The village of Gargrave near Skipton should be known as Greedy. It has not just one but three village greens, two sets of stepping stones across the river, and another waterway in the form of the Leeds Liverpool Canal. It has a railway line too, so you can reach the village by train, as well as narrowboat along with the more usual means of transport including on foot via the Pennine Way – as I say, greedy!
Study an OS map of Gargrave and you can see why there’s a conundrum associated with the village – how to leave it without crossing a stretch of water. The village is, in effect, on an island hemmed in by the River Aire on one side and the canal on the other as they taper towards, and cross over each other; and a tributary feeding into the river on the final border.
A good place to start a mooch around is at the village square opposite the very lovely Dalesman Café, where the shelter, called the Summer Seat (available as an event venue!) has its own history. Originally there were seats on each side of the shelter but the ones facing the river were blocked off to deter any ‘romantic shenanigans’.
From there cross over the bridge, looking downstream for the paved Roman Ford crossing which was uncovered back in 1967.
Those Romans obviously knew a good spot when they saw one as archaeologists uncovered a Roman villa on a fertile plain on the edge of Gargrave called Kirk Sink, the remains of which are now housed in Skipton’s museum. The site is now back to being a field, but look at the reconstruction image of the villa and you can see how it wasn’t just one building but a whole farm estate.
The fact that Gargrave has three village greens, Low, Middle and High Green, is thanks to the Duke of Devonshire who gifted the land to the residents back in 1922. The two stretches intersected by the road from the bridge are beautifully kept spots (more like parkland than greens) to walk through before heading back into the village and out in the other direction, passing East Street, which was known as Ranter’s Row in the 17th century because of the enthusiastic preaching of the Methodists, before reaching the canal’s towpath.
Words & photo thanks to Amanda Brown
