Lyth Valley 28 May 2017 An escarpment opens up horizons. Today low cloud lingers over the distant fells and, without clarity, I am well content with the middle-distance. Vistas another time. This chequer-board of fields down in the Lyth Valley is my objective. From up on Scout Scar escarpment it resembles a map spread out below. A map with an overlay of farming calendar, of season and of weather. Traces of flood water linger from yesterday's thunderstorms . Armed with binoculars and camera, all I need is a vantage point and for the sun to play along. I sit contemplating the landscape, thinking upon the hours I spend waiting for the sun to shake off clouds and shed light where I’d like it. That coincidence of elements coming together is rare, and elusive.
As I listen to A History of Telling Time with Bridget Kendal I reflect that I spend hours checking the progress of the sun in the sky. I’m attuned to the way time and photoperiod play out over Scout Scar. The escarpment is on a north/ south alignment and the face of the cliff will be illuminated only when the sun is at a certain elevation and toward the south. Each season is distinct.
I have an idea of the shots I’d like, I know the aspect and I experiment with elevation, up the slope and down again as perspectives change. I have a secret location in mind. Since the time of Storm Desmond, 5 December 2015, when next day I took a photo sequence of floodwaters in the Lyth Valley, Helsington Pool has fascinated me. The Lyth Valley was wetland until the time of Enclosure so it lacks the quirky medieval pattern of field-systems. Field boundaries are in straight lines like a grid imposed on a landscape and, because land is at sea-level, a drainage ditch runs beside almost every hedgerow- a pattern visible on the OS map, and after a day of thunderstorms. Helsington Pool defies the pattern with its sinuous curves and meandering course. Drain, dike and pool across the mosses. The watercourse of Helsington Pool drains south to join the River Gilpin to its confluence with the River Kent, debouching into Morecambe Bay.
I have an idea of the shots I’d like, I know the aspect and I experiment with elevation, up the slope and down again as perspectives change. I have a secret location in mind. Since the time of Storm Desmond, 5 December 2015, when next day I took a photo sequence of floodwaters in the Lyth Valley, Helsington Pool has fascinated me. The Lyth Valley was wetland until the time of Enclosure so it lacks the quirky medieval pattern of field-systems. Field boundaries are in straight lines like a grid imposed on a landscape and, because land is at sea-level, a drainage ditch runs beside almost every hedgerow- a pattern visible on the OS map, and after a day of thunderstorms. Helsington Pool defies the pattern with its sinuous curves and meandering course. Drain, dike and pool across the mosses. The watercourse of Helsington Pool drains south to join the River Gilpin to its confluence with the River Kent, debouching into Morecambe Bay.
Lyth Valley from Scout Scar escarpment. Left of centre: Helsington Pool. Buttercup pastures, then cropped golden pastures and chocolate-coloured bare earth with floodwater. The barn by Helsington Pool Bridge is beside the road.
Helsington Pool runs between high grassy embankments where sheep are grazing, embankments that merge into the green pastures and are indistinct. That’s why my Storm Desmond images are so unusual: the embankment becomes a dark and dramatic pattern etched over floodwater. Long after I took those flood images I zoomed in to discover 50 sheep stranded on the embankment. Through binoculars, I make out fences and gates for stock control. Cattle are reflected upside down in flood water beyond.
Dobdale Hill can’t make its mind up: hill or dale? Not surprised at the confusion, it’s scarcely a knoll, a single contour where an outcrop of rock breaks through the peat of the mosses. I do believe I can make out the little owl sitting on the roof-ridge of the barn, with maximum zoom and a little imagination. Before the hump-back bridge is a chocolate coloured field of bare earth, with standing water after yesterday’s storms.
The bubbling song of the curlew drifts from below. A redstart sings somewhere in the fringe of wood below the tiers of cliff that descend to the valley. I hear a voice and make out a house hidden away in the trees. I wonder if kids today are taught about crop-rotation and letting the ground lie fallow. There are pastures in rich yellow- too distant to tell if they are buttercups but sedges and rushes tell of waterlogged ground and perhaps they're kingcups.
The weather forecast is punctual almost to the hour and blue sky opens up and if I judge the passing white clouds aright the landscape is lit fleetingly.
Dobdale Hill can’t make its mind up: hill or dale? Not surprised at the confusion, it’s scarcely a knoll, a single contour where an outcrop of rock breaks through the peat of the mosses. I do believe I can make out the little owl sitting on the roof-ridge of the barn, with maximum zoom and a little imagination. Before the hump-back bridge is a chocolate coloured field of bare earth, with standing water after yesterday’s storms.
The bubbling song of the curlew drifts from below. A redstart sings somewhere in the fringe of wood below the tiers of cliff that descend to the valley. I hear a voice and make out a house hidden away in the trees. I wonder if kids today are taught about crop-rotation and letting the ground lie fallow. There are pastures in rich yellow- too distant to tell if they are buttercups but sedges and rushes tell of waterlogged ground and perhaps they're kingcups.
The weather forecast is punctual almost to the hour and blue sky opens up and if I judge the passing white clouds aright the landscape is lit fleetingly.
The rare hoary rock rose flowers on the cliff- face, where it has no competition. Its flowering phase lasts only a few weeks and its flowers only open in full sun. Flowers pale yellow and leaves a hoary grey-green. Common rock rose begins to flower a little later, but it's more robust. The two grow intermingled on limestone near the cliff edge. Tease out an open flower and it was always common rock rose.
BB C World Service. A History of Telling Time with Bridget Kendal. I recommend the programme
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