button to main menu   West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778/1821

button title page
button previous page button next page
button start of addendum
Page 252:-
hand was a precipice ten or twelve yards perpendicular, made by the labour of man, being a quarry of fine large blue slate, affording an useful and ornamental cover for the houses in the adjoining parts of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Westmorland: on the other hand was the river rolling down from rock to rock, in a narrow deep chasm, where there was no room for human foot to tread between the stream and the rugged, high, steep rocks on each side. Several pieces of the slate were bespangled with yellow marcasites, of a cubic form and different sizes; others were gilded over with the various foliages of ferns, pines, oaks, and other vegetables. This bed of slate runs nearly from south to north, by this place and the quarry near Thornton-force. Its length may be traced two or three miles, though about 200 or 300 yards in breadth - and indeed, of good slate, but a few yards broad. The plain of the stratum is nearly perpendicular to the horizon, and may afford matter of speculation to the natural philosopher, as to its cause, whether from some melted and liquid matter being forced up there at the deluge, or some subsequent volcano; as it is limestone rock on both the east and west side of it, and apparently severed assunder by the weight of the western stratum separating from the above by its inclination to the vale beneath.- We crossed the river by means of the broken fragments of rocks, which afforded us their rugged backs above the surface of the water to tread on. Here we met with a fine field for our entertainment as botanists. There was the lady's-slipper, the fly-orchis, rarely to be met with elsewhere, and many other scarce and curious plants. We crossed over to take a second view of Thornton-force, on the south side of the Kingsdale river, and followed its murmuring stream down a deep glen, fortified with high precipices on each side, to Ingleton; nor did we think ourselves ill repaid, for all the difficulties we had to encounter in our road amongst rocks and streams, as something new and amusing presented itself almost every step we took.
Ingleton is a pretty village, pleasantly situated on a natural mount, yet at the bottom of a vale, near the conflux of two
button next page
gazetteer links
button -- "Wease, River" -- Doe, RiverDoe, River
button -- IngletonIngleton
button -- Kingsdale Beck
button -- (quarry, Thornton in Lonsdale 2)
button -- "Thornton Force" -- Thornton Force

button to main menu Lakes Guides menu.