Linton & Moor Lane
We deserved a leisurely day, we felt, so took the footpath to Linton Falls in the sun, starting from the National Park Centre at SE 002637.
After the narrow walled lane (#1) came the bridge that spans the fall, the fourth (apparently) to be built there. The original Tin Bridge was erected in 1814 for workers at Linton Mill, the current one in 1989 after the previous incarnation was closed as ‘unsafe’. We didn’t see the Falls in full glory because it hadn’t rained for weeks (#2) but the potential is easy to imagine.
Linton is an exceptionally quaint village with a great pub, The Fountaine Arms – which I would recommend – and a huge baroque building nearby that I took for a country house. No, I was told, it was a hospital, The Fountaine Hospital…
Richard Fountaine was born in Linton in 1639 but made his fortune (as a haberdasher!) in London. On his death in 1722 his will was found to contain instructions for an alms house to be built in his home village. (Alms-house history dates back to medieval times when religious orders looked after poor but after the Reformation – I’m guessing here – the task was left to the rich.) So RF left £20 a year to employ a Churchman and £26 pa for six poor local people to live in the mansion. They must have felt like kings! Interestingly, RF’s estate still funds the alms-house and a number of elderly villagers live there. Incredible. Even more incredible: I haven’t got a photo of the place. I seem to remember the sun was directly behind it, but do look up The Yorkshire Society, Fountaine Hospital and you’ll find all these details and more. Thank you, TYS.
After that welcome digression, we took Moor Lane (South), just for curiosity’s sake. It started famously (#3,4) but once on the moor it felt it had done its job – and petered out (#5). But we were told by one man living on the lane that it used to be the main road. What I should have asked him was “To where?”. There doesn’t seem to be an obvious destination bar Cracoe and Skipton, but that would involve a right-angle turn at some point…
We happily made our way back via Threshfield, where there was supposed to be a drover’s barn….but we never found it!
