After such a long grey Winter, we have been absolutely loving the sunshine we’ve had through March and into April. I’ve gotten into the habit of excessively checking the weather forecast to make sure the sun is hanging around until the weekend so that we can get out for a decent walk, not quite believing we can go so long without a washout. Last weekend was perhaps the most lovely yet: we took full advantage of the perfect weather conditions to get out on a longer walk closer to home that we’ve been meaning to re-visit for a few years now.
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Wanting to stay fairly local, we perused our Day Walks in the Yorkshire Dales guide for inspiration, settling on a 7.5 mile circular route exploring Gunnerside Gill. Swaledale is our favourite dale, with a sense of being much more remote and untamed than the rest of the national park. It’s rather bleak but beautiful landscapes are home to an abundance of mining heritage, which makes for interesting stop offs and extremely scenic picnic locations.
Parking in Gunnerside is pretty limited with a small honesty box car parking area. We got there at about 9am on a sunny Sunday at the start of April and got parked with no issues, although it was full by the time we got back shortly after lunchtime. The route starts off with an ascent of Black Hill, ascending steadily up out of Gunnerside for chocolate box views down over the village, before the scenery becomes more rugged with cracking views over the gill as you walk along Jingle Pot Edge.
Climbing up Black Hill is fairly steady going, and at 569 metres it’s not a huge summit, but it still took us over an hour to get to the top. Partly because we took the opportunity to have a go at flying the drone (turns out Sam is much better at it than I am), but mainly because as the route leaves the edge, the path vanishes entirely and it’s a pathless tramp through heather – which made for hard going. I was extremely thankful that we were doing this walk after such a long dry spell, or I think we’d have ended up with wet feet very early on in the walk!
There wasn’t much at the summit of Black Hill, so we didn’t hang around, passing through a wall and heading downhill on a (thankfully clear) path winding down towards the gill. Eventually this path crosses a track to pick up a bridleway, which leads into Gunnerside Gill with fantastic views down over some of the lead mining ruins.
We crossed over a stream between two ruined buildings at Blakethwaite Smelt Mill, left over from when this part of Swaledale was a mining hub. Lead has been mined in Swaledale since the fifteenth century, with activity intensifying in Gunnerside and the surrounding villages in the late 1800s. Activity eventually ceased when the mines were deemed not to be commercially viable at the end of the nineteenth century, but plenty of ruins and wonderfully wonky spoil heaps remain, which are in the process of being gradually reclaimed by nature.
From here we followed an out and back detour up to the Blakethwaite Dams. The path here is narrow and undulating, eventually disappearing entirely, but the scenery is still lovely (probably boggy most of the time) and the remains of the dams fairly impressive. Returning back to the main track down the gill to return on the opposite side, we encountered a surprising number of people after we’d not seen anyone at all up to this point – obviously they’d taken the sensible flatter route!
The walk down down the gill is both stunning and fascinating – and actually fairly easy if you stick to the main route up and down the gill – although I don’t remember it being quite this beautiful last time we came (endless blue skies tend to have that effect). There’s plenty of old buildings to admire, both along the path which can be explored, and perched on the opposite hillside. We spent a while sitting on the path watching runners on the Northern Traverse running down the hill and back up past us: they couldn’t have asked for better weather to run an ultra marathon!
It’s pretty easy walking most of the way back to Gunnerside, eventually leaving the gill and entering a woodland. Don’t be fooled into thinking you need to cross the river here like we were – there is no footpath on the opposite side, and no real places to cross easily without getting wet feet. Keep on along the path from the gill, which undulates up and down for a mile or so before arriving back in the village. Altogether this walk took us just under 5 hours, but we did stop a few times, so we could probably have managed it in a bit less if we’d kept moving. But on such a lovely day, what’s the rush?
Dog friendly rating: 3.5/5. This is a fab dog walk. Dogs should be under close control at all times due to ground nesting birds and the possibility of running into sheep, but it is almost stile free: the stiles you do need to cross are either the easily traversable ‘steps in a wall’ or have a nice big hole in the fence next to them. There are several opportunities for dogs to have a swim in the river, although if doing this walk on a warm day I’d recommend carrying water for your dog just in case.
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