forest tracks. ⠀
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The structure has also been described as the 'Official Northern Gravel Portal'. And if you like American-style gravel grinding on mile after mile of uniform, hard-packed fire roads the Kielder Forest is the place to come. I prefer the variety of a traditional British bridleway, even if this means occasional bit of portage and pushing your way through overgrown vegetation. But this ride has more to offer than just gravel. ⠀
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It starts from the village of Bellingham (a perfect base for riding the Northumberland interior, with a wonderful farm campsite at Desmene Farm), heading up the river North Tyne before rounding the wilder, northern shore of Kieder Water. The Lakeside Trail has some of the best public art you'll find on bike path. From Kielder Castle the route heads uphill on Kielder Forest Drive, an unsurfaced toll road (bikes go free). Blakehope Nick is the high point on the forest drive, at 457m above sea level.⠀
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The Nick was designed and built from larch timber by a team of seven students from Newcastle University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. They say: ⠀
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‘The sculpture’s open-ended, twisted form harnesses the site’s wild nature and unique climatic conditions, while also providing different levels of enclosure and exposure.’⠀
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It certainly invites you to stop riding for a bit and take in the scene before beginning the long, exhilarating descent into Redesdale. ⠀
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#lln30places #lostlanesnorth #kielder #gravel #gravelgrinding #blakehopenick #northumberland #cycling #cycletouring #kielderforest⠀ ⠀
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The 10th of my 30 special places from #LostLanesNo

The 10th of my 30 special places from #LostLanesNorth is from Ride No.10 "Northern Exposure", part of a linked three ride Northumberland odyssey. Chew Green may be the hardest of my special places to get to. But it more than repays the effort.⠀⠀
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This is the final climb at the head of Coquetdale, a valley that shrugs off any superlatives I might try to pin to it. And here's Dave, en danseuse, looking every inch the lean, mean hill climbing machine. The public road ends at the summit and you enter the Otterburn military firing range. It's off limits most of the time, so check ahead on the Ministry of Defence website for open days, though you can usually get through to the A68 on the far side if you have to. ⠀
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Behind Dave, on the hillside, you can make out the Roman camp that once guarded this high pass. The carefully surveyed defensive ditches are now mere shadows of history on which the sheep graze oblivious. In a fantastical instance of life imitating art, the camp looks just the way it is drawn on the OS map. ⠀
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A few hundred metres above the camp is a Roman signal station. And Scotland. This is where comely England peters out, and big Caledonian landscapes take over. The English-Scottish border, as agreed in the Treaty of York in 1237, is the oldest national border in the world. That the Romans, a thousand years came here to build hints at the strategic significance of the place. Today there is no paved road north. Then as now, to reach Scotland you'll have to walk. Or ride. Would the Romans recognise their chariots in our bicycles? It's a journey that appeals to me - an ancient roadless border crossing! ⠀

Yes, the remote places do repay the effort of getting there. ⠀
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#lostlanesnorth #lostlanes #lln30places #chewgreen #cycling #Northumberland
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We're nine days into my 30 special places from #Lo

We're nine days into my 30 special places from #LostLanesNorth. Thanks for coming along for the ride. ⠀
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My ninth choice is from Ride No. 9 "Over the Wall". At a a shade over 100km it is the longest ride in the book. ⠀
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It goes from the banks of the Tyne at Hexham north across the Roman wall and deep into the Northumberland interior via Bellingham to Elsdon, one of the loveliest small villages in the North and home to the fabulous Impromptu Cyclists' Cafe. It's then back along an old drove road, past a handful of big country houses including Kirkhale, the birthplace of Capability Brown, and Wallington Hall, the seat of the Trevelyan family and the first landed estate to be donated to the National Trust. ⠀
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But I've passed over all of that for my special place and chosen instead these bottle kilns, tucked away on a narrow country lane on the way down into Corbridge. ⠀
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Walker's Pottery operated from the early 19th century until 1910. The pottery produced pipes, tiles and low-grade pottery for agricultural use, as well as bricks. They are beautiful structures, both functional and somehow sculptural too. As rare survivors from that time they are both scheduled monuments and listed buildings. But there's no entrance fee or gift shop. You might not even know the kilns were there as you rode past. That I did is entirely thanks to locals Dave and Fiona Jones and their daughter Ellie who were generous enough to show me around their patch and pose for a few photos. I'm grateful to them and to everyone who has helped me with tips and suggestions for inclusion the book.⠀
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#lostlanesnorth #lln30places #kilns #pottery #northumberland #history #lostlanes ⠀
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Over the Pennine crest from the Eden Valley is my

