I don’t want you to be put off by the industrial tag associated with the chimney and the other remnants that survive here. They have given rise to a secluded and singular landscape that makes the soul sing.
Along Scotland Lane I feel it first - a kind of mizzle that comes not in great drops, but as something akin to stardust hovering just above the surface of things and then descending in soft ribbons of gossamer.
When I flip through the old OS maps of the valley chronologically, some of these names evaporate with the passing of time. It's a gradual dislocation of our deep-seated association with place.
When I get up close to some of the mills, I might as well be standing within the bounds of Fountains or Rievaulx - buildings that were themselves cogs in their own industrious machines devoted to wool.
If the Grand Tour were still a rite of passage, this would be one of its stopping places — visited not for splendour but for its pleasing dereliction.
Refined Reflections: The Best of Genius Loci
Refined Reflections: The Best of Genius Loci
If you listen carefully, there are nooks that still echo the sounds of people that toiled here once. They are sounds that reside within the nominology of place. It is a prose wrenched from the ice, grit and shale of the valley.
I tell myself that it will pass, but whilst it’s here, I decide to turn my troubles into alms and take advantage of my super-senses.
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