Surrender Bridge triggers all sorts of responses and imaginings. The bridge spans a flow of sterile clear water, limestone remnants of buildings obviously never a farmstead are nearby, all around are hills.
We are in a high depression in the mass of ground that separates Swaledale from Arkengarthdale and in the 'heart of the lead mining fields' hereabouts.
For information on the industrial history I have relied on 'Lead Mining in the Yorkshire Dales' by John Morrison published in 1998 by Dalesman.
We are doing one of the walks in the book. A smooth track leads up along the beck and within a mile we reach the Old Gang Smelt Mill, a scheduled ancient monument.
It's stark and harsh but not ugly, all grey stone and a neat geometry of square section chimney, skeletal peat store, bridge, and spooky tunnel entrance.
The climb continues easy and steady on track in a small, closed-in valley, so there is only close-quarter interest: another bridge, a waterfall, lesser ruins, then a pretty tarn.
At the top of our route, on Great Pinseat, there's an extensive zone of mine tailings. Cairns guide you through - add a rock or two.
If you don't mind the lunar surrounds this makes a sandwich stop. Over to the west are Cumbrian fells. A little north of us is a trig point at 1913 feet, but as in all lead mining areas off route walkabouts are inadvisable.
On the long descent you get some cracking views as far as the North York Moors and Cleveland and an ever-interesting change of sightlines to the nearest major valleys.
First we cross Wetshaw Bottom, a flat of rush and grass. Calver Hill dominates, one side of it is Swaledale above Reeth and the other Arkengarthdale, the most northerly in the National Park.
As you go down there is a nice play of vegetation, a good mix of grassland, and heather.
The track is obvious, but not very smooth, so watching my feet I noticed the high living caterpillars lurching across it, big ones, of the Fox Moth, dark and furry with white go-faster stripes, and later on the even bigger yellow spotted greenies of the Emperor Moth munching heather.
I think this route is popular, a few out on a weekday, and nearly all holding hands as if made benign by the beauty of their surroundings.
A couple rested on Cringley Bottom, hearts given to the landscape. One can't think the miners would be so enamoured, deep in the bowels of the earth, and is reminded of them at the finish by the Surrender mine.
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