Barf via the Bishop and Slape Crag

With their hand-drawn maps & poetic prose, Wainwright’s Pictorial Guides feel less like guidebooks and more like the arcane scripts of a sage, handing down the secrets to another realm. His description of the direct route up Barf reads like an epic quest; its way markers; the Clerk, the Bishop, the Solitary Rowan, the Pinnacle; sound like clues in the unravelling of a mystery. On a glorious day between the lockdowns, I set off for Thornthwaite to answer the call.

Arcane Secrets

Twenty three years ago something special caught my eye.  I was upstairs in the Carnforth bookshop, browsing the second-hand section for crime-thrillers, or cookbooks, or music biographies, but what I picked up was none of those. It was a small, dog-eared hardback with a torn dust-jacket and yellowing pages that bore the title, “A Pictorial Guide To The Lake District—being an illustrated account of a study and exploration of the mountains in the English Lake District by A Wainwright. Book Four, The Southern Fells”.

I bought it. I’d heard of Wainwright, I’d even seen some of his artefacts in Kendal Museum, and I was vaguely aware he was revered among fellwalkers. But I wasn’t yet a fellwalker. I was a musician, whose short if promising career had failed to find that elusive breakthrough. By 1995 that dream was over. I retrained as a software engineer, and when my wife was offered a dream job with the Lakeland Arts Trust, we left our home in Newcastle for the South Lakes.

It was the beginning of an exciting new chapter. For the first time, we had a little money and modest prospects, but something was missing. Being in a band had never been about courting fame, you see. It was all about the magic that happens when ideas and understanding gel.  Not that they did always, some gigs meant travelling for hours to stumble, without conviction, through a short set to three bored punters and a dog. But on the nights when everything came together, the songs took on a life of their own, and we conjured something that transcended its parts. Audiences were complicit, and everyone’s spirits soared. When it was over, we’d lug our gear back into our transit van and drive off to sleep on somebody’s floor—but we were warm in the afterglow. I missed that transcendence, that soaring sensation of liberty and release. Little did I know, I was about to find it again in the most unexpected of places.

It hadn’t taken long for me to lift my eyes to the fells. I remember standing on the shore of Haweswater, looking up at High Street and a friend telling me that a Roman road used to run over the top of it.  I knew then that I had to go up there.  I’d invested in a map and a modern guide-book (which would get me to the top of High Street), but this Wainwright guide was entirely different. It didn’t contain any photos, or useful details about parking or facilities. Its maps were not borrowed from Harveys or the OS, but hand-drawn in an idiosyncratic style that morphed into illustration, and the text was rendered in the author’s own hand. It felt like arcane knowledge, the sacred scripts of a sage handing down the secrets to another realm.

And the fells looked like another realm; wrapped in mist, or capped in snow, they seemed to belong more to the clouds than the olive patchwork of fields and woods below. Wainwright’s words transported you there.  They made each mountain feel like a quest, and my little second-hand copy was replete with handwritten annotations from previous owners who had followed in his footsteps.  It was a call I would answer too, and in doing so I would regain what I had lost. On the summits, I would know again that feeling of exhilaration and humility, the affirmation of being a tiny part of something much grander, and I would learn that music is not the only mode of flight.

A Quest

By 2020, many of the mountains in the Southern Fells had become old friends. I now owned all seven Pictorial Guides, but there were still a few fells I hadn’t climbed, (not a box ticker by nature, I had only recently resolved to climb all of the Wainwrights). On the western bank of Bassenthwaite Lake stands a small group of green, mostly wooded, hills which were still virgin territory for me. As Wainwright so enticingly describes, one of these presents a very different face to the others:

