Fell End, High Pike, High Seat and Gregory Chapel
Walk date – 31st August 2024
Distance – 9.1 miles
Weather – dry and sunny, strong cool wind, hazy
Another sunny Saturday arrived so we decided to stay away from what would likely be a very busy Lake District and go somewhere that we knew would be less crowded and where parking wouldn’t be a problem. We parked off road, on Nateby Common, on the B6270 road which runs between Nateby and Reeth, where the start of the path was more or less opposite to our parking spot. Arriving anywhere in the Lake District at 9.15 am on a sunny Saturday would probably mean car parking disappointment but on the B6270 there was only us and one other car which was parked some distance away. We had decided that we would finally walk over the section of Mallerstang Edge that we hadn’t walked the last time we walked across them in June 2020. On that occasion we had parked on the river Eden side of Mallerstang and we dropped back down to it when we had reached High Seat. Today, having parked on the Nateby side, would give us the opportunity to visit Fell Head and High Pike before continuing on to High Seat and Gregory Chapel and then descending for the road walk back to the car.
Route
B6270 on Nateby Common – Fell End – High Pike – High Seat – Gregory Chapel – Long Gill Head – Little Sled Dale – B6270 along Birkdale back to Nateby Common
Fell End from our parking spot where the start of the path we will be using is just going out of shot on the left. The sun might be shining from a clear blue sky but the strong wind had a chilly edge to it and J was now wishing he hadn’t opted to wear shorts today. I had brought my shorts with me but, having felt the strength and coolness of the wind decided that they would stay in the car for the rest of the day. The windproofs went on instead.
Off we go along the path with a view of High Seat ahead of us. The path curves around just a little way ahead and begins to rise up towards Fell End.
Not to far up the path we meet this fenced off shake hole. Shake holes are depressions in the landscape and are created when surface water washes down into cracks or fissures in the limestone causing it to collapse. They’re often grouped together and you’ll see “shake holes” written on ordnance survey maps. The path skirts around the left hand side of the shake hole.
Looking up at Fell End from the squelchy path.
Looking back to Tailbert Hill and the B6270 running below it. A zoom in will show our car, the dark coloured one, and some distance to the left the other one (red colour) I mentioned previously. The only other vehicle, another dark coloured one even further to the left, has just gone along the road and is heading down towards Nateby. Hard to imagine this amount of empty space around the Lake District fells in today’s sunny weather.
Up on Fell End now with the view of Tailbert Hill below. Lots of haze around today so long distance views were poor to non-existent.
Turning around for a view along Mallerstang Edge from Fell End. J didn’t come over to Fell End and, as he had the gps with him which only plots where he goes, I’ve had to add a couple of little red arrows to the route map. He thought I was only going to be gone a couple of minutes but it was a good ten minutes walk to and back from this point. From here I made my way back to where he was waiting and we carried on over to …..
….. High Pike. I took this shot as we were making our way over to the path from the spot he had been waiting for me to re-appear from Fell End.
The summit cairn on High Pike. Unlike the Lake District High Pike this one has no other summit ‘furniture’. Just peeking up behind the cairn is Wild Boar Fell on the opposite side of the valley.
From High Pike we turn our attention towards High Seat. It was blowing a right old hooley across here.
Along the way we came across this odd looking feature, scattering a number of sheep as we approached it. Its a grassy mound surrounded by a layer of peat which I’m guessing was once just a grass covered undulation in the landscape. Its popularity with sheep creating their ‘scrapes’ in it over the years seems to be the cause of this end result. Presumably the remaining grassy mound will also collapse leaving nothing but a pile of peat. Wonder what the sheep will do for shelter when that happens.
I clambered up on top of it as J was approaching the grassy mound and …..
….. took a look back towards High Pike and the summit cairn.
Looking back at the mound as we carried on across the windswept plateau.
Another grassy mound along the way, not yet quite as bare as the previous one but getting there. There were quite a few of them dotted around the plateau some of which were almost certainly at the point of collapse. During the walk across we met a pair of walkers, probably a husband and wife team, making their way over to High Pike. We exchanged greetings but nothing more as they seemed reluctant to stop and chat.
About to begin climbing up to the summit of High Seat. The silvery coloured area in the foreground isn’t water, just a bare stony area which has turned the colour of drying cement. Reasonably firm today but after a period of rain I suspect it will become similar to walking through wet cement.
We reached the summit of High Seat where J noticed a circular trig point so I cleared away some of the greenery to take a shot of it. In the shaded area I noticed some lettering, in capitals, which had been carved into the stone and tried to get a shot of it but it didn’t turn out any clearer. Tracing the letters with my fingers seemed to spell out the word HOLE which made no sense to either of us so the lettering remains something of a mystery.
