Burland Wanderings, Wainwright Walks etc.: Ingleton Waterfalls

Recently we visited Ingleton and went on the Ingleton Waterfalls Trail. The walk offers some of the most spectacular waterfall and woodland scenery in the North of England. The trail is 4.5 miles long (8 km) and leads through ancient oak woodland and magnificent Yorkshire Dales scenery via a series of stunning waterfalls and geological features. Alfred Wainwright said of this walk in his Walks in Limestone Country guidebook: “Surely, of its kind, this is the most delightful walk in the country? And not only delightful: it is interesting and exciting and captivating and, in places, awesome. Here Nature, always bountiful, has been lavish indeed: charming rivers, sparkling waterfalls, wooded ravines, sinister pools and gorges all combine to present a pageant of unexcelled beauty and grandeur. Here loveliness walks abreast. This is Ingleton’s showplace, attracting crowds of visitors in summer, but better enjoyed in the quiet of winter, when one can wander in wonderland undisturbed and enchanted”.

The sign at the start of the walk.

On the outward leg of the walk we followed the River Doe and on the return journey we came down the valley of the River Twiss (derived from Twistleton). Wainwright wrote this of the two rivers: “Of the two glens the more frequented and westerly one containing the Doe is the more charming and lovely; the eastern one, however, much the grander and more romantic, the greater volume of water of the Greta (Twiss) restlessly pounding the black walls of the gorges beneath a canopy of trees”.

The money mushrooms

Swilla Glen.

Pecca Falls.

Thornton Force.

Viv having a snack and checking the rest of the route.

A rest by the falls. During his ‘Pennine Journey’ walk in 1938, Alfred Wainwright the Lakeland guidebook writer described Thornton Force as follows: “I stood on the rocky bluff overlooking the Force and could feel the ground trembling at the thunderous roar of the river as it leaped clear in a boiling cloud of spray…It was pure white; a surging raging turbulence of sparking crystals”.