“Insignificant in height and of no greater extent than half a mile square, the rugged pyramid of Barf… yet contrives to arrest and retain the attention of travellers along the road at its base. Its outline is striking, its slopes seemingly impossibly steep, the direct ascent from its foot appears to be barred by an uncompromising cliff. There are few fells, large or small, of such hostile and aggressive character”. Wainwright describes the direct ascent from Thornthwaite as “a very stiff scramble, suitable only for people overflowing with animal strength and vigour”. Yet, perhaps more than any other, his depiction conjures an epic adventure—of the kind that flows from the pen of Tolkien or JK Rowling.  Its landmarks: the Clerk, the Bishop, the Scree Gully, the Solitary Rowan, the Oak and Rowan growing together below the rock traverse (the key to breaching Slape Crag), and the Pinnacle (a signpost to the upper escarpment); all sound like esoteric clues in the unravelling of a mystery. Here, for sure, is a quest.

And like all true quests, it is not without danger. In recent years, several people have become crag-fast in the vicinity of Slape Crag and been forced to call for help. I like to think of myself as a responsible fellwalker, who, even at the best of times, takes all reasonable steps to avoid calling for assistance; but September 2020 is not the best of times:  Britain is in the grip of COVID-19, and while lockdown restrictions have been eased (temporarily), Mountain Rescue are urging people to stay within their capabilities.  There is no way I will attempt this with being certain I can do it, or at least, that I can back out safely. Some further research is needed then. 

Wainwright suggests that the rock traverse below Slape Crag recalls Jack’s Rake, except that it is short and easy. I’ve climbed Jack’s Rake, and Sharp Edge, and Striding Edge, and Dow Crag’s South Rake; the received wisdom seems to suggest that if I was OK with those, I should be able to cope with Barf.  The excellent Lakeland Routes website gives a step-by-step photographic guide, which instils confidence rather than dread. It also provides an alternative route (now included in Clive Hutchby’s third edition of Wainwright’s guide). This gives slightly easier alternatives to both the rock terrace and the “unpleasant” scree gully. Crucially, it affords a way down, avoiding the scree gully, should I baulk at Slape Crag. I have a Plan B then, should I need it.

The Bishop

Suitably reassured and with an excellent forecast of clear skies and strong September sunshine, I set off for Thornthwaite. Before I reach the parking area at Powter How, I pull over , for here is a view of Barf just as AW sketches it— it looks just as impossibly steep and hostile. With the sun minutes away from clearing Skiddaw, the pyramid’s face is yet in shadow, its grey crags mottled with mauve, morphing into russet where summer heather has succumbed to autumn’s touch. But among the sombre tones of first light, something shines—an upstanding pillar of brilliant white. This is the famous Bishop of Barf. Few rocks in the Lake District are subject to a ritual with such a bizarre backstory.

So the tale goes, in 1783, the Bishop of Derry was on his way to Whitehaven to make the crossing to Ireland, when he broke his journey with a night at the Swan hotel in Thornthwaite. During the course of the evening he fell into drinking with the locals and drunkenly bet he could ride his horse all the way to the top of Barf. He made it just under halfway. At about 700ft, the horse fell in the vicinity of the pillar, killing both animal and rider. They were buried together at the foot of the fell near another rock, known as the Clerk. In commemoration, the pillar was whitewashed and named, the Bishop. Whitewashing the Bishop became an annual ritual for the villagers, organised and rewarded by the staff at the hotel. In recent years, since the hotel closed and was converted into flats, the responsibility has been assumed by Mountain Rescue.

I park at Powter How, opposite the old Swan Hotel, and take the path that leads into the woods. Before long, I reach the Clerk, “a poor drooping individual who attracts little attention to himself”.  But all good quests begin with an inauspicious sign, and here the Clerk is it. He marks the point where the adventurer must leave the beaten path (which continues up through the verdant woods beside Beckstones Gill), and head out on to the unforgiving slopes of fractured slate. 

