Variant Route Descriptions - A Northern Coast to Coast Walk: From St Bees to Robin Hood's Bay - page 168

APPENDIX A: Variant Route Descriptions

3 INTO THE DALES
Keld to Reeth (high-level route)

Distance 17km (10½ miles)

Height Gain 545m (1790 feet)

Leave Keld by a rough lane running southeast (signposted 'Kisdon Force'
and 'Muker'), and soon branch left and down, to cross the Swale by a foot-
bridge.
Above East Gill Force the onward route is signposted, through a gate and
climbing impressively above Kisdon Gorge, and soon, at a fork, branching
left to the ruins of Crackpot Hall.

CRACKPOT HALL AND SURROUNDS

Crackpot Hall, commanding a superlative position above the Swale, would once have
been a most attractive farmhouse. Alas, subsidence caused by mining activities
hastened its demise, an event that came in the 1950s and which must surely have
saddened its occupants, in spite of the no doubt punishing existence that life among
these isolated farming communities entailed. The farmhouse was built by Lord Wharton
for his keeper, who managed the red deer that roamed the wooded hillsides in the 17th
century. Tempting as it may seem so to think, the name of the farm is no comment on
the mental state of its occupants, deriving instead from the 'pot' (i.e. pot hole or cave)
'of the crows'.
Throughout much of the remaining journey towards Reeth there is evidence in
abundance of the mining activities that once took place here - ruined smelt mills, chim-
neys, flues, old shafts, levels, hushes, spoil heaps, wheel pits, watercourses, reservoirs
and dams. Although in the eyes of some they may seem to mar the landscape, they
also form an essential ingredient of importance and interest to those who view the walk
as a journey through time and history, as well as a satisfying way of passing a couple
of weeks.
Lead mining probably began in the Dales before the arrival of the Romans, but the
first clear evidence comes from 'pigs' of smelted lead bearing the names of Roman
emperors, discovered at Hurst Mines just north of Reeth, and near Grassington in
Wharfedale. The industry was also carried out by the Anglo-Saxons, by monks of the
many monasteries and priories that dotted the pre-Henry VIII English landscape, and