Carlisle & District Rambling & Fellwalking Club

Walk & Event Reports

Sunday 27th November 2016

A Walk

Shap to Pooley Bridge

12 Miles Grade 2

Leader: Graham Bell

Report & Photos by Peter Flynn

Video & Commentary by Heather Perrin

( U Rating )

SOME “A” walks are exciting;  others challenging;  some, while a good distance (Lesley had a magic device that registered today’s at 12 miles) are memorable for the views, the company, the “craic” I believe it is called in certain quarters.  This one was very much the latter.  We set off from Shap in lovely sunshine with Graham fretting from the off about how much daylight we had left.  He needn’t have worried.  We made an excellent pace to Shap Abbey where one of the hens, without so much as a “by your leave” tried to join the group.  Having his photo taken seemed to worry him (her?) and he/she went back to the ruins.  We walked through the fields once populated by the pre-monstratension monks who earned their keep by such activities as farming, forestry, book binding and even running observatories.  Sadly the buildings were destroyed by our old friend Henry VIIIth and the stone went to build Shap Town Hall.  Much of the walk followed the Miller’s Way, a comparatively recent agglomeration of footpaths tracing the route, originating in Kendal and finishing in Carlisle, with an extension to Silloth followed by Jonathon Dodgson Carr, a Quaker visionary who established Carrs biscuit factory and the Silloth flour mill.  Both these are still running.  The actual walk was planned by Stan Benson, well known to most folk in the club as one of our senior members. We followed the river Lowther for several miles going through several hamlets including one curiously named Whale.  A steady but easy climb up Askham fell took us along excellent paths to Pooley Bridge and its delightful tea shop.  Thanks Graham for a lovely walk which must have taken a lot of planning.

Peter