Ingleborough: Landscape and history
David JohnsonIngleborough is not the highest of the Three Peaks, but it is certainly the most iconic. Probably the best known and most recognisable hill in the Yorkshire Dales, it has been a magnet for visitors for more than two centuries, who came either to marvel at its majestic profile, to experience the challenges it offered, or to explore the remains of the ancient, 15-acre hillfort on its summit. Prominent artistic and literary figures, such as Turner, Ruskin, Southey and Wordsworth, captured it in paint or worked it into their writings. Aristocratic travellers felt obliged to include the mountain and its caves in their itineraries. For hundreds of years before that Ingleborough provided those who lived around it with many of their needs – peat for domestic fuel, stone for building and lime burning, pasture for sheep and cattle – and in the distant past it acted as a place for communal gatherings and ritual.
This beautiful new book explores Ingleborough and its immediate surroundings in all its varied aspects. The author – a long-time Ingleborough enthusiast and scholar – adopts a holistic approach to describe how people and landscape have interacted over the centuries. It is the first book to look in depth at Ingleborough’s massive physical presence – its geology and landform processes – and how people from the end of the Ice Age to the present day have made the most of what the mountain has to offer, and how their lives have been influenced and shaped by it. Geology and landscape are as central to the Ingleborough story as are human settlement, activity and land-use.
Ingleborough: Landscape and History presents new, ground-breaking research in several areas – geology, geomorphology, archaeology and history – all presented in a way which will appeal to visitors and local people alike. The book is profusely illustrated with photographs and illustrations.
Few books relate the biography of a mountain. This new book – perhaps the most comprehensive and well researched of the genre – does just that for one of the best-loved, most historically important and interesting hills in England. Published by local publisher, Carnegie, in association with the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust, Ingleborough will appeal to everyone who loves the Yorkshire Dales and the great fells of northern England.
Subscription offer now closed But you can still order copies of the book online. Discounts if you order £50 or more of any titles. So why not combine Ingleborough with a copy of David Hey's magisterial History of Yorkshire: ‘County of the Broad Acres’ or any of our other Yorkshire titles ...
Reviews
"A very thorough exploration of the interaction of people and landscape, with an abundance of illustrations (photographs, sketch maps, drawings). The entire work, clearly a labour of love for the author, comprises a large amount of information, well marshalled, clearly presented and based on an impressive range of sources, published and unpublished."
G.C.F Forster, Northern History 47(1)
"...clearly organised and engagingly and lucidly written, well-referenced and illustrated with crisp maps and diagrams and a large number of colour photographs. The full-page colour long shots of the mountain facing the opening pages of six chapter are mouth-watering. Once you have read this book and feasted your eyes on these photographs you will want to visit or re-visit this upland massif and to explore its historic landscapes."
Melvyn Jones, The Local Historian 40(1)
