A hidden gem in the Yorkshire Dales
A quiet valley within the Yorkshire Dales National Park
Garsdale is a quiet valley within the Yorkshire Dales National Park with a scattering of farms and farm cottages. The area is mainly sheep farming with woodlands, hills and the river Clough running through it, with many streams and becks leading to the river.
There are great expanses of wild moorland, hills to climb, woodlands and countryside footpaths to follow including the Pennine Way.
Garsdale sits along the A684 about 6 miles from Sedbergh and 9 miles from Hawes. It is in Cumbria within the Yorkshire Dales National Park close to the border of Richmondshire in North Yorkshire.
Garsdale is an ideal location for walking, cycling, bird watching or just having time to enjoy the peace and tranquility and the beautiful countryside.
Garsdale is Dark Sky friendly so the sky on a clear night is spectacular.
The area is a haven of calm and peace, there is very little traffic and minimal background noise so there is calm to hear the river, the birdsong, the breeze in the trees, insects buzzing in the flowers.
We are 6 miles from the nearest town, so the area can feel untroubled by some of the problems of the world and this can feel like a weight is lifted from your shoulders.
A haven for red squirrels and upland birds
Garsdale is a haven for red squirrels and they can be regular visitors to the garden at times in the year but can be seen in the nearby woodlands frequently and on the banks of the river Clough in amongst the trees.
Roe deer can be found in the fields and woodlands and brown hares are a common sight, along with an abundance of rabbits, moles, voles and mice. Foxes, badgers, weasels and stoats are also at home here and hedgehogs are regularly seen.
There are a huge number of birds to be spotted with upland birds such as oystercatchers and curlews, lapwings and meadow pipits and the occasional skylark. In summer we have cuckoos and swallows and Sedbergh has the good fortune of swifts making their summer home there.
The bird feeders have regular visits from numerous birds such as nuthatches, great tits, robins, siskins, blue tits, long tailed tits, dunnocks and the garden is visited by willow warblers, gold crests, spotted flycatchers, redpolls and we also have the winter visitors such as redwings and fieldfares and many others.
Grouse, pheasants and partridges can be found in the fields and moorlands and we have tawny owls, barn owls and short eared owls along with kestrels, buzzards and sparrowhawks regularly seen. The river attracts herons, dippers, mallards, goosander and if we are very lucky, a glimpse of a kingfisher.
Heritage and history in this unspoilt corner of the Dales
Garsdale has remained unspoilt and has changed little for more than a hundred years. Many of the farms and buildings are listed to protect the heritage of the area (there are 62 listed buildings in Garsdale) and some of the houses date back to the 16th and 17th century.
Garsdale has been a hill farming community but hand knitting was also a local craft and there was coal mining on Baugh Fell and quarrying limestone, sandstone and marble in the mid 19th century. Garsdale has 18 working farms with many Swaledale pedigree sheep.
The population was rising from 571 in 1801 to a peak of 911 in 1871 during the building of the Settle-Carlisle railway, then a steady decline to 197 presently. Garsdale school was endowed by Thomas Dawson 1634; rebuilt as National school on new site in 1842, becoming Garsdale Primary School. This was closed in 1985 and was converted to village hall.
Garsdale lies on the western slopes of the Pennines, between Baugh Fell to the north and Rise Hill to the south. The dale is the valley of the Clough River, which rises on the north eastern slopes of Baugh Fell and flows through Grisedale, the Dale that Died, as Grisedale Beck until it becomes the Clough River at Garsdale Head.
The largest settlement, known as "The Street", lies 6 miles east of Sedbergh and 10 miles west of Hawes. At Longstone Fell, locally known and spoken as Langst'n Fell, the A684 road rises to a well-known viewpoint looking over the Howgill Fells, and the river descends to Danny Bridge, the site of a 17th-century mill on the "old road", before joining the River Rawthey near Sedbergh.
The Garsdale area is full of wildlife and flowers and some beautiful wildflower meadows. The Quaker burial ground in Garsdale is a wildflower haven in summertime and there are many areas where wildflowers are protected and left to bloom. Flowers such as meadowsweet, teasel, ox eye daisies, dog rose and melancholy thistle, which was once used to treat 'melancholia', are abundant. Numerous lichens and mosses grow on the walls and trees, the clean, fresh air encourages their growth.
There are heather and bilberry covered hillsides and grouse moors and work is ongoing to restore the peat bogs.
One of England's most scenic railway journeys
Visitors to Garsdale may enjoy an outing on the Settle-Carlisle railway which passes through Garsdale Station along with places such as Appleby, Kirkby Stephen, Dent, Ribblehead viaduct and Skipton.
Garsdale Station is one of the wildest stations on the line. At the railway station stands a statue of Ruswarp, a collie dog, who was found on the fell in 1990 at the side of his owner who had died some 11 weeks earlier, in an emaciated and starving state. It had to be carried off the fell and he was awarded a medal for vigilance but died shortly after his owner's funeral.
Garsdale Station has a connection to Hawes via the Little White Bus.
