Away to the south, in the direction of the Buttertubs Pass, is Stags
Fell, 2,213 feet above the sea, and something like 1,300 feet above
Muker. Northwards, and towering over the village, is the isolated mass
of Kisdon Hill, on two sides of which the Swale, now a mountain stream,
rushes and boils among boulders and ledges of rock. This is one of the
finest portions of the dale, and, although the road leaves the river and
passes round the western side of Kisdon, there is a path that goes
through the glen, and brings one to the road again at Keld.
Just before you reach Keld, the Swale drops 30 feet at Kisdon Force, and
after a night of rain there are many other waterfalls to be seen in this
district. These are not to me, however, the chief attractions of the
head of Swaledale, although without the angry waters the gills and
narrow ravines that open from the dale would lose much interest. It is
the stern grandeur of the scarred hillsides and the wide mountainous
views from the heights that give this part of Yorkshire such a
fascination. If you climb to the top of Rogan’s Seat, you have a huge
panorama of desolate country spread out before you. The confused jumble
of blue-gray mountains to the north-west is beyond the limits of
Yorkshire at last, and in their strong embrace those stern Westmoreland
hills hold the charms of Lakeland. Down below is the hamlet of Keld,
perched in an almost Swiss fashion on a sharply-falling hillside, and
among the surrounding masses of heaving moor are the birthplaces of the
dozen becks that supply the headwaters of the Swale. These nearer hills,
which include High Seat and the Lady’s Pillar, form the watershed of
this part of the Yorkshire border; for on the western slopes are to be
found the sources of the river Eden that flows through the beautiful
valley, which is one of the greatest charms of the Midland route to
Scotland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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