"Swaledale, Yorkshire Dales" Oil on canvas
Specially commissioned by York Fine Arts

The view in the painting looks south towards Muker, with the slopes of Black Hill on the left.

Yorkshire Ridings Magazine January 2009 describe the scene.

"The wildest and the most northern of the Dales, Swaledale, was once described by local author Alfred J Brown as being: ‘as close to Heaven as you get on earth.’ Mr Brown wasn’t alone in his admiration of the area: with its imposing mountains, network of dry stone walls, Medieval castle and picturesque villages; it is perhaps the most praised dale in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Swaledale is celebrated in a new book by Roly Smith, illustrated with more than 120 colour photographs by Mike Kipling. The reader is taken on a journey from the Georgian market town of Richmond, with its castle, theatre and 18th century bridge, through the succession of gritstone villages in the area, to the remote Buttertubs Pass. The book visits the sheep sales and agricultural shows which mark Swaledale’s calendar and delves into the area’s history of lead mining. As Roly explains, at the industry’s height in the late 19th century, more than 4,000 miners were employed. Today, the fells are scarred by past struggles to get the underground lead, and some lead mining buildings and flues still remain.

‘Swaledale is my favourite Yorkshire dale, but then I admit I’m biased,’ Roly writes in his introduction. He describes how the area was his first introduction to Yorkshire’s hills almost 50 years ago. ‘Of course, I’ve been back many times since, and although the hills may have lost some of that virginal awesomeness, I still feel a buzz of excitement when I leave Richmond and head west up the dale, through the fields and barns which make Swaledale and its northern neighbour, Arkengarthdale, perhaps the most archetypal and beautiful of the Yorkshire Dales.’

The book also includes notes from Guisborough photographer Mike Kipling, whose images of the countryside and villages of Swaledale were taken over a period of ten years. Roly Smith is the author of more than 60 books about walking and the countryside, and is an honorary life member of the Outdoor Writer’s and Photographer’s Guild.

One of the best aspects of Swaledale, Roly writes in his introductory chapter is: ‘That harmonious blending of the work of Man and Nature – the lush, alder-lined flood meadows rich in wildflowers; the grey-stone villages clustered around an ancient arched bridge; one stone barn to every two dry stone-walled fields as the slopes rear up to the crags and moorland heights above - is nowhere seen to better effect than in Swaledale.’