Masham – From Pyrenees to Pennines

From Marfield to Masham

Sunday afternoon. Sunny, warm, breezy. Just the time for a bike ride (‘im Indoors) or a solo walk (me). Marfield Wetlands suited us both as a starting point, though we went our separate ways after that. These reclaimed gravel pits, scattered with ponds, just by the River Ure are at their busiest in the autumn and winter months as a stopping off point for migrating water birds. Less variety here just now. But blue skies, blue waters greeted me: plenty of geese – Greylag, Canada and Barnacle, the odd cormorant and swan, and beyond, oystercatchers hectoring me from above, and more tuneful skylarks.

A walk along a brookside, then farmland with drystone walls.

Here are young cattle; sheep with their now-skittish lambs.

Primroses, celandines, willow catkins dusted with yellow pollen, blackthorn blossom.

Turn right through a field of cows, and reach the river banks, high above the river itself at first.

Right again, through pastureland with characterful trees, woodland, always with the river, sometimes still, sometimes chattering and clattering its way over its stony pathway.

Touch into the edge of Masham, then more fields with open views and here I am. back at Marland Wetlands again. Only four miles, but enough to send me home refreshed and content.

For Ann-Christine (Leya)’s Lens-Artists Challenge #343 – Seen on my Last Outing

And Jo’s Monday Walk.

More from Masham Steam Rally

Here are some more images taken in Masham as dozens of historic vehicles trundled slowly through town last Saturday in the early evening sun to take their place in the Market Square to be gazed at by the curious – or closely inspected by fellow enthusiasts.

And some children, schooled by the parents – or grandparents more likely – rushed out into the road before each vehicle passed to place pennies in the path of oncoming vehicles. Malcolm remembers the excitement, as a boy, of finding their now unspendable coins flattened into large discs by those trundling steam rollers and similar. My London childhood denied me such pleasures. Though I do remember fire engines like the one shown as the fourth image here, with one frantic fireman at the front constantly pulling at a rope to ring the tinny bell urging people out of the way.

And here are the children and their pennies …

And here are some of the characters we saw. Though what one little group was doing canvassing for Votes for Womem (sic) escaped me.

Midweek Monochrome

Who Do They Think They Are?*

Perhaps only British readers will be interested in this one. Let’s see. We’re going to visit Masham, our neighbouring market town: population – just over 1000. Main employers: two breweries – Black Sheep and Theakstons. It’s an attractive place, much loved as a stopping off place and watering-hole by visitors to the Yorkshire Dales. But it’s nobody’s idea of the beating heart of the country, or even the county.

What I’ve only just found out is this. Boris Johnson, one of our (several) recent Prime Ministers (2019-2022), and Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party from 2015 – 2020 both had antecedents in Masham. No love was lost between the two politicians as they faced each other across the despatch box. Yet once upon a time – about 170 years ago, when Queen Victoria was on the throne – their ancestors were neighbours up here in Yorkshire.

This is the Market Square on the best weekend of the year. The annual Sheep Fair.

A saddler called Mr. Stott lived in the Market Square. He was twice married and fathered 7 children, so you might think this makes him Boris Johnson’s forbear. No, he’s Jeremy Corbyn’s ancestor. His neighbour was a confectioner, a widow, a Mrs. Raper. And her sister-in-law was Miss Raper, who married the Prime Minister’s great-great-great grandfather Thomas John Johnson.

The smallest house on the Market Square. And it’s not the family seat of either the Johnson or the Corbyn family.

Both families had probably lived here for generations. Mr. Stott and Mrs Raper were certainly neighbours from before the census of 1851, and still lived next to each other when Mr Stott’s second wife Sarah died in 1871.

And both were buried in Masham Churchyard, though I haven’t yet spotted their graves.

*This is a reference to the BBC documentary series Who Do You Think You Are? which traces the family history of people in the public eye.

Last on the card: My Phone visits Masham

I popped into Masham on Friday afternoon, and found they were already pretty much prepared for this weekend’s annual Sheep Fair. More of this soon, when I’ve downloaded yesterday’s camera photos from this Must-Visit event. Friday’s phone photo offers a preview.

For Brian’s Last on the Card

A Line of Trees

I don’t know about you, but I need a break from the world and its vicissitudes. And I’ve got just the thing. One of our favourite walks, near Masham, near home. It offers wetlands with waterbirds, calming pastures of sheep, woodland, a stretch along the riverside – all available in a four mile stroll.

This month, Jude of Travel Words invites us to consider Pattern. This walk has plenty, starting with the skeins of geese often to be seen designing sinuous flight lines across the sky.

I’m going to show you a particular line of trees that I’m fond of, towards the end of the walk. A repeated pattern, tree after tree after tree. Sometimes, especially in high summer, these are enough to fill my mental screen. At other times, I notice the pattern echoed. A line of sheep, maybe. A different line – of fencing. Even – and I never manage to catch this in the same shot – a line of snagged sheep’s wool caught on nearby barbed wire.

