151 Hatless on Rombalds
You’ll only walk about three miles and achieve a height of just over 1000 ft., so you might think a south to north traverse of Rombald’s Moor a rather slight undertaking. But it’s a walk often regarded as a classic, for it’s one on which many walkers from Leeds and Bradford have cut their teeth over the years.
Sixty years ago, Alfred J. Brown, a well-known Yorkshire walker, author and poet recorded in Moorland Tramping that ” … this great, sprawling ridge of a moor … has trained more trampers than any other moor in the shire.”
Rombald’s Moor is also famous for something which happened there over 100 years ago. We still sometimes celebrate that incident in song. Frequently, though, it’s only because it’s the only song suitable for mixed company which everybody knows all the words to!
One summer day in 1886, a horse-drawn charabanc came to the Cow and Calf Rocks, above Ilkley. On board were members of a Huddersfield church choir on a day-trip. As the day wore on, the prolonged absence of a young couple in the party was noted.
When the young man eventually returned with the lady, he was questioned about his whereabouts, as befits a good choir, in song. To the hymn tune “Cranbrooke”, they sang:”Wheer were ta bahn when Ah saw thee…” or, roughly translated: “I say, old chap! What were your intentions at our previous encounter?” Rather a silly question, really, considering the circumstances!
I’m reliably informed that the more usual rendering “Where asta bin sen’ Ah saw thee?” is a Southern affectation, and the true Yorkshireman will have none of it. The “bah’tat” business should properly be written “bar t’ ‘at”, or, as they say in Harrogate, “devoid of one’s headgear”.
For anyone who loves Yorkshire, these facts turn a simple walk into a pilgrimage. It’s appropriate, therefore, to approach the shrine with reverence; on foot, and with your head decently covered!
The starting point is the Fleece at High Eldwick, just outside Bingley. Don’t, however, enquire for the Fleece by its official name. Dick Hudson held the licence from 1850 until 1878; since then, the place has been known far and wide simply as “Dick Hudson’s”.
J.B. Priestley wrote: “The moors are there … You have only to squeeze through the little hole in the wall, just beyond Dick Hudson’s, to take your fill of them…”
Priestley’s little hole in the wall is still there. Nowadays, it has a gate made from a sheet of steel, which I think might once have given access to the footplate of a railway engine. Beyond it, a narrow, stone-walled footpath takes you gently uphill to Bingley Moor, which, like the more famous Ilkley Moor is just one sector of the high ground called Rombald’s Moor.
It’s an old and well-trodden way. Part of the path beyond the moor wall is a flagged causeway through the heather. Heather flowers in August, making that the best time to visit, although there’s plenty of bracken for a splash of colour later in the year.
The over-the-shoulder view of Airedale behind you is too built-up to be called inspiring, but it’s good in the sense that you can see a long way. The old-time walkers had an unwritten rule not to look back until a prominent landmark called Lister’s Chimney was well out of sight.
On each hand, there are wide tracts of moor, and always an easy path to guide you across. Soon, you’ll come upon a large milestone, which shows the former importance of the old path.
Actually, it’s a Neolithic standing stone, which someone thought would make a good milestone. Its tombstone-like shape brings to mind the fourth and fifth verses of The Song, which remind Man of his humble place in the food-chain!
Just as old is the Twelve Apostles, a stone circle on your right-hand side as you approach the watershed between the Aire and the Wharfe. If you saw “Stone Circle” on your map, and expected to see something like Stonehenge or Avebury, you may be disappointed. The Twelve Apostles are only about knee-high, and barely a dozen feet across. But it’s an attraction nevertheless. You can tell by the well-beaten path which makes the slight diversion necessary to reach it.
At the highest point of the path, there’s a boundary stone to tell you that you’ve passed from Bingley Moor and on to the famous Ilkley Moor. Here, the ground is softer, but there are duck-boards to ease your passage. Or, are they possibly there to prevent t’ducks form eating up t’worms?
You’ll find the only water on the walk at Gill Head, where the path divides. Take the narrower path on the right, which follows the beck downhill, until you see the Cow and Calf Rocks on the skyline to your right.
I’ve never been able to find out if the Cow and Calf Rocks were simply named for their shape (the Calf is the big boulder at the foot of the crag), or named after the nearby Cow and Calf Hotel.
You probably already admired the view of Wharfedale on the way to the top of the crags, so there doesn’t seem to be a lot more to do, except walk back to Dick Hudson’s, if you left your car there. You could visit the coffee stall or the pub, and if you want to walk on down the hill, Ilkley is rather nice. Other possible pursuits are rock-climbing, or watching the rock-climbers.
But, maybe you brought Mary Jane with you. Don’t forget your hat!
Note: Since I wrote this piece, an American friend pointed out that, to him, ‘courting Mary Jane’ had a slightly different connotation. Try translating her name into Spanish, and you get ‘Maria-Juana’! Instead of dallying with his lady friend, could the lad have possibly been having a spliff behing the Cow and Calf Rocks? Surely not!
139 Yorkshire From The Wikipedia
Yorkshire is the largest traditional county of England, covering some 6,000 sq. miles (15,000 km²) with a population of some five million. It is traditionally divided into West, North and East Ridings (from Old Norse þriðing, “third part”, a legacy of the area’s ninth century Scandinavian settlers). The county town, York, is not part of any riding.
The emblem of Yorkshire is the White Rose of the House of York, and there is a Yorkshire Day celebrated on August 1. Amongst the celebrations there is a Civic gathering of Lord Mayors, Mayors and other Civic Heads from across the county and convened by the Yorkshire Society, in 2004 it was held in Leeds and in 2005 it was held in Bradford. The people of Penistone will be hosting the Civic gathering in 2006. There is also an “anthem” for the county in the form of the folk song “On Ilkla Moor Baht’at” (on Ilkley Moor without a Hat).
“Tyke” is a colloquialism for the Yorkshire dialect as well as the term some Yorkshiremen affectionately use to describe themselves, though virtually non-existent on the North Riding coastline. The social stereotype of a Yorkshireman has a tendency to include such accessories as a flat cap and a whippet. Among Yorkshire’s unique traditions is the Long Sword dance, a traditional dance not found elsewhere in England. More recently, Yorkshire has been home to its own genre of techno music, Yorkshire Bleeps and Bass.
Source: wikipedia.org