Calendar 2019

Under the drifts of winter snow and contrasting light and shadows, the Cragg Vale landscape takes on an ethereal beauty

As the light continually changes over Cragg Vale, Stoodley Pike, viewed across Withens Reservoir, stands stark against the leaden winter sky

Farming in Cragg Vale began in the Stone Age with woodland being cleared for planting crops and raising animals and as spring emerges, greening the landscape, sheep and lambs must be fed

Over past centuries, horses in Cragg Vale carried goods on packhorse trails, pulled ploughs and worked on farms but today this mare and her foal run free, no such heavy work for them

The colours in Cragg Vale’s beautiful landscape change again in May as the woods, valleys, and little-used paths become carpeted in bluebells

Remnants of Cragg Vale’s industrial heritage, from when the valley housed its many textile mills, are slowly transformed as nature runs its course throughout the year

Beauty in Cragg Vale is found not only in the woods, valleys, moors, and streams, it comes in our flora and fauna of many different shapes and forms

Glimpsed through the trees, St John the Baptist in the Wilderness (built 1838) is one of the ‘Million Pound Churches’, more about this and Cragg Vale’s history is told on the storyboard outside the Hinchliffe Arms

A perfect reflection of the sky in Withen’s unusually still water 1,000 feet above sea level; the late 19th century reservoir built after farms were demolished, is now owned by Yorkshire Water

The moors around Cragg Vale acquire a new palette of colours as the brown hues of autumn and weaker sunlight transform the valley once again

Now the valley disappears as low cloud and heavy mists descend across the landscape creating shifting views and ghostly shapes

Trees, rooftops, the church and graveyard with a thick covering of snow, perhaps the perfect Christmas picture postcard view of Cragg Vale’s winter beauty