On Reeth High Moor at the end of January sleet is falling and there’s a frigid east wind. The landscape is almost lost in mizzle and mirk.
I’m in a little Renault Clio hire car, feeling like a total tourist idiot as its wheels begin to slide on the increasingly icy road.
Will I make it? The answer is, yes. Somehow, it’s all OK. I descend (exceedingly cautiously) to Arkengarthdale, where there’s less slush and fewer frozen patches.
I have learnt a valuable lesson, though: never underestimate the moors.
Yes, the Yorkshire Dales may suggest to summer visitors cream teas, sticky ginger cake, cricket on village greens and, of course, James Herriot. But in winter the rivers roar over the rocks, trees are gaunt and bare, biting winds take hold and the scenery is ‘romantic’ in a different sense: wild, lonely and dangerous.
The turbulent paintings of Turner and the poems of Byron spring to mind. So, too, does the prose of Emily Brontë – that strange, fierce young woman who gave the world Wuthering Heights, her bitter and unforgettable tale of love and obsession, class hatred and vengeance – all set on the Yorkshire moors.
With a new film version of Wuthering Heights, starring Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, out last week, it is an apposite moment to visit, for many scenes from the movie were shot here.
Locations included Swaledale and remoter Arkengarthdale, though some reviewers have noted that director Emerald Fennell included perhaps a few too many rain-swept sequences, which might deter some visitors.
The Yorkshire moors are booming in popularity following the release of the new Wuthering Heights film
Reeth High Moor is a beautiful spot to visit if you’re exploring the area
But don’t be put off. Many fine settings, such as Surrender Bridge and Old Gang Mines on Reeth High Moor and the lovely village of Low Row, are a pleasure to visit.
At the latter, I speak to the landlady of the friendly Punch Bowl Inn, who confirms that, yes, both Robbie and Elordi spent many an hour during downtime from filming at the pub, quite at ease (and never for one moment diva-ish).
She also tells me a funny story. Every Hallowe’en her young daughter loves to dress up as Harley Quinn, the Margot Robbie character from the film Suicide Squad. When she looked up to see the real Harley Quinn before her, excitement levels were off the charts.
I stay in the village of Reeth (population 724) at the wonderful Kings Arms. From here you can walk westwards alongside the river, whose very name, Swale, means ‘rushing, fierce, torrential’.
The trail takes me as far as the bridge at Low Whita, back through Healaugh and over the flank of Reeth Low Moor. This is farming territory.
Tough Swaledale sheep with curly horns dot hillsides looking like white ‘spectacles’. Meanwhile, the moors are scarred with the remains of lead mines.
Many a story swirls around Surrender Bridge. Does the name come from it being the place where young Yorkshire lasses would allow their admirers to steal a first kiss? Maybe so. But perhaps the name has a bloodier origin. Apparently, this is where an invading force of Scottish raiders gave themselves up.
Throughout the 14th century, Scottish armies attacked the dales. The Archbishop of York wrote to the Pope in 1322 that Scots had reduced the area round Richmond ‘to ashes and smouldering embers’.
Join the debate
Do the wild moors still hold the magic of classic British love stories?
Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff and Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw in the new Wuthering Heights film
Christopher stayed at The Kings Arms in Reeth, a Grade II-listed inn
There are still place names, such as Bloody Vale, that hint at this dark past. For more light-hearted locations look for Crackpot, Booze and Wham Bottom.
The dales have a tranquil, dreamlike quality these days.
Coming down off the moors at dusk and seeing the huddled inns and cottages in the valley below, windows illuminated with orange firelight, you feel the same relief old miners and travellers must once have felt: you are off the desolate uplands and back in the safety and warmth of a village.
On my final evening, I step outside after dinner. There is too much cloud cover for stars, but I hear owls and little else (no traffic to speak of). The redolent tang of coal smoke emanates from cottage fires all around the green.
This is proper Yorkshire… magical.
TRAVEL FACTS
The Kings Arms in Reeth, a Grade II-listed inn dating from 1734, has excellent food and doubles from £120 (thekingsarms.com).
Try the superb cakes at the Dales Bike Centre and Cakery in Fremington, which also offers glamping pods and electric rental mountain bikes (dalesbikecentre.co.uk).
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