We must not have noticed it on our 2020 visit as there is no photo of the cairn or the trig point on that walk, so to show its location here’s where it can be found, right next to the summit marker cairn alongside the path.
We dropped down a little way from the path for this view of Swarth Fell (L) and Wild Boar Fell to its right. As we were sheltered from the wind down here we took a short break. When we returned back up to the path we noticed a solo walker taking photos of the trig point and the cairn. Wonder if he would have noticed it if we hadn’t cleared it of its overlapping vegetation. We didn’t have a chance to have a bit of a chat as he was some distance away from us when we rejoined the path.
The view along Mallerstang Edge from High Seat.
J leads the way as we descend High Seat and follow the path over to Gregory Chapel.
The view back to High Seat from the path to Gregory Chapel. As we walked over we saw another solo walker quite some distance ahead of us. By the time we reached Gregory Chapel he was nowhere to be seen. So he was the fourth walker we’ve seen today and that was the total for the rest of the walk.
The summit cairn on Gregory Chapel, a fell which also seems to go by the name of Archy Styrigg, with Wild Boar Fell behind it on the left.
Swarth and Wild Boar Fells from Gregory Chapel. The path stretching along towards them eventually takes walkers over Hugh Seat and eventually back down into the valley below.
A very hazy long distance view from Gregory Chapel. Over on the right we could just about see Whernside over on the right but it would be a bit of a stretch to say that we could also see Ingleborough which appeared as little more than a vague shape in the haze behind and to the left of Whernside. It was more a case of knowing it was there rather than actually being able to see it.
A sunny view of the Gregory Chapel cairn with just the very top of High Seat showing behind it to the right.
From Gregory Chapel we continued along the path for a short distance over towards Long Gill Head where this obelisk and wind shelter are situated. This is another section of the Mallerstang Edge which we haven’t walked over previously. On our 2020 visit we headed straight for Gregory Chapel via The Riggs and Hangingstone Scar so we missed out on this on that walk.
A view of the obelisk looking eastward in the direction of Nine Standards Rigg although there were no views of that on offer today. It was still extremely windy up here and both of us were feeling quite cold so we didn’t hang around for very long. We now needed to leave the path and drop down towards a track that we could see quite clearly some distance away but we had to undertake quite a long trek over rough and boggy ground to reach it.
On the way down we came across this, the first of many grouse butts on the way down.
The track we are aiming for is visible, some distance away, in the top right quarter of the shot. More patient and careful walking over the very rough will be required before we set foot on it though.
Lower down another grouse butt appeared with the slight variation of having a shelf, suitably disguised to fool any unwary grouse, on which to rest a gun barrel. From here we spotted some quad bike tracks which we made for and, after following them for just a little way, we arrived at a large, flat and stony area which we assumed would have served as a drop off point and turning circle for any vehicle bringing grouse shooters up to the butts.
From the turning circle, and with some relief, we took to the track and left the rough boggy ground behind us.
On the way down we came across this pole, placed across the beck, with an animal trap placed on top of it. We’ve come across this sort of arrangement in the past especially in areas where grouse shooting takes place. Take a look at our Wet Sleddale walk of May 2016 for another example.
A look back at our long walk down from the ridge line so far, there’s still a long way to go though. The old shed still had a lock on the door but the shed itself looked in a poor state of repair. Perhaps its still in use as storage for something or other though.
A line of grouse butts appears as we walk along the track. We’re well down the valley at this point and, although its still breezy, the wind is a lot less troublesome and we’re both back to normal now after being so cold up on the tops.
Another line of grouse butts were visible on the other side of the beck. ….
….. there was even one, complete with gun barrel shelf, situated right beside the track which …..
….. had J re-visiting his days on grouse moors and using his walking pole to adopt a gun shooting pose. Whenever we find empty shot casings he always tells me all about the pellets which would have been inside them. The only time I have held a gun was a very long time ago at a fair where even though I could hear the metallic ping of the pellets hitting the little tin man targets they somehow managed not to fall over thus depriving me of winning a goldfish. They must have been wedged somehow so they wouldn’t fall over, that’s my opinion. However, moving on …..
….. further along the track was this butt with a further variation in the form of a little platform to make it easier to get in and out because the butt had been built into the slope of a small rise in the ground. I wondered how many shooters had stepped back and fallen over both before and after the platform was added, especially when J mentioned that grouse shooting lunchtimes were always accompanied by beer and tots of Scotch. Seems likely that more grouse escaped being shot in the afternoon than during the morning session.
