Dentdale original sketch/drawings by Rob Miller

Upper Dentdale
Drawing Charcoal and Ink
Rob Miller

Scow Dentdale
Drawing Charcoal and Ink
Rob Miller

This is the second Dale that Ive been attracted to work in. Like Roeburndale, Dentdale is a Lancashire |Yorkshire hidden gem with a quickly changing 19th/20th century history. I've posted below an article that I've cut and pasted from a Yorkshire Paper and is a good read.... Im not sure which paper it came from, but the reporter is John Woodcock..
Yorkshire's secret dale might now be re-named Enterprise Dale. John Woodcock reports on some of the remarkable results .Ask a policeman, even a retired one, for directions and you don't expect confusion. "Where exactly are you?", I enquired of Tony Playfoot. "We're in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, we're administered by South Lakeland District Council, we have old West Riding milestones, and a Lancashire postcode – so you tell me where we are."
Ah, then that'll be Dentdale, a ten-mile heavenly ribbon but with something of an identity crisis.
The tourism department appears undecided on a suitable description, so in one leaflet they cover all the angles. "A peaceful paradise"; "the hidden dale close to the Lake District"; "the Yorkshire Dales National Park's secret dale". Hidden? Secret? It's a wonder anyone ever finds it, but they do, and sometimes with surprising results.  There was a group of people, unconnected to one another but for their own reasons looking for a change of direction. The motorways which took them away from Manchester and Reading, Cambridge and Warrington, Bristol and Hampshire, eventually led all to the two narrow lanes of Dentdale. Some still express surprise at what they've become beside the Dee, the stream which tumbles through the dale and which Tony Playfoot insists on calling a river, perhaps because he spent 15 years of his police career submerged in them. Of all the reshaped lives among the dale's incomers his is one of the more unlikely. Such is his gratitude, the ex-bobby now regards it almost as a duty to help promote the wider story. It's about Dentdale's struggle to protect its soul while embracing those who have introduced fresh ideas for earning a living where farming is grappling with survival.
Two examples. In Dent village a forge is still keeping company with the cobbled streets and colour-washed cottages, but today's blacksmith is young and female, with a degree in English – and Lucy Sandys-Clarke doesn't do horseshoes.Four miles away is a former Royal Navy helicopter crewman and coastguard, Brian Bannister. He grew to hate the sea's cruelty, returned to his roots and now makes walking sticks and runs courses on the craft beneath the Settle-Carlisle railway line on which his father was a signalman.And Playfoot? He was a member of an underwater search unit until force politics intervened. He was transferred to Salford, assaulted five times and twice put in hospital.
After 28 years in the police force, his disillusionment was such that when he and his wife Margaret were walking the Dales Way in 1992 they saw their future: a property for sale at Cowgill, at the eastern end of Dentdale. Within two months they'd sold up in Cheshire, bought the former Quaker meeting house, built in 1702, and with the remains of 250 believers buried in the garden, and Tony was looking for work.
On the manual side, there was plenty. He cut lawns and weeded, felled trees and dug graves. The next turning point came when he took up the cornet – the first instrument he'd ever played – and joined Sedbergh Town Band. He then discovered that when a trumpet's valves seize up, a trombone stops sliding, a tuba gets dented, or simply when there's muck in brass, finding a remedy isn't easy. He learned the skills and now is one of only four brass instrument repairers in the North of England.
"From playing my first note only six years ago, music has also given me a niche business. It shows what's possible when you take a chance and opt for a life-changing experience. There are other examples throughout the dale," said Tony, guiding us round a few as unofficial promoter of Dentdale's diverse business community. Traditionalists might sneer at the way things are going but Playfoot asks where the dale would be without tourism, second homes and new markets.  "Six farms have gone since we've been here. The challenge is to strike a right balance between the values and beauty which have brought and kept people here, and developing a local economy that benefits everyone. Without customers, there would be no shop, pubs, dry-stone wallers, or anything. The dale would die." Janet Browning felt her spirit was dying when working for the Legal Services Commission in Cambridge. "For me it had become a mindless bureaucracy I was desperate to escape from." She had discovered Dent through walking the Dales Way, and during a revisit in 2004 began asking herself serious questions, especially as she'd overcome breast cancer. "I wondered if I could manage to make a life up here rather than self-destructing in my existing one. I stopped hesitating and did it." Janet paid £365,000 for Stone Close tea room and guest house, a 17th-century listed building. Her approach? "Home baking and wholesome food – local, seasonal and organic produce. I don't do chips, and I don't make much money, not with a business loan to repay, but it's a lifestyle choice. It enables me to live in a fantastic place. I feel I've saved myself." Two of her near-neighbours have also revived themselves. David Bellis had been a shopfitter and decorator in Warrington for 20 years when he and his family decided to find a beautiful landscape in which they could a earn a reasonable income. In short, a "lifestyle business." They looked for their ideal from Devon to Scotland before deciding on Dent and the Meadowside Café-Bar. They had to overcome some negative village politics because not everyone shared their enthusiasm for a cultural shift. That apart, they couldn't be more content. Bellis has a theory. "Problems and traffic lights go together. Where they start, so do noise and dirt, stress and anti-social behaviour. Fortunately we're 16 miles from the nearest set. I'm all for progress, but not if it means spoiling things. Nowadays there are bouncers in Windermere. It's becoming like Leeds with a lake." If a bistro and other changes represent Dentdale's future, Jim and Margaret Taylor are catering to its past. Their farming backgrounds in the area go back generations and agriculture's decline prompted them to open the Dent Village Heritage Centre. It describes the lives and social customs of earlier Dales folk, and several of the exhibits were collected by the Taylors over 25 years. They tell an intriguing story about Dentdale. It used to have over 100 farms and, according to parish records for 1861, 20 shoemakers, an umbrella repairer, 44 knitters, 14 dressmakers, nine tailors, and 18 food and clothing shops. Plus another rarity of modern rural life – its own policeman.
A snapshot of Dentdale in 2007 would be equally revealing. The business directory lists a yoga specialist, stairlift supplier, designer, computer expert and furniture makers and highlights the extent to which tourists are pampered – Anthony Cheetham is offering the use of classic sports cars to his bed and breakfast guests – and also illustrates how arts and crafts are flourishing in the dale. Sheffield-born John Cooke gave up teaching art and geography in East Anglia to open a studio in Dent. Since then many of his paintings have been used in a commercial context as posters, cards, calendars and book covers. Through his landscapes, Dentdale has reached a gallery in Dubai and the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. After graduating with a degree in typography, Pip Hall lived in a city for 20 years. She moved to the dale two years ago and is now a stone carver and lettering artist. She says the tranquillity is inspirational.
Others share the sensation. Even when hammering mild steel on her anvil and producing gates, door handles, window catches, and ornamental work, Lucy Sandys-Clarke remains aware of the peace outside her workplace. It's one of the elements that keeps her in Dentdale. After university she'd considered London and a career in journalism until a visit to her grandmother near Sedburgh changed everything. She learned about metalwork from a blacksmith nearby and last August took over the Dent forge. he dismisses the clichéd view that its heat, noise, flying sparks and workshop clutter seems an alien environment for an attractive, cultured woman of 29. "I don't consider myself a novelty. I'm doing a serious and satisfying job, and in such a beautiful place. To leave the dale now would be the hardest decision