A Quiet Corner of the Dales Worth Finding

Where the crowds go — and where they don't

Mention a weekend in the Yorkshire Dales and most people picture the same handful of places: the limestone pavement above Malham, the stepped falls at Aysgarth, the tea shops of Grassington and Hawes. They are wonderful, and on a sunny bank holiday they are also heaving. The trick, as anyone who has walked these valleys for a few decades will tell you, is that the honeypots occupy a surprisingly small fraction of the National Park. Drive twenty minutes up any of the feeder dales and the crowds simply evaporate. The road narrows, the walls close in, and you can walk for three hours without passing another soul.

This is a piece about one of those corners — a stretch of the uplands that rewards a bit of forethought and a full tank of fuel, and asks almost nothing else of you.

Mallerstang: the quiet valley

Tucked between the flanks of Wild Boar Fell and the long rampart of Mallerstang Edge, the upper Eden runs north-west out of the Dales towards Kirkby Stephen. It is technically the Yorkshire Dales National Park's north-western edge, though the landscape feels closer to the North Pennines: high, empty, a little severe, with a single minor road threading through it and a railway line that appears and vanishes behind the hills.

What you get here is a valley in the old sense. Stone barns stand isolated in fields, their roofs of stone flag or slate, doors barely wide enough for a tractor. A ruined castle sits in a meadow beside the river. Curlews call over the pastures in spring, lapwings tumble above the wet ground, and the only traffic is the occasional farmer's pickup and the odd walker following the Pennine Bridleway. In the evening the light comes down the valley from the north-west and the whole place goes amber.

The walking is straightforward but not trivial. The valley floor path is gentle and easily done in a couple of hours; the Edge above requires proper boots and a head for exposure, and the top of Wild Boar Fell — with its strange, shattered cairns — is a genuine half-day out.

Barns, hay meadows and the calendar of the uplands

Part of the pleasure of the quieter dales is that you can see working upland farming close up, without a car park in the foreground. The old field barns — built to house cattle over winter when the hay was stored above them — are the signature of the Yorkshire Dales, and the best concentrations are in Swaledale, Upper Wensleydale and the quieter reaches of Arkengarthdale and Barbondale. Many are now roofless; a few have been repaired. All of them look as though they grew out of the ground.

The hay meadows matter just as much. The flower-rich versions — with wood cranesbill, melancholy thistle, pignut and yellow rattle — are cut late, usually from early July, and are at their most extraordinary in the last fortnight of June. If you possibly can, plan around that window. After the cut, the meadows are quiet again, and the swifts and swallows move onto the stubbles.

• Best months for meadow flowers: mid-June to early July.
• Best months for quiet walking: late September to November, and any frosty week in February.
• Avoid if you dislike mud: January and February on the valley floor paths.

Getting there and getting about

You will need a car, or a decent tolerance for long walks from a railway station. The Settle–Carlisle line runs close by and there are stations within striking distance, but services are sparse and the last train leaves early. Driving, take the minor road rather than the A-road wherever the map offers you the choice — the lanes are narrow, single-track in places, and lined with drystone walls that leave no room for error. Passing places are frequent; use them, and be ready to reverse.

Parking is the real constraint. Use designated lay-bys and village car parks, never a field gate or a passing place, and never the grass verge — upland verges are fragile and slow to recover. Mobile signal is patchy to non-existent in the valley bottoms, so download an offline map before you set out. Ordnance Survey sheet OL19 covers this ground well.

For food and beds, the nearest villages have a pub, a small shop and a handful of farm-based campsites and bunkbarns. Book ahead for weekends; out of season you can often turn up. Cash is still useful in a few places.

Other quiet corners worth seeking out

Once you have the habit, the same principle works across the British uplands. Look for the valley with a road that goes nowhere in particular, and go there.

• Barbondale and Deepdale — between Dent and Sedbergh, seldom visited, superb for barns and woodland edges.
• The Howgills — smooth, green, pathless in places, and beautifully empty compared with the Lakes next door.
• Upper Coquetdale and the Cheviot fringe — Northumberland at its most alone.
• The Berwyn range and the upper Ceiriog — Welsh hills with genuine solitude and almost no facilities.
• The North Pennines around Alston — lead-mining landscapes, hay meadows and huge skies.

Walking gently: access, etiquette and kit

Almost all of the walking described here uses public rights of way, open access land or permissive paths. Stick to them, close every gate behind you, and keep dogs on a short lead from March to July when ground-nesting birds and livestock are the priority. Do not climb on barn roofs or into ruinous buildings; they are older and less stable than they look.

Take waterproofs whatever the forecast says, carry water, and pack out everything you bring in. The reward for a little care is a valley that stays as it is — quiet, working, and worth the drive. Go in the shoulder season, walk a mile further than you meant to, and you will have the place almost entirely to yourself.