A former washfold alongside Little Sleddale beck which looked as though it was still used for some purpose when we noticed the addition of newer and unweathered stones on one side of it.
More grouse butts further along but now with a change of character as they were circular in construction and had been built with stones not wood …..
….. here’s the entrance to the one shown above.
There was even one immediately alongside the beck just below the footbridge …..
….. and a whole line of them appeared alongside the track after we had crossed the footbridge …..
….. when we reached the last one in the line we could see a flock of sheep being herded towards us. As leading sheep come to a halt and tend to scatter when they see anyone coming towards them we stepped off the path and made ourselves invisible using the grouse butt to do so. The farmer and his dogs have a hard enough time keeping them together without walkers upsetting the applecart. We looked back at them just after they had passed by to see that a small group had darted off up the hillside. The farmer uttered one word, ‘gan’, to the dog and it was away like lightning. It got up the slope before they did and simply stood there glaring down at them. The sheep ran back down the slope, rejoined the rest of the flock and order was restored.
When we reached the car in the distance the farmer came back down the track on his quad bike and mentioned that he would be taking another lot of sheep back up the track so we might want to wait five minutes before going any further. Sure enough he gave someone a shout and a few seconds later more sheep appeared which he and the dogs duly ushered up the track to their new pasture. We took the opportunity to remove our windproofs and midlayers and take a drinks break while that was taking place since it was quite warm in the valley at this point.
The sheep have been ushered along the valley and are now spreading themselves around and finding their favourite areas of grass. The farmer returned, loaded his quad bike onto the trailer after which he and the other helper spent a few minutes loading some fleeces. From down there the track rose very steeply so it was a good vantage point from which to take a shot of all that was going on. As we climbed up the track J shouted back to them that there were a couple of sheep still on the track but there may have been a reason for that as we found out when they came past us further along.
With a zoom in it will be possible to see two vehicles winding along the track far below us. The one in front has almost reached the B6270 while the one at the back still has some way to go before reaching the same point. We noticed that this one was pulling the smaller trailer which contained a couple of sheep, possibly the ones which J had shouted back to them about. Perhaps those sheep needed some attention and probably why they had been kept back from the main flock being herded up the track. Both vehicles made slow progress up to the road which made us think that the slope of the track was quite steep and hard to deal with. It didn’t bode well for us bipeds.
Below us Birkdale Beck was gently making its way across the stepped flat layers of its bed on its way to join the river Swale.
The footbridge crossing Birkdale beck which means that the walk up the zig-zag slope isn’t that far away, groans ensue!
A tranquil scene along the beck as we cross the bridge and prepare ourselves for the haul back up to the B6270.
It was a bit of a slog but we’re finally at the top of the track so while I got my breath back I took a shot looking along Birkdale towards Fell End. The track we’ve just walked down is over on the left of the shot.
I also took a look down at where we’ve just been walking. From the ridge line across rough and boggy ground to the long, long track, down to the bridge across Birkdale beck and its waterfalls and then up the zig-zag track back to the road. Phew!
We still have a long road walk ahead of us though and Fell End, over towards the left, looks a very long way away. The road is narrow and gets narrower in some places so we walk facing the oncoming traffic ready to step onto the verges as and when necessary which was quite often as it turned out.
We pass a well maintained sheepfold along the way. Fell End still looks quite some distance away. We plod on dodging cars, motor bikes and cyclists and even a line of Porsche sports cars on some sort of a ‘Porsche owners club outing’, with about 99% of the drivers of those sports cars sporting grey hair. J tells me that such cars are expensive so I suppose its only when someone reaches the ‘grey hair’ stage that they can afford them. Not being interested in cars of any sort for me they were just a line of noisy things interrupting the peace and quiet.
We eventually passed the point where these two signs are situated and as can be seen this one tells us that we have just left the Yorkshire Dales National Park, the other one further back down the road reads ‘Welcome to Richmondshire’. Now that we’re back in Cumbria we’ve left them both behind. There didn’t seem to be a notice anywhere around saying ‘Welcome to Cumbria’.
A couple of minutes walk from the signs brings the car back into view, at last, and after about two miles of road walking and traffic dodging it will be a treat to sit down on something comfortable and finally get to drink the flask of coffee we deliberately left in the car knowing that we would be ready for just such a drink, lukewarm or not, when we got back. As it turned out it was still as hot as it was when I made it this morning. That cup of coffee went down a treat and set us up nicely for the drive back home. The new school term begins this coming week so maybe the Lake District will empty out to some extent with parking becoming somewhat less fraught. We might even be able to return to the fells but that of course always depends on what the weather has in store for us.