Collapsed wall as Foregill bridge, Arkle Town, January 2024
Please note that the collapsed wall is in the parish of Reeth, not Arkengarthdale. Please direct all enquiries and comments to North Yorkshire Council or Reeth, Fremington & Healaugh Parish Council, as appropriate.
Update 19 January 2024
Highways have confirmed that the emergency stabilisation works at Foregill Bridge concluded yesterday evening (Thursday 18 January) and the road is now open to traffic.
They hope this stabilisation will allow the road to remain open until a scheme can be put into place. In the meantime, the structure will be monitored. If the condition of the structure deteriorates then they will re-assess the situation.
Update 12 January 2024
The road at Foregill bridge will be closed for up to 3 days from next Tuesday 16 January 2024, weather permitting. This is for stabilisation work to allow the road to remain open until the summer. Vehicles will be diverted via the watersplash and Low Row. Further details.
Update 3 January 2024
Highways have confirmed this afternoon that the road at Arkle Town will stay open for now. They are monitoring it and if it becomes unsafe they will have to close it. They will let us know if this happens. Fingers crossed that the road will last until summer. If so, it will be closed then for several months.
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Arkengarthdale is the most northerly Yorkshire Dale and is said to be named after Arkil, an 11th century Viking chieftain. Running through its valley is the Arkle Beck, joining the Swale at Reeth. In 1656 the people of London sold Arkengarthdale to Dr John Bathurst, physician to Oliver Cromwell. The Bathurst family and their descendants did much to develop the lead mining industry in the dale, especially Dr John Bathurst’s son Charles, who gave his name and initials not only to the lead from the mines but also to The CB Inn. Further up the dale from The CB Inn is a triangular collection of cottages known as CB Yard. Now private dwellings, they were originally the administrative centre for lead mining in the dale, and would have housed the joiner’s workshop, a sawmill and smithy, as well as the offices and lodgings for the mine owner’s agent. In an adjoining field is the intriguing “Powder House”. Built in 1807, well away from the other buildings, it was used to store gunpowder and, later, dynamite used in the mines. The fuses were kept separately in one of the buildings in CB Yard. There is a restored, original ore cart sited on the edge of High Green near Langthwaite. An associated interpretation board explains the cart's use and gives a summary of the history of lead mining in the dale.
Visitors to the dale cannot fail to notice Scar House, an imposing residence which now belongs to the Duke of Norfolk. Believed to have been built by the Gilpin Brown family, benefactors of St. Mary’s church, the house passed to Lieutenant Colonel Guy Greville Wilson, DSO, CMG, who served in both the Boer and Great wars. An MP in Hull, he was said to procure “loose women” for his friend the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. The house was sold in the early 1930s to meet his gambling debts, to Sir Thomas Sopwith, renowned for the "Sopwith Camel” fighter plane. Lady Sopwith allegedly disapproved that another large house, Eskeleth Hall, was situated geographically higher than Scar House and had the hall demolished.