About Leader's Landscape training:

Landscape is our support system without which we could not exist.

Everyone depends on landscape for food, water, fuel and clean air.

A beautiful and diverse landscape with a wealth of wildlife and human history inspires and enriches our lives and provides a ‘natural health service’ for mind and body. But our fragile landscapes are under threat as never before, not least from climate change, and our challenge is to understand, support and enhance them.

Leader’s Landscape Training is aimed at outdoor practitioners to help deepen your understanding of Cumbria’s landscapes and enable you to pass on your new-found knowledge to those with whom you work.

Workshop detail:

Leaders' Landscape Training 2024
The Westmorland Dales, its natural and cultural heritage
Date: Wednesday 14th August, 10am – 3pm

Session content: The Westmorland Dales is a beautiful area of Cumbria which lies to the north of the Howgills. It was included in the extended Yorkshire Dales National Park in 2016 in recognition of its outstanding landscape which, being based on limestone, is more in keeping with the Yorkshire Dales than the Lake District. It also has a very rich cultural heritage and has been described as one of the best preserved prehistoric archaeological landscapes north of Salisbury Plain. Knott and Great Asby Scar lie on the limestone fells at the heart of the Westmorland Dales with fine views to the Lake District Fells to the west, the Howgills to the south, the Pennines to the east and the Eden Valley to the north. Great Asby Scar is a National Nature Reserve, Knott a local geological site and the whole area bears the imprint of generations of people from Mesolithic times onwards. Although the landscape is very natural in character it has been hugely influenced by the way people have exploited and managed it for thousands of years. The walk will explore this theme, attempting to decipher the layers in the landscape. It will draw on much of the research and projects undertaken as part of the Westmorland Dales Landscape Partnership Scheme, which recently finished after five years of grant funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. We’ll be walking up past late-Neolithic Gamelands Stone Circle towards Gaythorne Plain, past a giant thunderstone, before entering Great Asby Scar NNR from the west. From here we’ll head east via the magnificent limestone pavements to Castle Folds Iron Age settlement then over the wall to Knott, the high point of the walk at 412m. We’ll then drop down via the Bronze Age cairns to the quarries below, with their stunning fossils, and back via Knott Lane.

Leaders: David Evans, former Westmorland Dales scheme manager  
Organiser: Kay Andrews, Friends of the Lake District

Location: Knott and Great Asby Scar
Meet location: Knott Lane car park, NY 639 079, off B6261 to Raisbeck
Parking: As above. Please car share if possible.
Start & finish time: 10 am – 3:00 pm. Please be there in good time for a 10am start
Walk grade: Moderate, mostly on paths but there will be some areas of steeper and uneven ground including areas of limestone pavement, at least one stile to negotiate. Length approx. 5 miles.

Please bring:
A picnic lunch and walk kit for all weathers. (Please note there is no indoor backup venue so the walk will go ahead in poor weather unless unreasonable or unsafe to do so) You might also like to bring a note book and pen to capture the info from the day. Bring plenty of water and sun protection!

To note:

If you have booked on to the event but need to cancel, please do contact us to let us know you won’t be coming. Please notify us at least 48 hours before the event so we can offer your place to someone else. Any cancellations within 48 hours of the event will not receive a refund.

click this link to book

Start

14/08/2024 10:00

End

14/08/2024 15:00

Total Days

1

Maximum Bookings

10

Venue

Knott Lane car park

Town

Cumbria

County

Cumbria

Country

United Kingdom

Grid Reference

NY 639 079

Name

Mountain Training Association

Phone

01539 720788

Website

Booking/Details

Email