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There are some places where the landscape seems to come with its own weather, its own mood and, very often, its own stories. Stainmore is one of them.
It is a high, exposed crossing of the Pennines, a place of great skies and long horizons. To the east the land falls away towards the Vale of York; to the west lie the Cumbrian Fells. Up on the pass, though, you have that peculiar sensation of being suspended somewhere between the two.
And it is the setting for a wonderfully dark tale.
Long ago, a lone traveller arrived at an isolated inn on Stainmore and asked for a bed for the night. The traveller appeared to be a woman, but sometime after everyone had retired it was discovered that the mysterious guest was actually a man — and one with a particularly unpleasant object in his possession.
It was a Hand of Glory.
According to folklore, this was the severed hand of a hanged criminal, preserved and made into a kind of candle. When its fingers were lit, the Hand of Glory had the power to send everyone in a house into an enchanted sleep, leaving thieves free to go about their business undisturbed.
Or so the story goes.
That night on Stainmore the hand worked almost perfectly. The innkeeper and his wife fell into a deep sleep while the robber went to unbar the door for his accomplices.
But the maid was still awake.
Realising what was happening, she tried to extinguish the burning hand. Water wouldn't do it, but milk would. She doused the Hand of Glory, seized a loaded blunderbuss and confronted the thieves, who evidently decided that discretion was the better part of valour and fled.
The innkeeper and his wife eventually awoke to find their remarkably resourceful maid — and the remains of the still-smoking hand.
It is the sort of story that seems entirely at home on Stainmore.
Even today there is something wonderfully remote about the pass. The weather comes sweeping across it, clouds travelling from west to east in great processions, while the moorland below seems to stretch away almost without interruption.
That was the feeling I wanted in Stainmore Skyline.
I made the building deliberately small. It sits as a dark interruption on the horizon, almost swallowed by the moor and the immense sky above it. Rather than describing the place in detail, I wanted to give a sense of its isolation — the subdued colour of the land, the streaming clouds and the feeling of being very high up and a very long way from anywhere.
Knowing the story changes the landscape too.
A lonely building on a ridge is one thing. A lonely inn where, according to legend, a robber once lit the fingers of a dead man's hand to cast its occupants into an enchanted sleep is quite another.
That is one of the reasons stories of place fascinate me. They become attached to the landscape and alter the way we see it. You can arrive knowing nothing and simply admire the view. Discover what happened — or what people believed happened — and suddenly the same hills, buildings and empty spaces acquire another dimension.
There is one final twist to the tale. The Hand of Glory is not confined entirely to legend. A preserved hand traditionally identified as one can still be seen in Whitby Museum.
Whether you believe in its powers is, of course, another matter.
For me, Stainmore has quite enough atmosphere without lighting the thing.
Stainmore Skyline — watercolour
From The Striding Dales exhibition at Masham Gallery.
It is a high, exposed crossing of the Pennines, a place of great skies and long horizons. To the east the land falls away towards the Vale of York; to the west lie the Cumbrian Fells. Up on the pass, though, you have that peculiar sensation of being suspended somewhere between the two.
And it is the setting for a wonderfully dark tale.
Long ago, a lone traveller arrived at an isolated inn on Stainmore and asked for a bed for the night. The traveller appeared to be a woman, but sometime after everyone had retired it was discovered that the mysterious guest was actually a man — and one with a particularly unpleasant object in his possession.
It was a Hand of Glory.
According to folklore, this was the severed hand of a hanged criminal, preserved and made into a kind of candle. When its fingers were lit, the Hand of Glory had the power to send everyone in a house into an enchanted sleep, leaving thieves free to go about their business undisturbed.
Or so the story goes.
That night on Stainmore the hand worked almost perfectly. The innkeeper and his wife fell into a deep sleep while the robber went to unbar the door for his accomplices.
But the maid was still awake.
Realising what was happening, she tried to extinguish the burning hand. Water wouldn't do it, but milk would. She doused the Hand of Glory, seized a loaded blunderbuss and confronted the thieves, who evidently decided that discretion was the better part of valour and fled.
The innkeeper and his wife eventually awoke to find their remarkably resourceful maid — and the remains of the still-smoking hand.
It is the sort of story that seems entirely at home on Stainmore.
Even today there is something wonderfully remote about the pass. The weather comes sweeping across it, clouds travelling from west to east in great processions, while the moorland below seems to stretch away almost without interruption.
That was the feeling I wanted in Stainmore Skyline.
I made the building deliberately small. It sits as a dark interruption on the horizon, almost swallowed by the moor and the immense sky above it. Rather than describing the place in detail, I wanted to give a sense of its isolation — the subdued colour of the land, the streaming clouds and the feeling of being very high up and a very long way from anywhere.
Knowing the story changes the landscape too.
A lonely building on a ridge is one thing. A lonely inn where, according to legend, a robber once lit the fingers of a dead man's hand to cast its occupants into an enchanted sleep is quite another.
That is one of the reasons stories of place fascinate me. They become attached to the landscape and alter the way we see it. You can arrive knowing nothing and simply admire the view. Discover what happened — or what people believed happened — and suddenly the same hills, buildings and empty spaces acquire another dimension.
There is one final twist to the tale. The Hand of Glory is not confined entirely to legend. A preserved hand traditionally identified as one can still be seen in Whitby Museum.
Whether you believe in its powers is, of course, another matter.
For me, Stainmore has quite enough atmosphere without lighting the thing.
Stainmore Skyline — watercolour
From The Striding Dales exhibition at Masham Gallery.
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