West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778/1821

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		Page 245:- procure a guide, candles, lanthorn, tinder-box, &c. for the purpose of seeing Yordas-Cave, in the vale of Kingsdale, about four miles off. By the advice of a friend, we took also with us a basket of provisions, which we found afterwards were of real service. When we had gone about a mile, we were entertained with a fine cascade, called Thornton-force, near some slate quarries, made by the river issuing out of Kingsdale. This cataract had some features different to any we had yet seen among the lakes; but which greatly conduced to render it peculiarly engaging. Part of the river tumbled with impetuosity from the top of the stratum of huge rocks, perpendicularly, about 20 yards: another part of it, in search of a nearer and less violent course, had discovered a subterranean passage, and gushed out of the side of the precipice; when they immediately again united their streams in a large, rounded, deep, and black bason at the bottom. From the margin of this pool the view may be taken to greatest advantage: the high rock on the south and opposite side about a half a dozen yards higher than the cascade, and mantled with shrubs and ivy, leaves nothing on that hand for the imagination to supply. If the archetype was not in being, it might be thought the subterranean stream was added to the picture, by the ingenuity of the artist, in order to give a finishing stroke to the beauty of the scene. This little river is worthy the company of the curious tourist for about a mile along its course through a deep grotesque glen, fortified on each side by steep or impending high rocks. About a mile higher we came to the head of the river, which issues from one fountain called Keld's-head, [1] to all appearance more copious than St. Winifred's Well, in Flintshire; though there is a broken, serpentine, irregular channel, extending to the top of the vale, down which a large stream is poured from the mountains in rainy weather. We now found ourselves in the midst of a small valley, about three miles long, and somewhat more than half a mile broad, the most extraordinary of any we had yet seen. It was surrounded on all sides by
		[1] Keld seems the ancient Saxon or British word for spring or fountain and is often made use of in that sense in these parts of Yorkshire
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		gazetteer links
		-- "Thornton Church Stile (?)" -- (inn, Thornton-in-Lonsdale)
		-- "Keld's Head" -- Keld Head
		-- "Kingsdale" -- Kingsdale
		-- "Thornton Force" -- Thornton Force
		-- "Yordas Cave" -- Yordas Cave
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