Stark winter trees. Fencing edges the nearby field.

Winter again. I like the shadowy trees lower down echoing the crisper line above.

Another much longer view of those trees. With sheep below following the same horizontal line. It’s still winter.

That line again. It’s summer now, and other stands of trees draw the eye down to the lower edge of the shot.

Sheep again. They just left their wool behind.

I’ve chosen in many cases to echo the linear nature of the pattern by a spot of judicious cropping.

There. Did you forget the headlines just for a few moments?

Ragtag Tuesday: Any Questions?

I was brought up on Any Questions, a topical radio debate programme which has been a firm part of the BBC Radio 4 schedules on Friday evenings for getting on for 70 years. Our family always listened when I was younger, but I don’t these days as it does terrible things to my blood pressure when right-wing Daily Mail readers take to the podium.

All the same. It was coming to Masham, the town-next-door. A loose cohort of us got free tickets. That’s not quite true. Malcolm and I didn’t, but meeting in the pub beforehand, we started to feel left out, and managed to snaffle two late-returns.

Getting ready for the action in Masham Town Hall.

You have to turn up easily an hour ahead of transmission. If you want to, you write a question which might get included. You have to be warmed up. Radio Leeds presenter Andrew Edwards schooled us in the gentle art of clapping, cheering and booing to make our views clear to the listening audience (‘No heckling please’). The lucky questioners were announced. Two of our team made the cut, though in the end, only passionate 17-year-old ‘It’s our future’ Charlie had her question dealt with on air. I made the nearly-got-included list.

It was all fascinating stuff. Star of the show was probably the CEO of Siemens UK, Jurgen Maier: measured, lively and likeable. A Remainer, but desperate for business certainty, he’d back the current Brexit deal. Leaver Jake Berry, Northern Powerhouse Minister, actually said ‘I don’t think any of us knew what we were going to get when we voted Leave….’, but nevertheless isn’t in favour of a People’s Vote on the Final Deal which Lord Adonis is campaigning for. There was Labour’s Shadow Brexit Minister, Jenny Chapman and the other MP was John Redwood (‘fervent Brexiteer’). He really is from the Dark Side. Uncivil, dogmatic, he didn’t attract much enthusiasm even from those who subscribe to his reactionary, long-held views in favour of Leave.

Charlie needed her selfie with Andrew Adonis.

If you want a flavour of the debate, you can listen here if you’re eligible to listen to BBC transmissions.

And the next day, we went back to Remoaning in Harrogate again…

A pavement poll on the People’s Vote.

Today’s Ragtag Challenge is ‘Broadcast’.

Finds on an evening walk

We don’t often go walking in the evening. But yesterday we did, and found ……. orchids – I only know the last one, the bee orchid, by name…..

…… trees stalking the skyline……

…… inquisitive young calves huddled together: they thought we were scary ..

….. and best of all, this sheep. Naughty thing, she’d escaped from her field, and was having a high old time eating the contents of this wheat field. We told the farmer when we saw him later. Was he bothered? Not a lot.

I wonder if she left this wool behind?

From Masham to Marfield. And back.

On Christmas day I posted a scene from our days living in the Ariège. I felt very nostalgic for the Pyrenees, for snowy peaks silhouetted against clear blue skies, for cold clear air.

Today gave me the chance to remember that our countryside, though so very different, has its own charms and pleasures. We walked from nearby Masham and past the gravel pits of Marfield, now home to water birds of every kind: though only Canada geese and a few proud swans got a look in this morning.

We passed stands of ancient oaks, saw stark lines of skeletal trees marching along the horizon, watched the sky turn from Pyreneen blue to moody grey and purple then back to cheerful blue again. Sheep in late pregnancy cropped the short grass. We stopped to chat with fellow walkers walking off a calorie-laden Christmas. The River Ure was never far away. A pretty good morning’s work, actually.

Meadows, paddy fields and a good country walk

Back in England, it’s time to dust down our walking boots again. As we stepped out today, on a beautifully fresh and clear early Autumn morning, we contrasted our walk from nearby Masham with hikes we’d gone on in Korea.

It was the weather we noticed first. Probably it’s colder there now too, but then, we wore t shirts and battled against the humidity. We wore fleeces today. We tramped through fungus-laden woodland in both countries. Here though, as we glanced at the tussocky meadowland near the River Ure, we saw sheep, sometimes cattle . There, valley floors were terraced with paddy fields, citric green with young rice.

Here, there were distant views of solid stone barns and farmhouses – even a country house, Clifton Castle. There, we were more likely to come upon a hidden Buddhist temple, its solid, yet graceful wooden form painted cinnabar, blue-green, white, yellow and black.

In Korea, woodland in the countryside is dominant once you get away from ‘civilisation’. Here, we drifted between woods, meadows, ploughed fields and ground by the open river .

We enjoyed the lot. But today, we appreciated saying ‘hello’ again to our familiar local landscape.