Malham Cove, North Yorkshire

Picturesque Malham, complete with its beck running through the middle of the village, is situated amongst the spectacular limestone scenery of cliffs, crags, and scars of the Yorkshire Dales. The village is surrounded by a farming landscape of ancient dry-stone walls, rivers, waterfalls, meadows and woodlands.
Malham has been a settlement for over a thousand years, and is mentioned in the Domesday Book. Traces of Iron age boundaries can still be found. Formerly the main employment was in mills and mines, now it is found in farming and tourism.

 

A section of the Pennine Way leads from the village to Malham Cove, a huge limestone amphitheatre formed after the last ice age by an enormous river that fell at this point as a cataract 80 metres high and more than 300 metres wide.
In December 2015 Storm Desmond brought so much rainfall that water poured over the cliff edge for the first time in living memory. See a clip here...

 
The cliff is extremely popular with climbers, their metal equipment looking somewhat out of place next to the precarious nests of a House Martins colony.

The cliff face is also home to a pair of nesting Peregrine Falcons. There are, I believe, currently four chicks confirmed. In order to protect the birds visitors are asked to keep a good distance away from the nest site and the British Mountaineering Council has imposed a temporary, voluntary rock climbing restriction around it. I have a long zoom on my camera, in case you were wondering.

 Access to the limestone pavement which lies at the top of the cove is by way of a flight of 400 stone steps on the Western side. 

Some young climbers were trying out their skills near the top of the steps.

The view as you head upwards is worth the effort involved and the sight of the amazing limestone pavement which suddenly comes into view, is almost other-worldly. The area featured in one of the Harry Potter films, which might give some idea of its unique geological appearance.

Once at the top of the cove several walking routes present themselves. We headed for Gordale Scar, which will be the subject of my next blog post.
Click here to go to the next blog post
Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoyed the photos.