A landscape worked down to its bones

Ribblesdale, Yorkshire Dales Sheep graze around giant boulders dropped by glaciers, picking the land as clean as the ice once did

In unflattering Ordnance Survey contours, you could mistake Warrendale Knotts and Attermire Scar for lumpy outcrops of dubious interest, but you'd be wrong. Under today's restless skies, they look almost Dolomitic in drama, though perhaps not in size.

Ribblesdale has been worked right down to its limestone bones, which shine like new teeth in the sun's shifting limelight. Sheep and new lambs graze around giant boulders dropped by glaciers, picking the land as clean as the ice once did. Outcroppings of shin-smooth limestone pavement, weathered into rippling patterns, merge with countless miles of dry stone walls. Quarries have created holes the size of cruise ships in the hills. Yet this earth carries memories deeper than a Craven cavern. The chatter of rooks accompanies us as we peer inside the vast Victoria Cave, which has yielded yet more bones; those of hippos, hyenas, elephants and rhinos.