A Sheepfold by a Quarry

The drove route from Penrith and heading south would almost certainly have followed the same route as the A6, an old and still very busy road. The next sheepfold is marked on maps, but was no longer in existence when Goldsworthy arrived with his arch. It had been a washfold, close to the stream and used for washing sheep before shearing. Goldsworthy was apparently determined to get the arch into the water and I think this was sort of managed.

The sheepfold was built later, in the same place that it had been originally and where the arch was placed for its overnight stop. So the picture shows the new sheepfold, at the moment overrun with grasses and flowers. It's nice to see that, although the field has been mown fairly recently, a good stretch has been left as meadow. The stream runs to the left of the fold, just below the trees. Behind the trees is the A6 and there were vehicles hurtling past all the time we were there. Just beyond that is the M6 and close by is the Glasgow to London railway line. So we are still on a main arterial route.

And of course in the background is Shap Beck Quarry. In order to get to this field we had to drive through the gates of the quarry works. I chose a weekend to take this photograph, otherwise there would have been trucks trundling by all the time. There are other quarries in the Shap area, but this one now concentrates on producing limestone. This is supplied to the Shapfell works just a short distance away, where it is used for the large scale production of lime used in steelmaking.

Of course I could have posted a picture of the fold without the quarry like this, but I quite liked the pastoral and industrial side by side.

And boy was I celebrating this time last year!!