The unseasonably bright sun is now fully risen, and as I emerge from the tree cover, the light is dazzling. Ahead is an arid desert of shifting scree and sparse scrub, tilted at an alarming angle, atop of which the Bishop gleams like a beacon. Wainwright counsels that the slope is “arduous to ascend, the feet often slipping down two steps for every one step up—from which it should not be supposed that better progress will be made by going up backwards”. Behind the Bishop, forbidding walls of rock rise in ominous warning. I begin the slog. The semblance of a path is simply a line of erosion, and stripped of the cushion of scree, not always the easiest choice. My quads burn as I follow my instincts, and the Bishop is a welcoming figure when he finally stands before me, resplendent in his gleaming garments. From the front, this seven foot pillar is more redolent of a shapeless glove puppet than an elevated dignitary of the church, but from the rear, he cuts a more refined and human figure: a rounded head on top of a slender neck casts an authoritative gaze over ground that drops abruptly to the patchwork of fields, far below.

In 1783, the Protestant Bishop of Derry was William Augustus Hervey, the Earl of Bristol, known as “the Edifying Bishop”, on account of his predilection for building churches. He won respect for cross denominational initiatives that benefited Catholics as well as Protestants, but he was famed for his flamboyance. King George III described Hervey as “that wicked prelate”, on account of his womanising (his mistresses included society beauty, Madam Ritz, and Emma Hamilton, who was better known for an affair with Lord Nelson). He was also an eccentric, requiring his clergymen to play leapfrog to determine which parishes they served. It might be entirely believable that such a colourful character died here, in such reckless manner, had he not actually died in Italy, twenty years later (expressing the dying wish that his body be shipped back to England in a sherry cask). How or why Hervey became the subject of such a curious local legend is unknown, but it’s a fabulous story, and it would be a shame to let truth stand in the way of it. In the words of John Ford, “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend”.

The Scree Gully

Behind the Bishop, a path curves right through the heather, avoiding the formidable scree gully that rises, seemingly vertically, between the walls of rock above. But the easy route is not Wainwright’s way, and its presence feels like a temptation designed to lure the pilgrim from his calling. A true quest involves a series of trials, and to rise to the challenge, the scree gully must be negotiated.  Wainwright warns “its walls of rotten rock cannot be trusted for handholds and fall apart at the touch. The tiles here pull out like drawers”. Tentatively, I cast around for purchase and pull myself up. In actuality, the gully is not as daunting as the sage suggests, and by the time I reach the rocky outcrop that bars the exit, I’m enjoying myself enough to shun a path that escapes left to a heathery slope and tackle the terminal rocks head on.  The slates here are stacked, as if by ancient hands, to form a defensive wall, replete with buttressed turrets, but in the absence of incumbents armed with spears, and arrows, and barrels of burning tar, they are easily scrambled.       

The Solitary Rowan

There is some respite now for aching limbs. A gentler heathery slope stretches onward, and up ahead stands the next of Wainwright’s mystical way markers, the Solitary Rowan. Wainwright indulged the notion he was blazing a trail through this wild terrain and was slightly deflated to find the trunk inscribed with the initials of those who had gone this way before. In my imagination, the carvings are ancient runes, a riddle whose meaning can only be unlocked by the worthy.  I make out the characters G and T, letters with a clear spiritual connotation that I resolve to imbibe as soon as I get home.

Despite the encroach of autumn, much of the flora here is still in bloom. Bees are abuzz with pollination duties, and the September sun feels more like June. The desert of shifting scree has given way to fertile swathes of yellow gorse, and purple bell heather, while russet hues of dying bracken herald the turning of the season.

Slape Crag

The respite is fleeting however, the scree returns before the towering fortifications of Slape Crag, which loom above. A lower curtain wall threatens to impede access, but with proximity, a line of shadow on the right resolves into a gully. The passage is narrow and steep, but the rock is firm, a natural stone staircase.

At the top, the easier path winds in from a bield on the eastern side, beyond which the fell disappears in a rapid tumble to the road and the diminutive Swan below. Ahead is the towering face of Slape Crag. That the unwary should become crag fast here is perhaps no surprise. The cliff rises in a sheer white wall of smooth slate, blocking onward progress. With the prospect of descending back down the severe scree an apparent invitation to a broken neck and a seemingly unassailable cliff looming above, those with a vested interest in continued living might well conclude discretion the better part of valour and dial for help. But those armed with the arcane knowledge of a sage, know that all is not lost.