Over the Pennine crest from the Eden Valley is my 8th special place from #LostLanesNorth. It is on the route of Ride No.8 "Roof of England", a big day out on England's highest roads criss-crossing the sparsely populated but mineral rich uplands where the rivers Tyne, Tees and Wear all rise. ⠀
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I've visited gold rush ghost towns in the mountains of the American West and they have the same feel as Rookhope. Once a centre of the lead mining industry in the North Pennines, it's now a place of ruins and relics, forgotten memories and bare hills that give nothing away. Sheep graze, the wind blows and skylarks sing invisible. ⠀
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W. H. Auden was drawn to the North Pennines all his life. Rookhope, he wrote, is "the most wonderfully desolate of all the dales". It was here, in the void between limestone and infinity, that he is said to have first became aware of himself as an individual being:⠀
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"In ROOKHOPE I was first aware⠀
Of self and not-self, Death and Dread..."
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Further down the valley from this abandoned mine is the village: a few small terraced houses, a pub and a very deep hole. It was drilled in the 1960s by geologists from Durham University to test their theories about what had caused the Pennine range to rise above its surrounding areas. They struck granite at 390 metres and carried on down to double that depth. Sections of the 25 tonne core they extracted were on display in the old miners' bothy in the village until the university sold the building in 2005. ⠀
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Local kids rendered the borehole unusable by dropping metal bars into it. Well what do you do to get your kicks in a place like this? The hole is now capped but if you're passing you can still have a mooch around the site where it was discovered what the backbone of the North is made of. ⠀
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#lostlanesnorth #lostlanes #lln30places #rookhope #leadmining #northpennines #ruins

The 7th special place from my new book #LostLanesN

The 7th special place from my new book #LostLanesNorth is from Ride No.7 "Border Raid", a route from the ancient garrison city of Carlisle to the Caldbeck Fells on the edge of the Lakes, across the Solway Plain and back via Hadrian's Wall. The pIace I've chosen is St Mary's Church, Burgh-by-Sands, right on England's north west frontier. ⠀
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It was built in the late 1100s on the site of a major fort on the Roman wall, reusing masonry scavenged from the ruins. You wouldn't guess it but for a few weeks in the summer of 1307, this small "frowsty barn" was the focal point of a national drama. For inside lay the corpse of the king of England.
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Edward I stood over 6 foot 2 inches tall in his fighting boots. His imposing demeanor and fierce temper made his enemies and his own subjects quake in theirs. He fought in the Crusades and led brutal campaigns of conquest and colonisation in Wales achieving what no English king had managed despite centuries of trying. In the 1280s, he arrested all heads of Jewish households in England and had 300 of them executed before expelling the remainder and their families from the country.
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In the 1290s Edward seized a chance to assert English rule over Scotland which led to more than a decade of invasions and counter punches. In 1307 Edward came north to battle the resurgent Scottish king Robert the Bruce. Edward contracted dysentery and died a squalid death camped on the marshes a couple of miles north of here. His body was brought to the church and lay here until news of his death could be announced. The body was then carried via Carlisle and York to London for burial in Westminster Abbey.⠀
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War, disorder and violence was a grim fact of life in these borderlands, and local people came together to build a new fortified tower for the church where they could protect themselves from the lawless clans or 'reivers', who plundered livestock and valuables and kidnapped for ransom. The walls are several feet thick and the battlements and arrow-slits are for real. St Mary's is the oldest of three fortified churches on the route.⠀
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#lostlanesnorth #lostlanes #lln30places #cumbria #history #carlisle #church ⠀
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I baked a loaf of traditional tea bread to go with

