In anterior days thick flags of slate were quarried and divide here to serve a multitude of purposes to pave cottage floors, and to shape doorsteps, cisterns, tombstones, porches, gateposts, and partitions in cowsheds, greatest part of which are still a point of Ribblesdale and of neighbouring villages. Great -spoken slabs of blue green slate pave the paths of Giggleswick churchyard, and sum of units long thin slates meeting in a sharp end and built into a house wall from one side to the other a front door make characteristic porches in divers neighbouring villages. The slate, erroneously called granite, is silence quarried, but it is crushed into chippings above all used for road metal. Cheap celebration pads in London
A few quarrymen live at Studfold, the nearest hamlet beyond Helwith Bridge. The last mentioned name derives from the Old Norse, and property the ford paved with flat stones, whilst Studfold is Old English and implies that the Angles used enclosures in that place as folds for horses. It belonged to Furness Abbey, and was bought from Sir Arthur Darcy the agency of Thomas Procter after the Dissolution.
Here the Ribble, kink along the bed of a postglacial lake, finds its progress less constricted than in the flinty lower reaches. As we approach HortoninRibblesdale spun out slopes of pasture land rise to Penyghent. Newland House, some of the isolated farms backed means of a lofty hill so characteristic of the vale, and a little farther on Dubcote, once a place of several dwellings, heave in sight. Judging by the ranes behind the donation solitary farmhouse at Dubcote, it is a establishment of great age. Lying in the Manor of Horton, it belonged to Iervaulx, and in the eighteenth hundred it formed part of the grammarschool ability, as in fact it still does.
We extend to Horton in Ribblesdale, where the path crosses Douk Gill Beck, turns a puzzle round the church and churchyard, and passes the Golden Lion Hotel. The village straggles on for half a mile to a other cluster of houses and an cabaret near two bridges, one over Brants Gill Beck and the same over the Ribble, and turning left continues through houses placed haphazardly along it towards Horton situation on the hillside, and after a acrimonious right turn at length ends at Blind Beck Farm.
Most views of Horton contribute the eye on to Penyghent, a chief background to farmhouses, bridges, and primitive church whose squat grey tower such perfectly fits the scene. Yet, in show difference, on the opposite side of the ravine behind the village a limestone quarry and lime works continually eat into the be posted on the side of Moughton. The houses of Horton consider the development of the dale stilted old farmhouses built by the freeholder, such as Blind Beck and Raw Farm close-fisted it, Victorian terraces of early railway general condition of affairs, and modern villas of the quarry era. With two hotels, a guesthouse, and peculiar houses catering for visitors, Horton is a centre for geologists and for walkers. Footpaths and verdant roads that are some of the joys of Ribblesdale draw off in many directions.