BB1309 : Kendal's Blackqueducts

Thursday 7th March 2013

Have you noticed the resurgence of black and white photography?

A couple of days later, we visited the new and extraordinary Jean Cocteau museum in Menton.

In addition to the normal display of the works of Cocteau and his pals was a photo exhibition. The photographer, Lucien Clerge, has quite a different style to Jilly but he also uses black and white.

It made me realise that far from being an outmoded method of portraying an image, it causes you look at things in a different way.  Undistracted by colour, you notice form and light and shade.  I can now understand better why occasional BOOTboy Graham is so keen on the medium.  He goes one stage further (or is it back?) and uses a pin-hole camera.

Whether the style translates well into BOOTboys reports is quite a different matter but here goes!  Anyone wanted an unexpurgated colour version should double-click on the chosen picture.

The book is out of print but I found a second hand copy on the web and perhaps we will tackle it once we have finished The Miller's Way with Ian & Cynthia.

In the course of the research, I found a description of Kendal's Three Aqueduct Crossings Walk compiled by Peter Dobson in 2003.  It ticked several boxes for a day in which the forecast precluded going high and time constraints prevented being out too long. And it is near to home.

Convening at the lay-by near Millcrest, we headed northwards across the fields, soon to meet the first aqueduct.  The four large pipes from the four stages of development of the Thirlmere scheme were clear to see, as was the small but rather fine building which presumably hoses an inspection  chamber.  It is certainly not a pumping house as the water flows all the way to Manchester powered by gravity alone.

Viaduct Number 1

The route instructions were a little ambiguous here and I made the classic mistake of following what I interpreted as the directions rather than consulting the map.

Or maybe we were led astray by the friendliest little lamb we have ever met.

Once back on the right route, we were led down to the River Sprint and along the east bank, opposite Oak Bank Mill, and soon the second aqueduct was discovered.

Aqueduct number two inspection chambers

Comitibus : Aqueduct number two

What followed was a pleasant stroll across farmland and the A6, along a curved old trail, past a pylon then by the striking modern barn development at Skelsmergh Hall.

Next stop was Dodding Green where we had lunch in some convenient wheelchairs. Actually they were wooden benches but Bryan and Stan had fun pretending to push two old BOOTboys around in the bath chairs for the fogeygraph.

Obviously developed from a water mill site with worker's cottages, it is now a small but messy conglomeration of ugly industrial units plus cottages that collectively look more attractive from the rear than the front.

Meal Bank door feature

Up stream, disguised by a stone bridge is the third aqueduct, this time carrying water from Haweswater.

The third aqueduct

Valentine Regained

Avid readers will recall that I raised the question as to what were the mysterious slabs by the side of the path discovered on BB1308 : Valentine Postponed.

Ian G suggested that rather than being gravestones, they were more likely to be Brathay Flags.  These were often used together as field boundaries.  There are, he added, plenty in the Coniston area.  He went on to predict that I would research the matter further.  

As if!

Terry C, who hopes one day to join us, advises that the mysterious slates at the side of the path reminded him of the ones in Nepal.

He asked whether they had Buddhist chants carved into them or just "Tracy loves Wayne" scratched thereon?

I advised him that we didn't see anything about Tracy or Wayne.  Though one set of markings did look remarkably like:

PRASUTAGUS IS ENAMOURED OF BOUDICCA

See, I told you they were Valentine Messages!

The Colour Supplement

Last week Bryan was Billy Nomates so he went out twice.

On Sunday he decided to try a walk on the Southern part of the Bowland Fells, starting from the village of Chipping.  He reports that:

His second outing was on Tuesday, starting from Dunmail Raise up the old familiar track up Raise Beck.

From the valley floor there looked to be very little snow but on reaching Grisedale Tarn it was a different world with the East and South facing slopes still being plastered in snow.

I didn’t need crampons until Dollywagon Pike, but from there on they were pretty much essential.

At the summit I was taking a photo when I noticed a climber soloing up the East face straight from Red Tarn. Pretty dramatic, but probably too hard for me!

I opted for a different route down via Comb Crags and down to Thirlmere. It proved interesting for a couple of reasons.

Firstly I encountered a group of 5 people traversing across a 40 degree slope of hard packed and icy snow. They all had ice axes but none had crampons – the complete opposite to me. They were really struggling as the snow was too hard in places even for kicking steps. My offer of help to get them across to some softer snow was politely rejected so I opted to watch them until they were safely across.

Further down I came to Comb Crags and initially had trouble finding the line down through them. When I did I rather regretted not having brought the axe. Parts of the slope were close to the limit for microspikes – slow but sure proved to be the best policy. For those now thinking “Good decision not to join him” I should add that I could have abandoned the route and traversed across the slope for a while to re-join my way in, and I definitely wouldn’t have taken anyone down that way that hadn’t had a reasonable amount of winter experience.

A brilliant day – 7.8 miles and 2860 feet

Bryan

BOOTboys routes are put online in gpx format which should work with most mapping software. You can follow our route in detail by downloading bb1309

To discover which Wainwright top was visited on which BB outing see
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