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I set off yesterday on the first stretch of the long distance trail the 'Lady Anne's Way' - which runs from Skipton to Penrith. The 100 mile route has been planned around the idea of one of Lady Anne Clifford's journeys between her Northern properties - taking in the places of her birth (Skipton) and death (Brougham). 

The route can be done as six (challenging!) stages - but I think I'll complete it more gradually, perhaps breaking up some of the days, as 16 miles is getting to be a bit of an ask!

However, to get things going I stuck with 'stage 1' as written in the guide, 15½ miles from Skipton to Grassington in Wharfedale.

It has been a baking-hot spring and summer, and yesterday was no exception. Fortunately there was a little bit of cloud cover and an occasional breeze in the river valleys.

The route starts by the Parish church in Skipton, which I visited last year. Not much time to linger on this occasion, but I grabbed a quick memento of Anne's regular habit of self-memorialisation - this time her initials (Anne Pembroke) in the restored church windows. 

After that, it was up hill over a golf course and winding through the back of houses in the village of Embsay - all accompanied by beautiful sunshine.

The route crossed over Halton Edge to drop down into Wharfedale and the next example of Anne reclaiming and restoring her properties - literally cementing her reputation - Barden Tower.

As at Skipton Castle, and her other restored properties, Lady Anne had placed a memorial inscription over the entrance to the building.

The text reads:

THIS BARDEN TOWER WAS REPAYRD BY THE LADIE ANNE CLIFFORD COUNTESS DOWAGER OF PEMBROOKE DORSETT AND MONTGOMERY BARONESSE CLIFFORD WESTMERLAND AND VESEIE LADY OF THE HONOR OF SKIPTON IN CRAVEN AND HIGH SHERIFESSE BY INHERITANCE OF THE COUNTIE OF WESTMERLAND IN THE YEARES 1658 AND 1659 AFTER IT HAD LAYNE RUINOUS EVER SINCE ABOUT 1589 WHEN HER MOTHER THEN LAY IN ITT AND WAS GREATE WITH CHILD WITH HER TILL NOWE THAT ITT WAS REPAYRED BY THE SAYD LADY. ISA. CHAPT. 58. VER. 12. GOD'S NAME BE PRAISED!

Lady Anne had two marriages, the first to Richard Sackville ('a notorious wastrel and spendthrift') accounts for her 'Dorsett' title (he was Earl of the county) and the second to Philip Herbert (an ill-matched and loveless union) for 'Pembrooke' and 'Montgomery'. The title of Baroness of Westmorland was what had been denied Anne on the death of her father, and which she and her mother fought through the courts to try and regain. I spent a while puzzling over 'VESEIE' before deciding it probably refers to the title of 'Baron Vessy', which Anne's grandfather apparently tried to claim via marriage. Her role as High Sheriff gave her power over the selection of MPs and linked her into the regional assize courts.

The biblical text from the Book of Isaiah is another Lady Anne regular,

'And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.'

Barden Bridge was a great spot for ice cream, the bridge was another one of the buildings financed by Lady Anne.

The next section of the walk was the most beautiful of the day, passing alongside the River Wharfe for several scenic miles.

My final photo is towards the end of the day, looking down over the village of Burnsall with the moors rising above it (taken after what was a really steep climb - sometimes photography does lie! 😀) From here the final leg took me through pastures into the village of Grassington, just in time for my bus back to Skipton. Only 84½ miles to go!

This was a great place in York to think about both A223 chapters on work and poverty. It's the Merchant Adventurers' Hall, the oldest bits of which which date back to 1357.

Upstairs is the Great Hall, a place for ceremony and feasting for the City's merchants (often traders across the North Sea).

Downstairs has always been more strongly associated with alms and charitable welfare support. It has served as a dwelling place for impoverished local people, initially in the context of a religious fraternity (you can see a chapel at the far end). There are other halls in the city where the poor were put to work at different times, but I'm not sure if that was the case here. It was a prison briefly, but only in the context of the civil war when parliamentary soldiers were kept here whilst the city was under royalist control. 

By the end of the early modern period  it had become the location of a dispensary for the (deserving!) poor - apparently pensioners were still housed in this area until the start of the 20th century. The wealthy could donate to the charity and this in turn supported 'tickets' distributed through religious groups (including non-conformists - though I think York's Quaker population may have made different arrangements) which could be exchanged for treatment and support.

A set of Guild banners are displayed across the hall and it's fun trying to guess the trade from the coat of arms - the teasel in the banner below is probably a bit of a give away that these were the 'Clothworkers', but I learned the devices above are 'habicks' that were some sort of spring to hold cloth under tension. 

Of course, like a lot of York, these banners are a bit of a cheat 🙂 actually only dating back to 1909 and a 'Pageant' that included some dressing up to commemorate the city's relationship with King Richard III (although the arms are all the real-deal).

I was interested to discover that the Company of Merchant Adventurers still looks after 13 'deserving older members of York’s community' - under a licence that dates back to Edward III in 1373!

Not sure if Book 2 of A223 will be as 'Yorkshire-centric' 🙂, but had a lovely (and tasty) 'Chapter 8' visit to Skipton [5/12/2024], with a chance to have some excellent flapjack whilst looking at a replica of 'The Great Picture' in the castle tearoom.

As the chapter explains, Lady Anne invested in a lot of rebuilding of her reclaimed properties after the Civil War. The second level of these towers were reconstructed, but had to be built too thin for the roof to support cannon! (The castle had very successfully resisted Parliamentarian siege during the war)

One very tangible measure of the passage of time is that Anne had a yew tree planted in the central courtyard to mark the completion of the rebuild. It is now quite a spectacle.

She also had the local parish church repaired, those windows she had replaced were marked with the date and her initials - by then in 1655 after her second marriage - Anne, Lady Pembroke.

This smaller tomb is for her younger brother Francis (the taller boy in the picture) who died aged 5.

There was a striking memorial board in the church to all the charitable donations that supported the poor of Skipton, which was a timely reminder of a TMA I needed to complete on the 'economy of makeshifts'!