Tuesday, November 18, 2008 02:56  

Littondale

Map of Littondale (Opens in a new page).

Location: Central Dales

River: Skirfare

Principal Towns & Villages: Arncliffe, Litton, Halton Gill, Foxup

A tributary of the larger Wharfedale Littondale has the typical U shape of a glaciated valley, it river the Skirfare, joins with the river Wharfe at Amerdale Dub, Amerdale being the past name for Littondale. Now named after the village and not its river, as is commonplace throughout the Yorkshire Dales.

Usually entered at its junction with the Skipton to Kettlewell road near to Kilnsey, other roads connect the villages of Halton Gill to Stainforth and Arncliff with Malhamdale.

This is a quite and unspoilt dale that displays evidence of Bronze and Iron Age settlements. Saxon cultivation formed lynchets, seen as terraces along the dale sides. The Normans used it as part of their extensive hunting forests, before the monks of Fountains Abbey cleared the land during the 13th century for sheep farming.

Today the barns, dry stonewall and scattered farmsteads make Littondale as picturesque a valley as any in the Dales National Park.