 I particularly love the many make-shift gates that were clearly made many years ago, often 'it'll do for now' creations, bound together with baler twine, that have somehow managed to hang on for years and years. Sometimes there are more sophisticated solutions, with proper springs or weighted rocks to help the gate to close, but mostly they're very simple affairs. Kissing gates dispense with the need for a 'please close the gate' sign and reduce the chances of an errant tup finding the ewes. They're easy for humans to use but tricky for livestock to figure out. The gate swings so that they're just kissing room to pass. There are many variations of this - there's even a double one along the riverside walk at Burnsall. There are countless wooden stiles abound, often quite rickety and some with little dog doors at the bottom. Whatever the format, stiles, gates and wall squeezes abound, often beautiful in their simplicity and usefulness.  An usual swing gate at the church in Burnsall | Anyone who enjoys walking in the Yorkshire Dales will be familiar with the many different methods landowners use to enable walkers to use footpaths without letting out their livestock. Miles and miles of dry stone walls criss cross the landscape, enclosing fields where sheep and cows graze. You'll spot some breaks or 'squeezes' in stone walls, created by vertical stones, which you can just about manage to squeeze through. You'll also find layered steps creating out of stone slabs walking over a dry stone wall.  A tight squeeze in a dry stone wall gap  Temporary gates that last for decades, held up by baler twine  Beautiful views opening up at Stainforth. Image by Andrew Locking |
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