Lady Dike Head, Coast to Coast
Historical and Educational Articles for Kirkby Stephen to Keld
Lady Dike Head, Birkdale Common
Lady Dike Head, Birkdale Common, Coast to Coast
Lady Dike Head stretches defiantly across the red route of the Coast to Coast path on Birkdale Common, a large boggy morass of tufted grass and peat hags that form a barrier to a long, wide gulley of deep water and sucking mud. For much of the year it is covered in draping mist and hammering rain. Walking the red route of the Coast to Coast path on Birkdale Common is challenging but worth the effort.
Lady Dike Head is the source of the Crooked Sike which converges with the Uldale Beck at Beck Meetings. The Uldale Beck is one of the main feeder streams for the Birkdale Beck that becomes the River Swale a few miles further east. Lady Dike Head is also the source of Great Cogill and Little Cogill, which both flow eastwards to converge with the Whitsundale Beck, which in turn converges with the River Swale at Jenny Hill.
Long Gill at Benty Batts
Between White Mossy Hill and Lady Dike Head is an area known as Benty Batts. Benty Batts is drained by Long Gill.
Lady Dike Head
Lady Dike Head is worse to cross than it appears, and there is no way to avoid it. All you can do is search for a way to mitigate your unease. Following the beck left or right will only get you bogged down into something worse. This would be a useful place to build a long, raised woodwalk.
Lady Dike Head The Crossing
Even the narrowest crossing is difficult to negotiate, and of course deeper. This image was taken in dry weather. Although there are many more gills to cross none are as troublesome as Lady Dike Head.
Area around Lady Dike Head
It is difficult to discern a clear path around Lady Dike Head during inclement weather.
Pile of Stones
Simply marked on the OS as a pile of stones, this cairn is a useful landmark in inclement weather as it lies on the Coast to Coast path between Lady Dike Head and Millstones.
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