TO ULPHA
Broughton Beck
Beanthwaite
Grizebeck
Foxfield
High Cross
Duddon Bridge
Red Bull
Honeysuckle
Coke cans
Rosa Canina
Stonestar
Carlsberg
Ulpha
I began this post with the
above names that I thought of as I drove past them, this morning, on my way to
the Duddon, plus a couple thrown in, as the litter was thrown into the hedgerows. To Ulpha Bridge, for a swim. Just me and Roy dog, a small rucksack
with sandals (for a grip on slippery river stones), towel, bottle of water,
sandwich and a banana. Reminding me of the time I got the bus to Torver, walked
up past Goat’s Water to the gap, turned a blind eye to Dow Crag, heading north
north west to drop down the path that leads to Seathwaite Tarn. A drink of
water and banana at the top of Goat’s Hause was nectar!
Walna Scar takes you down to
Seathwaite Tarn. An old Miner’s track, Drover’s track, Smuggler’s Track from
one Vale to the next.
That particular day, a hot
one in May, I walked from Torver to Broughton in Furness, via Goat’s Water, Seathwaite
Tarn, Seathwaite, down the Duddon Valley, past the church of the Wonderful
Walker (smiled wryly), called in to use the loo at the New Field Inn, and over
the narrow back lanes, past the Blacksmith’s Arms to drop down into Broughton –
and wait for a bus. And wait and wait… sitting at the Market Cross, by the
ancient stocks, my two dogs and I. At that time, the dogs were Moxee and
Buttons. A kindly woman offered the dogs a polo mint – but not one for me! I
should have panted and lolled my tongue!
ULPHA BRIDGE, YELLOW WAGTAILS AND A SWIM IN THE DUDDON
“I thought of Thee, my partner
and my guide,
As being past away.—Vain
sympathies!
For, backward, Duddon! as I cast
my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will
abide;
Still glides the Stream, and
shall for ever glide;
The
Form remains, the Function never dies;”
- Wordsworth, fr. ‘Duddon Sonnets’
But today at the Duddon it was Roy, our
Border Collie. His enthusiasm for a task knows no bounds. So when we settled
down on the grassy bank by Ulpha Bridge and I began to undress for a swim, Roy
got stuck into the river stones. Putting his head fully under water,
scrabbling at one stone after another, failing to get any and pause now and
then, to look at me.
Good lad! I said, as I slid
into the Duddon’s clear, cool, silky depth, good lad! As two startled yellow
wagtails flipped their tails, then darted upstream.
I’d gone early this Sunday
morning as I knew later on the narrow road up the valley would get busy, as
would the river bank. Busy with swimmers, picnickers, paddlers in dinghies and
canoes, families enjoying this sudden summer of heat, catching us by surprise.
After bathing for a while,
watching the Duddon and Furness Mountain Rescue team drive over the bridge,
then a Three Peaks Mini-bus drive past, I thought, hum, must be the weekend of
the Three Peak Challenge. This comprises Scafell, Ben Nevis and Snowdon. I
decided to have a walk along the road, not up to the tiny church of St John’s
but back the way I’d driven, pausing to take photos. I passed two dead Herdwick
lambs, this year’s by the look of them. Small, black, sturdy, not long dead,
within a few hundred yards of each other. Fast cars, eager to head up or down
the valley, their drivers don’t often stop for a lamb crossing the road to
reach the baa-aaing of its mother.
We walked for half an hour or
so, then stopped and sat on a rock raised high off the roadside, with a view
that spread down the valley up onto the Corney Fells and Ulpha Fells, basking
in the burning off of thin cloud haze. At my feet sheep muck and pink stone
crop, delicate flowers nestled alongside small, round shiny balls of sheep
faeces.
Walking back to the car,
parked at the bridge, I stopped and looked at one of the lambs, its eyes
glazed, and heard a gentle baaa. Saw its mother stepping towards it. The pause,
look at us. Then she nudged the dead lamb. I couldn’t look any more but walked
back to the car. Driving back down the valley to join the main Whitehaven to
Greenodd road I saw the sheep lying by the side of her lamb. I drove on.
Decided not to drive straight
back to Ulverston, Ulpha’s Town, the settlement of Ulpha we were told at school
and I’m not stopping typing to check if this is so, until I finish. Not
stopping to check the path I took over 30 years ago from Torver to Seathwaite.
