Settle
|
|
|
|
|
|
The first tourists arrived at Settle 200 years ago. A trickle of people with “taste and leisure”, travelling to or form the Lake district, crossed the River Ribble by a fine stone bridge and entered a town arranged around a market place, with a wooded knoll, Castleberg, forming a dramatic backdrop. Settle lies west of the Pennines and at the southern edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It stands beside the largest outcrop of limestone in Britain – a region of scars, cliffs, caves and potholes.
A weekly market takes place on a Tuesday, attracting traders from as far away as Fleetwood and customers from North Ribblesdale and adjacent dales. Plaques on two buildings draw attention to two celebrities, notably Benjamin Waugh, a native of the town who founded the National society for the Prevention of cruelty to children. Waugh was born in a building where now stands the Trustee Savings Bank.
Hardly anything in Settle is ordinary. The Town Hall has a whimsical style, which someone described as Jacobean Gothic. The Town Hall was for many years the administrative centre of a local government district the size of the Isle of Man. A local inn (now a café) was name Ye Old Naked Man as a skit on the excessive clothing fashions of the time. Dominating the market place is the Shambles, the name relating to butcher’s shops (as in York). Notice the three levels – shops below and at ground level, with houses along the top (approached by a flight of stone steps). The Folly at the bottom of Victoria Street is an outstanding building, constructed by the Preston family in the middle of the 17th century. Notice as you walk about town, the doorheads with initials and dates relating to the 17th century.
The Museum of North Craven Life, in Chapel Street, has an imaginative display telling the story of local life through the centuries and rooms arranged to tell about traditional farming and the Settle-Carlisle railway. There is also a model of the Ebbing and Flowing well (beside Giggleswick Scar), which has impressed since the 16th century. The Linton Court art gallery, off Duke Street, holds regular exhibitions of the work of contemporary artists and sculptors.
|
|
|
|
 |
Hotel Options |
 |
 |
|
|
| |
| Budget Hotels |
Premier Budget Hotels |
Late Availability |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
