100, 250 and 400 metre races

It's late April and the wind had a cold penetrating edge on it for Wednesdays  walk. Undeterred we left cars at Crooklands  and descended narrow stone steps to the canal bank world, of tall trees overhanging the quiet water, away from the heavy traffic of the A65. The 'black and white' canal so called because coal came in and limestone went out, was built to take the water  from the specially dammed Killington Lake to supply Glasson Dock it could then remain open for ships to dock 24 hrs a day: the lakes outfall Peasey Beck feeds the canal at Crooklands.
We  walked a landscape  that had in recent years been cut and overrun by the motorway and bypass up to Kendal but we were looking for traces of earlier industrial interventions  the tramway from Gatebeck Gunpowder Works and head and tail races to various mills on Peasey Beck.

1930's life

Left former Millers house and warehousing, right converted mill

Millness Mill like many others has little trace of its former life and is now two houses their twee names reflecting the buildings former life, we on walked to Milton Mill and farmhouse steeped in the past  and overshadowed by the whirring ever present elevated road- 'it broke fathers heart cutting the mill field in half and so his heart gave up' Buttie told us this, his youngest daughter, who has lived and farmed all her life at Milton.

Mill Wheel at rest!

Shovels for turning the grain

Spanners for the works

I can only describe Milton Mill as in a state of 'living decay', the mill has not turned since the late 1950's but occasionally there has been a torrential flood through the mill due to high rainfall. The atmosphere is still and quiet, on each floor those with me stood quietly absorbing and interpreting the assembled memorabilia of past years, tools for milling and repairs, a boat for the millpond, ice skates, big sack scales, containers sitting on window sills, tools for farming some organised some here and there. All the while Buttie told with great warmth stories of her early years, walking to school in Endmoor, swimming in the millpond in summer and skating on it in winter and all year round learning and looking after the animals. My fellow walkers wondered what it would have been like with sound and Buttie gave us a clue. We lingered long enjoying the reminiscing and the delight in stepping out of the real world for a short time.

 Back out in the bracing wind we walked the lanes and canal bank up to Crookland's Mill Garage which was formally a bobbin mill - few traces remain, bricks in a back wall where the head race came through, infront of this MOT's take place where the waterwheel once turned.

Barbed wire and cobwebs on back window

Head race came through back wall, men would be in front of waterwheel

 We walked up the field behind following a ridge peppered with large limestones that once edged the long long headrace down to the mill. Peasey is a fast flowing beck now free to tumble to the sea for there are no mills to turn. Further up we see the line of the old tramway, from the Gatebeck Gunpowder Works down to Milnthorpe Station, now  two ridges of green alongside the hedge. We turn at Challon Hall where monks once rested before or after they had walked to Shap, Preston, Furness or Cartmel.

Painting of Kaker Mill 1950's

Down the road Kaker Mill has also succumbed to housing apparently able to sleep 14,  its millstones now resting in the back garden of Kaker Mill Farmhouse. We detour and look through the windows of the Friends meeting house and talk of mills, morality, religion and gunpowder.
The cold and biting wind has been licking round our faces and limbs  all day so a welcome cup of tea warms us through in the Old Schoolroom whilst we discuss the day then part for home.
Join me next Wednesday for talk of the sea, mills and views from Haverbrack 10 am meet at Heron Corn Mill

100,250 & 400 metres races

Source to the Sea

Last Wednesday the first of the guided walks ' I see no ships' took place along the footpaths, lanes and bridleways of Stainton  and Hutton.

Walking through Bleasehall wood

Before leaving the mill some of the group saw the Heron breakfasting on small fish unsuspectingly swimming in the turbines supply tank, that was the start of the bird watching.

Breakfast -easy pickings

 We saw a buzzard at close range,  a Woodpecker high up in the trees and as we picnicked below the road level at Blaystone Bridge to be  out of the wind the first swallows of summer swooped above us.
St Sunday's delightful tumbling beck hosted blackthorn trees frothing with fresh blossoms then in the small Bleasehall Wood it was carpeted with delicate wood anemones  and bluebells not yet flowering but green and fresh.  We rounded  Low Bleaze hamlet and followed Peasey Beck up to Blaystone Bridge. Freshly sown fields were crossed, fields with cows just turned out of winter quarters  and others with horses or sheep with lambs afoot.
Stone stiles,  wooden stiles, footbridges, gates with various fastenings many with surfaces polished by human hands as they passed over, everyone commented on the delight of local footpaths-walks that are on our doorsteps but had not been discovered until now.
At sites of mills I read Somervell's notes and we talked over changes and imagined the past.

Ghost of Halfpenny millthrough the trees

Halfpenny Mill had a colourful life flax mill, dye works, manure mill, paper and paper bag mill, cocoa matting manufactory and sugar boiling, now  the stone long gone to make other houses, is now a woodland site  full of birdsong.  The surprise of a waterfall at Beckside gave rise to talk of turbines past and present.

Waterfall at Beckside

Our final stop Millersbeck for tea and homemade biscuits to see the late Ian Dunn's humorous representational drawings of mill life when he was a lad and the sad tale of the Millers daughter who took rat poisoning and died, which she had bought for 2d, when she mistakenly thought the millers helper was not interested in her anymore.

The rain poured  so to  Fisher Tarn we did not go to view the distant sea.
    Join us this Wednesday 10 am at Heron Corn Mill to roam the byways of Milton, Millness, Crooklands and Preston Patrick.
Ring  015395 64271 to book a place.