Horton to Newhouses
Without the railway, the effect enhanced by the cartographer's crude but realistic engraving of mountains, it looks a wilderness through which only one road penetrates north, that from Horton through Newhouses, Birkwith, Old lng, and across Ling Gill, to join what was then the Richmond to Lancaster turn pike coming over Cam Fell from Bainbridge in Wensleydale. This is now a by road tarred only as far as High Birkwith Farm. The present main road from Horton through Selside to Ribblehead is not marked, and it is in fact comparatively modern. The map best shows these old and new roads. Cheap holiday pads in London
A Roman road, known far back in the past as the Craven Way, started out from the fort at Long Preston up the dale to Horton, possibly then taking the route through Birkwith, past Thorns and Gearstones, and over Whernside to Dent. It has been plotted by F. Villy, and it shows well marked pavements over Whernside a road worth exploration. Near Gearstones this track crossed the Roman road from Bainbridge Fort to Lancaster; the latter was adopted by the turnpike.
These byroads of Ribblesdale Roman, monastic, and eighteenth century turnpike are mostly green tracks that make the dale a paradise for the walker. There are the packhorse roads: that which comes from Beckermonds and Greenfield in Wharfedale to join the HortonLing Gill Road at Scale Farm and to cross to Selside and continue over Sulber Nick to Clapham; and that which comes from Littondale past Hull and Hunt Pots to Horton.
Three miles beyond Horton the road twists rather than winds that would imply too large a place through Selside. The houses draw close with the Red Lion Inn, now a house, on the right, and Shaws, a farmhouse with a superb doorway and the date 1738, on the left. The road opens out on a tiny green with a row of cottages, of which only one is occupied, on one side, a farm and a school on the other. A small gill, by which you scramble up to North Cote Farm, runs through this grey hamlet occupied almost entirely by a farming community.
Selside, like other place names ending in 'side' or 'sett,' derives from the Old Norse, and means 'sallow shieling' (the croft by the willows).
At the time of the Domesday survey it was a small Norse settlement rated at a hundred acres, and the farthest one up Ribblesdale to be recorded. It belonged to Furness Abbey at the Dissolution. Within living memory a fair, called Selside Pot Fair or Cheese Fair, was held each year on 24th June; but about 1890, when the topographer, Harry Speight, passed through, the place was half derelict. It now consists of seven farms and eleven cottages in the hamlet and round about. Thirteen to fifteen children attend the tiny school, which was built in 1877 when £30 a year became available from the endowments of Horton Grammar School. Selside not only boasts a school but a town hall, which now looks like a derelict barn, but was once a forgathering place for the men.
A Roman road, known far back in the past as the Craven Way, started out from the fort at Long Preston up the dale to Horton, possibly then taking the route through Birkwith, past Thorns and Gearstones, and over Whernside to Dent. It has been plotted by F. Villy, and it shows well marked pavements over Whernside a road worth exploration. Near Gearstones this track crossed the Roman road from Bainbridge Fort to Lancaster; the latter was adopted by the turnpike.
These byroads of Ribblesdale Roman, monastic, and eighteenth century turnpike are mostly green tracks that make the dale a paradise for the walker. There are the packhorse roads: that which comes from Beckermonds and Greenfield in Wharfedale to join the HortonLing Gill Road at Scale Farm and to cross to Selside and continue over Sulber Nick to Clapham; and that which comes from Littondale past Hull and Hunt Pots to Horton.
Three miles beyond Horton the road twists rather than winds that would imply too large a place through Selside. The houses draw close with the Red Lion Inn, now a house, on the right, and Shaws, a farmhouse with a superb doorway and the date 1738, on the left. The road opens out on a tiny green with a row of cottages, of which only one is occupied, on one side, a farm and a school on the other. A small gill, by which you scramble up to North Cote Farm, runs through this grey hamlet occupied almost entirely by a farming community.
Selside, like other place names ending in 'side' or 'sett,' derives from the Old Norse, and means 'sallow shieling' (the croft by the willows).
At the time of the Domesday survey it was a small Norse settlement rated at a hundred acres, and the farthest one up Ribblesdale to be recorded. It belonged to Furness Abbey at the Dissolution. Within living memory a fair, called Selside Pot Fair or Cheese Fair, was held each year on 24th June; but about 1890, when the topographer, Harry Speight, passed through, the place was half derelict. It now consists of seven farms and eleven cottages in the hamlet and round about. Thirteen to fifteen children attend the tiny school, which was built in 1877 when £30 a year became available from the endowments of Horton Grammar School. Selside not only boasts a school but a town hall, which now looks like a derelict barn, but was once a forgathering place for the men.
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