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From the birthplace of a geologist, through the countryside that inspired him.
Distance 6 miles (9.7km)
Minimum time 2hrs 15min
Ascent/gradient 918ft (100m)
Level of difficulty Medium
Paths Tracks, field and riverside paths, some roads, 13 stiles
Landscape Moorland and farmland, with wide views of Dentdale
Suggested map aqua3 OS Explorer OL2 Yorkshire Dales - Southern & Western
Start/finish SD 704871
Dog friendliness On lead in farmland and riverside section
Parking Pay-and-display car park at west end of Dent
Public toilets At car park
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© The Automobile Association 2008. © Crown Copyright Licence number 100021153
1 Leave the car park and turn left, then right alongside the Memorial Hall. Pass the green and go straight on at the 'Flinter Gill' signpost. The metalled lane becomes a stony track and climbs steeply. Go over a stile by a gate and continue uphill, though a gate, to reach a wooden gate beside a seat. Go through the gate to a T-junction of tracks.
2 Turn right, signed 'Keldishaw'. Follow the walled track for 1½ miles (2.4km), going through a gate and over a bridge over a stream, then downhill to a metalled road. Turn right and follow the road for ¼ mile (400m) to a signpost to Underwood on the left,
3 Go through the gate and follow the grassy track to a ladder stile, then continue with a wall on your left to reach a track. It bends right and becomes a path on a ridge above the valley, eventually descending through the yard of a ruined farmhouse.
4 Bend right at the end of the farm buildings to follow a track to the right of a ruined stone wall. Go through a gap in a wall, then downhill, bending right to another gateway. After the gateway go straight ahead, away from the track, to a waymarked post. Turn left along the stream bank for a few paces, then go downhill to cross a simple bridge of two stones. Climb the other side of the bank and go through two gates by the buildings.
5 Continue down the farm track, until just before telephone lines, then cross it. Turn left by a tree and go through a waymarked gate. Walk ahead across the field and go round the right of the ruined farmhouse. Continue to wind downhill to a metal gate with a wooden hand gate beside it, after which the track bends right, descending to a metalled lane by a barn.
6 Turn left along the lane for a few paces and go straight ahead along the track to Dillicar farm. In the farmyard bear left then right down to a metal gate, then bear right again down to a ladder stile by a barn. Turn left along the lane, then right to a plank bridge and a stile signposted 'Dales Way'. Cross the field to the river bank, then follow the river upstream, going through seven gates and over three footbridges to arrive at gated stone steps up to a squeeze stile and on to a stone bridge.
7 Cross the bridge, going through another stile and down steps, to continue along the riverside path. Go through four stiles and across a plank bridge, then through three more stiles to emerge on to a road. Turn left and follow the road back into Dent.
Dentdale is sometimes called 'the hidden valley'. Unlike most of the Yorkshire Dales it looks west towards the Lake District, and at its western end the limestone landscape gives way suddenly to the rounded Howgill Fells. It seems to have a milder climate and it is more thickly wooded, too. Its 'capital', Dent, is one of the most individual villages of the Dales. Its dog-legged main street is lined with stone cottages that front directly on to the cobbles, or cluster around the church. It is a fascinating spot to explore, with the added benefit of good pubs and tea-shops. It is also a busy place in the summer, with tourists and walkers attracted by the special feel of what comedian and walker Mike Harding has called 'the bonniest of all Dales villages'.
Pride of place in the main street is a drinking fountain made from huge boulder of Shap granite and simply inscribed 'Adam Sedgwick 1785-1873'. It is a bold and simple memorial to Dent's most famous son. Sedgwick was born in the Old Parsonage by the village green; he was the son of the parson, and the surgeon who delivered him was, perhaps prophetically, another Dentdale genius, mathematician John Dawson. Sedgwick went to Sedbergh School and on to Cambridge, where his study of geology, inspired by the rocks of Dentdale, made him among the foremost authorities on the subject. He eventually became Professor of Geology at Cambridge - the university's fascinating geology museum is now named after him. He returned regularly to Dent, where his brother and his nephew both succeeded his father as vicar. 'Whenever I have revisited the hills and dales of my native country,' he wrote in 1866, when he was 81, 'I have felt a new swell of emotion, and said to myself, here is the land of my birth; this was the home of my boyhood, and is still the home of my heart.'
As well as farming, the other great industry of Dent, well into the 19th century, was knitting. 'The Terrible Knitters of Dent', the poet Southey called them - intending a compliment on their speed and industry. Men, women and children all knitted - often while engaged at other work. Adam Sedgwick remembered that 'with a speed that cheated the eye they went on with their respective tasks. Beautiful gloves were thrown off complete; and worsted stockings made good progress. There was no dreary noise of machinery; but there was the merry heart-cheering sound of the human tongue.' Dent's woollen socks kept the feet of the British Army warm while they fought Napoleon.
Dent's two pubs - the much photographed Sun and the George and Dragon - both serve the excellent Dent Brewery beers and offer good food, as do the four tea rooms. The Stone Close Café, near the car park, also serves as a National Park information point.
Just by the porch of Dent church is the gravestone of George Hodgson, said to have been the Dent Vampire. Born in 1621, George lived to the then astonishing age of 94. Idle Dentdale rumour, even during his lifetime, suggested that his longevity was the result of a pact that he had made with the Devil, and that his prominent canine teeth - probably the only ones left in his head by that time! - were used for sucking youthful blood from hapless victims. Hedging their bets, the Dent villagers gave him a churchyard burial - but in a remote corner. But when some of them claimed to have seen his spectre abroad, and that some unexplained deaths in the dale may have been attributed to it, they dug him up and reburied him, with a stake through his heart, by the porch.
Visit the Sedgwick Geological Trail beside the A684 in neighbouring Garsdale, where you can find out more about Adam Sedgwick and his geological discoveries. The trail takes you into the valley of the Clough River and explains how the line of the Dent Fault, first identified by Sedgwick, can be traced by the marked differences of landscape. To the east is the typical Dales landscape of the Yoredale series of sedimentary rocks and to the west the much older Silurian rocks of the Howgill Fells - geologically part of the Lake District.
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