Wainwright declares, “this obstacle can be safely negotiated at one point only”. In this, he is actually wrong. The scree falls sharply away to left where the lower part of the cliff rises, but ahead, the shattered slate continues upward to meet the foot of the upper wall. Here, a heather terrace tracks left, along the top of the lower wall. Apparently, it ends in a simple scramble. This is Lakeland Routes’ and Hutchby’s alternative way, thought by some to be the easier option.

Wainwright’s way is harder to spot. It passes below the lower wall. “Bear left at its base”, he says, “to a rock traverse above an oak and a rowan together”. I can see a cleft rock at the bottom, but the scree stops there too. Beyond, the slope becomes a stiff drop, obscured by foliage. If there is a traverse, it must start here, but the sunlight is blinding and it’s difficult to make sense of the impression.  As I approach, features start to coalesce, and I realise a tree is growing horizontally out of the cliff. Its trunk is robust and gnarly, and its deciduous leaves still deeply green—it’s an oak. Closer still, I make out a smaller, lighter, spindly trunk sprouting from the rock in front of it. Here then is the rowan, but I still can’t see a path. With the blind belief of Harry Potter running at the wall in King’s Cross Station, hoping it will yield access to all platform 9 ¾, I make steadfastly for the spot. When I’m almost upon it, the impenetrable shadow that looked like a dead end resolves into a narrow trod around the base of the cleft boulder. I track above the rowan and the oak, so focused on discovering the way forward that I’m unfazed by how abruptly the ground falls away, at least until I glance back. This must be the section that revived “lurid memories of Jack’s Rake” for Wainwright, but I’m already beyond it, and a path is now obvious. Before I know it, I’m on to the heathery slope beyond.

Around the Pinnacle

All that remains is to breach the upper escarpment. This can be tackled directly with a steep climb through the heather, but Wainwright eschews such a prosaic approach in favour of rounding the pinnacle, a semi-detached needle of rock over to the left. The way is obscure, but again, it is a case of seek and ye shall find. A path slowly reveals itself among sporadic blooms of purple heather, yellow gorse, and fragrant wood sage.

Beyond the Pinnacle, a sheep trod, no more than a furrow in the foliage, tacks back along the top of the escarpment, affording breathtaking views over the line of ascent, and a growing sense of triumph at having survived it.

Two false summits, with tantalising views of Bassenthwaite Lake, lead to the cairn that marks the top. Here the unimpeded view over the lake’s tranquil blue waters is a rich delight. Beyond the eastern shore, the muscular mass of Skiddaw rises, a true Lakeland giant, a Goliath to Barf’s humble David. And yet for all its might, it lacks the myth and mystery, the beauty and intrigue, the sense of unravelling adventure that Barf holds in abundance.

A grassy ridge path leads on to Lord’s Seat, and from there, to Broom Fell, Graystones, and Whinlatter. I shall spend the rest of the day exploring those green and wooded slopes, and they will seem a world apart from the route which brought me here. In late afternoon, I’ll reach the bottom of Beckstones Gill and wend through the woods to the Clerk. I shall look out again from the dappled cover of the trees onto the sun-bleached slope of fractured slate; and I shall spy the Bishop presiding over the progress of a solitary walker, starting up the stiff scree—another pilgrim on a quest, armed, no doubt, with a hand-drawn map and the poetic scribblings of a sage.

Further Reading

Lakeland Routes guide to the direct route up Barf

Route 6 – Barf, Broom Fell and Lord’s Seat

Lakeland Routes Alternative Route

Route 18 – Barf and Beckstones Gill

The National Trust on William Hervey, Bishop of Derry

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/downhill-demesne-and-hezlett-house/features/the-flamboyant-earl-bishop-at-downhill