Information on Settle, Yorkshire
Settle is a small market town in the foothills of the Pennines and on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. The town stands beside the largest outcrop of limestone in Britain – in a region of scars, cliffs, caves and potholes. Immediately overlooking the town is Castlebergh, a 300 feet limestone crag, to the east is Malham, and the town is the largest in the area with easy access to the 3 Peaks. Settle has a population of around 2500 and is just off the A65 which links the town with Skipton to the South and Kendal and the Lake District to the North. It was granted a market charter in 1249 and continues to hold a market every Tuesday. In 1875 the Settle to Carlisle Railway was built by a huge army of around 6000 navvies who worked to extend the line across the bleak and inhospitable moorland of the Dales. Large camps were established to house the navvies, many of them Irish, and many of these became semi permanent townships with post offices and even schools as the workers’ families followed them in their work. The camps in the area were called Inkerman, Sebastapol, Jericho. And Batty Green, the remains of which can be seen at nearby Ribblehead. Life expectancy amongst the workers in this harsh and sometimes violent environment was often short. A plaque in the church at Chapel-le-Dale records the workers who died-both from disease and. The railway opened to goods traffic in 1875 and to passengers the following year when Settle Station opened along with a goods warehouse, cattle pens, signal box and water cranes. The Settle to Carlisle line runs to this day and is a popular tourist attraction as it runs through some beautiful Dales countryside and across Ribblehead Viaduct. Settle is one of a number of Dales towns which are popular with the motorcycling fraternity and most weekends will find the market square full of bikes and bikers.