I baked a loaf of traditional tea bread to go with a nice chunk of Swaledale PDO cheese (thanks to @robynhitchcockofficial the cheese alarm has been ringing all year). This is one of my favourite rides in the book. It's got it all - hills, pubs, wild swimming, rough stuff, ruins - all set in the loveliest corner of the #YorkshireDales. Cheese, and loaf recipe, from @thecheesesociety. .
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#cycling #cheese #LostLanesNorth #eattheview #eattheride #armchairtravel #cycletouring #yorkshire #food

⠀ Ride No. 6 “Garden of Eden” is a relaxed r

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Ride No. 6 “Garden of Eden” is a relaxed ramble around the green and exceptionally pleasant land between the Lakes and the North Pennines. Historic buildings loom large in this ride - from castle ruins to exquisite Cumbrian villages - but my special place is a small mill on a stream flowing into the River Eden.⠀
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Little Salkeld Watermill was built in 1745 and is the only fully working water powered mill in Cumbria, producing stoneground flour the traditional way. There’s a small cafe and shop on the ground floor. ⠀
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It’s a good stop for cake and a brew but for me the big draw is the tour of the mill (£2). Though officially “self-guided”, I was lucky to encounter the miller when he had a spare moment to explain what all the greasy cogs, hefty timber shafts and dusty drive belts are actually doing.⠀
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Harnessing the power of a deceptively modest trickle of water to turn heavy millstones and lift huge sacks is performance of astonishing mechanical ingenuity. But a mill is somehow more than a machine. In full swing the whole building comes alive to a chaotic breakbeat soundtrack of creaks, rattles and clanks underlaid by a deep vibrating bass. As the whole place shakes you have a very real, bodily awareness of the transfer of energy from water to grain. Then, out of a unprepossessing wooden chute, comes a tiny flurry of fresh, stoneground wholewheat flour. This is passed through a series of mechanical sieves which grade it from coarse brown bran to fine white dust and everything in between. ⠀
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Little Salkeld fell into disuse in the 1950s after finally succumbing to bigger, more modern mills powered by fossil fuels, a source of power upon which our society has become utterly intoxicated. As our collective carbon hangover begins to bite, we should be grateful for places like this that remind us that all our energy was once renewable. If we are to avert a climate, extinction and humanitarian disaster, then we will need once again to harness the power of rivers, the sun and the moon and find our way back to a more sustainable future. ⠀
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#lostlanesnorth #lln30places #mill #littlesalkeld #cumbria #realbread #milling #flour #realfood #organic⠀
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Today I am represent the hallowed circuit that was

Today I am represent the hallowed circuit that was home to my short and undistinguished career as an amateur racing cyclist (if you don't count triathlons, which you shouldn't).
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🌙 And remember tonight I'll be lighting the camp fire and dusting down the portable gramophone for a #LostLanesNorth book launch party here on ⚡ Instagram Live ⚡ from 7.30pm. Sunset chit chat, a book reading and the odd tune until it gets dark. .
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#eastway #timetrial #tuesday10 #touristnottester #howfast? #cyclingselfie #cyclinghistory

It's day 5 and Ride No.5 from my new book #LostLan

It's day 5 and Ride No.5 from my new book #LostLanesNorth. "Back o' Skidda" is a classic 55km circuit of the Skiddaw massif. The route starts in Keswick, the outdoors capital of the North Lakes but it soon leaves behind the shops and the crowds for some really quiet lanes. However, for a special place on this ride, I can't really look beyond Castlerigg Stone Circle. For somewhere that is so well known and so close to a tourist centre like Keswick I was expecting it to be busy but I had the place almost to myself on a chilly autumn morning. ⠀

Estimated to be 5000 years old, it's one of the oldest stone circles in Britain. The setting is remarkable, on a flat shelf of land that seems to float above the valley, surrounded by higher peaks. As ever, my mind soon turns from the beauty of the scene to wondering what it was that motivated people to build such a monument here, and what they did here. ⠀
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Autumn is the best time of year for temperature inversions and on my visit the sun shone from a clear blue sky, illuminating a thick layer of fog hanging over Derwent Water. A good cloud inversion is a glimpse of the sublime, seeing a familiar landscape is transformed into an arresting and magnificent new vista. They happen more often in autumn and winter when the nights are long, causing a large variation between daytime and nighttime temperatures. Low winds, clear skies and moist air from a heavy dew, a river or large body of water also helps. The Lake District must be one of the best places to experience a cloud inversion, and camping out at night means you'll be up in time and can choose a good vantage point. ⠀
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Castlerigg Stone Circle is managed by @englishheritage and free to enter during daylight hours. . ⚡⚡Virtual book launch tomorrow (Saturday) on Instagram Live from 7.30pm⚡⚡
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#lostlanesnorth #lln30places #stonecircle #neolithic #castlerigg #lakedistrict #cloudinversion #cloudspotting #cloud

