Saturday 29^th March 2014  

Today we finished the surveying of the walls along Water Lane, starting where we left off last week at the short stretch of wall built of particularly large stones, quite unlike any other wall we have seen so far. The top of Water Lane brought us to the back of the village of Eastby, where a fine old gatepost marked the lane’s end.

 

Gate post anoraks admiring a fine example of its kind!   (c)  Jane Lunnon

 From here we turned down the footpath which passes through Bower House Farmyard, and the path alongside Kempley Beck.

A bemused audience     (c) Jane Lunnon 

Here we found a substantial old wall against part of the embankment behind the farm yard, and further along the footpath, we stopped at the ford for our lunch break.

The footbridge here is very new – only a few years old – but the ford itself is probably very old. The path over the ford goes through what is now a small enclosure, and then up towards Eastby. The walls around the ford proved very interesting – with an old pedestrian gateway (now blocked), and adjacent ditch, bank and hedge line, indicating a very old boundary.

We continued along the footpath, walking alongside Kempley Beck, and soon came to the point where Priors Syke runs into the Beck. This traditionally marks the boundary between Eastby and Embsay Townships – although the series of ditches, banks and hedge lines to the east of Priors Syke suggest the possibility that the boundary between the two townships may originally have been further east than it is now.

Getting a closer look at Priors Syke where it joins Kempley Beck   (c) Jane Lunnon

At the footbridge we continued to follow the footpath as it veered right, heading towards Low Lane in Embsay. The wall on the right side of the field proved to be of great interest – an old ford lay at the end of it where it ran into Kempley Beck, and at at its other end it met with an old stone revetted bank – again indicating this field boundary was of great age. 

By the time we reached the old squeeze stile at Low Lane we were getting cold and headed back home for a hot cup of tea and a well deserved slice of cheesecake.

Jane Lunnon