Here are some more photos from walking around Settle. Some are early in the morning. The field with the hay bales is right in front of where my grandma used to live. That field always had sheep in it when we would visit – and when we would come up at Easter school holidays would usually have pregnant sheep and lambs in it.
This is looking down on Settle from a hill at the edge of town.
These photos are from Gordale Scar and Malham – which is about 5 miles away.
The walks in this part of the world have lots of stiles. In fact – if you come to a stile – that’s the best evidence that you are still on a footpath and haven’t got lost. They come in all sorts of designs. The most common are stone steps that jut out from the dry stone wall. Sometimes now these also have a little gate on top – which didn’t used to be the case. But read on and you may be able to guess why this has been added …
But there are also wooden styles, kissing gates, narrow spaces you have to squeeze through, ladders that go over walls or fences
There are even special equivalents (build in holes in the walls) for sheep. these are often blocked up with loose stones if the farmer wants to keep the sheep in the field in questions.
However – for the first time in my life – I saw – from a distance – two sheep go over a human stile this week.
This is the stile in question
Here is a photo from a ways away showing one of the sheep in progress. It took the first sheep a few running attempts – but the second sheep went over pretty fast.