Day four and we're in the heart of the northern La

Day four and we're in the heart of the northern Lake District for Ride No.4 from #LostLanesNorth. I called the ride "Liquid Landscape" as the 55km route from Keswick takes in a ring of five lakes - Derwent Water, Buttermere, Crummock Water, Loweswater and Bassenthwaite Lake. There is nothing like this landscape anywhere in England. But it's not an expanse of glassy still water that I've chosen as my special place but a tumbling torrent.⠀
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Moss Force is a waterfall at Newlands Hause, the col which is high point of the ride and a classic cycling climb. The more famous (and hardest) side is from Buttermere but I prefer the ascent through the Newlands Valley as you get a much better view of Moss Force as you climb. At first it appears as tiny white smudge at the top of the climb, but as you get closer it reveals its true nature - a series of cascades 100 metres (328 ft) high. A photograph cannot do it justice - not just the scale and the motion of it but the noise, the smell, the feel of the cool vapour that drifts from the roaring, frothing mass. (Zoom in to the photograph to see a couple of people for scale, standing about three quarters of the way down).⠀
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This is the waterfall that wowed Coleridge when he walked here in 1802 and inspired one the first and still among the best pieces of 'mountain writing'. ⠀
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"...the mad water rushes through its sinuous bed, or rather prison of rock, with such rapid curves, as if it turned the corners not from the mechanic force, but with foreknowledge, like a fierce and skilful driver. Great masses of water, one after the other, that in twilight one might have feelingly compared them to a vast crowd of huge white bears, rushing, one over the other, against the wind – their long white hair shattering abroad in the wind."⠀
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It's worth looking up the entire description, part of a letter to his friend Sara Hutchinson. ⠀
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#lostlanesnorth #lln30places #mossforce #newlandshause #cumbria #lakedistrict #waterfall #cycling #cycletouring #lostlanes #coleridge

It's the third of my 30 special places from my new

It's the third of my 30 special places from my new book #LostLanesNorth which means we're on to Ride No. 3 "Mountain High". For a fairly gentle ride of 47km it is spectacular, going from sea level at Ravenglass to the foot of England's highest peak and the waters of its deepest lake. Along the way it passes celebrated treasures of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian art as well as the vast Sellafield nuclear plant that in 1957 came very close a Chernobyl-style meltdown that would have made Cumbria uninhabitable for thousands of years. But I have chosen none of those places for today's post. ⠀
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Instead, I give you a bus shelter by the side of the road near Nether Wasdale. ⠀
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This is a building that most people pass without stopping or noticing, even though, as bus shelters go, it's rather grand. Built of stone and slate, the open frontage has a lovely wrought iron gate. Inside is a wooden bench. On the back wall is a granite plaque that is dedicated to the memory of "the men of all nations" killed in war and to the "peace and reconciliation and of love and brotherhood promised to all men of goodwill". It was built in 1923, not long after the end of the first world war. ⠀
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No bus stops here any more so the shelter serves little practical purpose other than as place for the occasional passing cyclist to dry out, brew up or, in extremis, bed down for the night. I'm glad it's there. It's a sturdy little building and it was good to stop awhile as Storm Callum raged and battered the road outside.⠀
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There are far grander and more elaborate memorials to those killed in war. But can you sit inside them? As rain hammered down on the slate roof, I was moved by the idea that the grief and sorrow of war and the yearning for peace and love between people of all nations should have found its expression in the form of a bus shelter. So much more fitting than a triumphal arch. ⠀
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#lostlanesnorth #lln30places #lostlanes #audax #audaxhotel #shelter #ww1 #busshelter #cumbria⠀
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