We were walking on Thursday, near West Witton, Swinithwaite and Redmire. Because it was April in Yorkshire, it was bitterly windy and cold with occasional hail: that was after we’d confidently started off in deceptively warm sunshine with a light breeze.
The final slog was along a long ridge, with a just-as-long line of dry stone wall keeping us on the straight and narrow every step of the way. Here it is.
Earlier though, while the sun was still managing to shine, we passed a different sort of line. Solid stepping stones crossed the river in a gentle curve, inviting two of our number to take the challenge and leap from boulder to boulder to the other side, then back again.
This week’s WordPress photo challenge is ‘Lines’.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
Your post brought back memories of many happy Easter picnics with friends from school and our children. We met somewhere in the North Riding in weather ranging from hot to arctic. Now the children are grown and flown we meet outside school hols and inside!
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Chicken. I thought you were made of sterner stuff.
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You chose great lines, thank you.
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They certainly sprang to mind when I read the challenge!
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I do love a dry stone wall. I recently read a whole memoir from an American who trained as a “waller” in Wales.
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Good on her/him! Not too useful in America though?
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beautiful lines
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They were. Thank goodness for craftspeople!
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Well, I’m glad to hear you’re out walking again even if the weather remains fickle. I love dry stone walls. Looking at this one with your description of the prevailing weather, I can imagine the men toiling away as they carefully laid the stones with the wind and the hail all around them. Of course, they were probably sensible enough to build in the summer months but it’s a good image all the same. Your wonderful stepping stones look lots of fun – for those who are braver than me! (Especially in that weather!)
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Yes, I’m not good at stepping stones. But I am glad to know that dry stone walling is a living craft that is alive and well round here still.
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A few years ago, we had a dry stone wall constructed in the garden our Yorkshire house and the builder asked for a penny. He told us that dry stone wallers often put pennies at the base of the walls to mark when they were built – or perhaps it was just for luck. Thanks for showing these. I miss the Yorkshire countryside.
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What an interesting story, and one I’ve never heard before. I’ll ask a couple of dry-stone wallers of my acquaintance about this. Yes, of course the Yorkshire countryside is special. But you have found a different special place.
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Not meaning to rub it in, but we on Vancouver Island are in our shirt sleeves and shorts. Love the stone walls. It is a craft I have much admired. Cheers.
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You can go off people you know. Anyway, we had summer too. For two days last week.
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What a wall! I love seeing that–amazing craftsmanship. And I always like to see what you do with the photo challenges–your interpretations are so good!
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Thank you. It’s a wonderful craft, and surprisingly perhaps, still alive and flourishing.
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Hasn’t the weather been bitter recently? Those beautiful stone walls can be a wonderful protection against nasty weather as long as you walk on the leeward side! I would have loved to have jumped across the river on those stepping stones in my youth, but not now.
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Ooh yes, it’s raw today. Unfortunately, that wall was a truly efficient wind tunnel on that occasion. I too wasn’t brave enough to gambol on the stepping stones that day.
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Dry stone walls almost art, aren’t they? I am sure somebody must have done an installation somewhere, perhaps Richard Long has? Looks like tough walking conditions recently, just you typical English spring don’t you just love it!
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Well done you – you have a long memory. Richard Long seems to have exhibited wall-related works at the Tate at various times in the early 2000s. I wonder if he put himself out and about in the bitter conditions we’ve had recently?
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I can’t resist a stone wall, the number of photographs I have taken of ferns & lichen on walls is enormous. I remember the stone steps in Yorkshire walls instead of a traditional stile.
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Oh yes, we can do all kinds of styles of stiles. That particular walk had gaps in walls, ladder stiles, traditional wooden stiles ….. lots and lots of them. A bit tough on older knees.
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