No. This is from memory and love and I’m continuing my memory-trail.
I turned right at Grizebeck,
past the Greyhound pub – I know the names of pubs! Past Chapels, knew that up
that little side road was a row of houses called Paradise. The view across the
Duddon estuary, out to the Irish Sea and onto Black Combe’s mighty bulk
separating Lancashire North of the Sands from Cumberland, is paradise.
MARGARET FELL
“It pleased the Lord so to open my understanding
Imediately in the time of G Fs [George Fox's] declaration. That I saw perfectly
Just then that wee were all wrong, & that we were but Theives, that had
stollen the scriptures. which caused me to shed many tears. And I satt down in
my pew & wept all the while … “(Glines 2003, 430).
Through Kirkby-in-Furness my
mind took me to imagining where Margaret Fell lived as a child and young woman
before she married Judge Thomas Fell and later, George Fox. I knew Marsh Grange
Farm was close to the estuary, my sister said it was between Askam and
Kirkby, ‘you walk across the golf
course.’ I could see a couple of old
farms, or large old houses, nestled against what looked an old slag bank. But I
was driving and didn’t stop, so will go again on foot and check.
Her view. Of the Duddon
estuary, the estuary that Wordsworth wrote about in his Duddon Sonnets, tracing
as he did his journey, the river’s journey from source to sea. Norman Nicholson's
view of the estuary from Millom and back to Black Combe where a wall is a:
“grey millipede on slow/ stone hooves” (‘Wall’ by Nicholson). Views I grew up
with, am familiar with. The journeys across to Millom, over the viaduct, naming
the railway stations like a pilgrim.
A SING-SONG OF
RAILWAY STATIONS
Ulverston, Dalton, (trains
once stopped at the Abbey), Roose, Barrow, Askam, Kirkby-in-Furness, Green
Road, Millom, Bootle, Silecroft, Ravenglass, Drigg, Seascale, (new station at
Sellafield), Braystones, Nethertown, St. Bees, Corkickle (corpse circle), Bransty (Whitehaven).
But we got off at Nethertown, walked down the railway track with our cases and
baggage, ducked under the wire fence and up the narrow sea-pink lined path to
the bungalow, Borneo. Opened the door, and the Borneo smell greeted us, salty-driftwood, coal smoke, calor gas and warmth. Home
from home for a holiday. World's away from 'the Lakes' - West Cumbria and the Furness Peninsula, land of wide skies, breathing space and dazzling seascapes...
I drove back today over Kirkby
Moors and dropped down to the A590, then, on another whim, drove over Birkrigg
to Scales along the Coast Road to Newbiggin to give Roy a run on the sands and
in the receding tide. Thought about Fox crossing the Sands from Lancaster, to
land at the Bay Horse, ride into Ulverston, preach his vision, get thrown out of
St Mary’s Church near Hoad, to land up, eventually, under the wing of Judge
Thomas Fell, and his wife, Margaret.
Today tho, it was me, back
home for some sun in the garden, reading “Home Ground – Language for an
American Landscape” ed. By Barry Lopez and Debra Gwartney, thinking of place
names, how important they are to ground us, ground us in a place, creating an
intimacy through words and repetition that can for some be comfort, for others
claustrophobic. For me, it’s comfort – but my feet get itchy and I have to
taste and feel and understand what ‘home’ means to others.
“This is the shore, the line dividing
The dry land from the waters Europe
From the Atlantic; this is the mark
That God laid down on the third day.
Twice a year the high tide sliding,
Unwrapping like a roll of oil cloth, reaches
The curb of the mud, leaving a dark
Swipe of grease, a scaled out hay
Of wrack and grass and gutterweed. Then
For full three hundred tides the bare
Turf is unwatered except for rain;
Blown wool is dry as baccy; tins
Glint in the sedge with not a sight of man
For two miles round to drop them there.
But once in spring and once again
In autumn, here’s where the sea begins.”
Fr. ‘On Duddon Marsh’
Norman Nicholson
Geraldine Green, 7.7.2013
copyright for essay and photos Geraldine Green
River Duddon, Ulpha Bridge, Pink Stonecrop, Swarthmoor Hall, Roanhead Beach
River Duddon, Ulpha Bridge, Pink Stonecrop, Swarthmoor Hall, Roanhead Beach
