Away Days - Howgill Fells
“A day out of Hawick is a day wasted”. Thus goes the saying, made famous by the great Bill McLaren, of Hawick folk who see nothing in the wider world that can’t be found within the bounds of their beloved town. I’ve always assumed it’s a bit tongue in cheek (or perhaps not!) and regular readers of this blog might assume I would say the same thing about Innerleithen. I can however assure you that as much as I clearly love Peeblesshire, the idea of a trip away, especially if there is a hill or two involved, is absolutely thrilling and I spend half my time plotting, scheming and planning my next precious trip. I am keen to share some of these excursions and places with you so this will be the start of an occasional series of ‘Away Days’ posts, celebrating the UK’s upland areas.
So, where to start? I think rather than go for an obvious big hitter like The Lakes or Cairngorms, it would instead be better to talk about somewhere that’s a bit obscure, and in my view wholly underrated. That place is Sedbergh and The Howgill Fells. These hills are formed as a little triangle, nestled between the Lake District, Eden Valley and The Yorkshire Dales. Indeed it’s their proximity to these honeypots which I believe gives them their low profile. People see the Howgills from the M6 and are blown away with these rounded, huddled hills after many miles of uninspiring motorway views and think “I must go there”, but the road roars past on the way to tearooms, craggy mountains and outdoor shops of Ambleside or Keswick so the Howgills are soon forgotten about. They are great walkers hills, steep sides lead to rounded tops with bridleways and paths crossing the main summits, making it straightforward to bag several hills on an afternoons walk. I’ve long been fascinated with them, I think this started sitting on a picnic bench at Tebay Services (more on them later), where the view to these hills caught my eye. And so, eventually, I had a day to myself and chucked the hiking boots in the car to head off down to Moffat and on to the M74/M6 bound for Sedbergh.
Sedbergh is a small Dales town of around 2,700 people, 10 miles east of Kendal (it’s worth noting that while the whole area is in The Yorkshire Dales National Park, it is still in Cumbria). The town is perhaps best known for its school, a fee paying boarding school which dominates much of the town, a sort of Yorkshire Dales Hogwarts with Rugger replacing Quidditch. I looked up some notable alumni and there are plenty of them, which I will not bore you with here - think Admirals, Sirs, Professors etc. The town is also notable for being Englands book town, in the same way that Hay-on-Wye is for Wales and Wigtown in Scotland. I have to say I didn’t get a flavour of this when I visited - there was a very good bookshop but if you go to Hay or Wigtown you know you are in book town, in Sedbergh you’re in a town with a bookshop. Maybe harsh, but there it is.
Parking up, it was out with the map and on with the boots. The town sits right at the foot of the fells and a steep walk up a track soon takes you past the attractive stone built cottages and out on to dry stone wall lined paths. The path I followed was The Dales High Way which climbed steeply onto open moor and towards the first summit of the day - Arrant Haw. Unfortunately as I was climbing I got closer and closer to a bank of thick cloud (or clag to give it the technical term). This sat at about 600m for most of the walk. It adds to atmosphere on these lonely fells (I saw nobody for four hours) but doesn’t help much if you want a view. Undaunted, I pressed on stopping only to say hello to the occasional sheep and for my favourite hill snack of oatcakes and cheese. My high point was to be The Calf which at 676m is also the high point of the range. It was an easy pull up to the top but sadly zero views at the trig, I didn’t linger.
Trig Point on The Calf
The walk picked up a gear from this point on. Firstly, descending through a quiet valley, I came across an old sheep stell or shelter. It had been modified by adding a pyramid shaped from the same stone to one of the corners, an addition I later found out was the work of sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. Was a cool find among the hills, though it’s deeper meaning eluded me…
Moving on and I soon found myself at the top of Cautley Spout, England’s highest waterfall. The path down besides the waterfall was slippy and treacherous - at one point I imagined Holmes and Moriarty plunging into the depths, locked in a death grip. I shook myself out of that, realising that I was clearly in need of someone to talk to after many hours alone on the hills. Regardless, the falls were impressive and are to be recommended - you can visit them a lot more easily than taking the route I did by parking at the roadside and walking up from the valley.
Walking down from the falls towards the valley, I bumped into some actual people. A couple from Kendal whose question to me when they found out I had left Scotland at 05:00 to come walking here was “why?” My answer was my usual “why no?”, but I did leave the conversation thinking that perhaps my hobby of solo hiking in obscure hills was a bit odd. Undaunted, I pressed on heading for the river Rawthey and a walk through fields, hugging the fell side back towards the start. This felt like classic Dales territory. Stone walls, bramble hedges, babbling becks. All that good stuff. I was getting tired but the walking here was so pleasant and the sun had made an appearance. I stopped for the second time, this time beside an old wear on the Rawthey for more oatcakes and cheese washed down with lashings of ginger beer (Irn Bru to be honest).
From there it was through the playing fields of Sedbergh and back to the car. I went via the bookshop which was pretty impressive. I am a total sucker for a bookshop, indeed I’d love to run my own, so can’t really pass one without going in. I was soon ready to head north, having enjoyed a great day in The Howgills. I made a promise that I would be back on a clearer day, a promise I have yet to keep.
Before getting back to base there has to be a stop if you are in this part of the world - Westmorland or Tebay services. Man alive, the average service station in the UK is utterly awful, overpriced, crap food and a soulless atmosphere. But Tebay is next level, an awesome farm shop, brilliant coffee and those views of the Fells. Cakes were purchased as a thank you to the family for allowing me the time away. They now even do their own beer, so a couple of those were sunk that evening, the perfect end to a perfect hill day in Cumbria.
