Poetry Path, Kirkby Stephen
More Articles in the Kirkby Stephen to Keld subsection
The path between Swingy Bridge and the dismantled railway follows an ancient Hollow Way
Kirkby Stephen Poetry Path, Coast to Coast
As a way of memorialising the interdependence of traditional farming with the habitual landscape and wildlife of the Eden Valley the notion of a poeticly framed footpath describing the life of a farmer throughout a typical year was voiced by one Dick Capel of the East Cumbria Countryside Project. In order to cast a seasonal flavour to the poetry there were to be 12 short poems, each one representing the life of a farmer in a month of the year.
Two well known personalities agreed to provide the artistry:
Margaret Ruth Peacocke (aka Meg Peacocke) agreed to write the poetry. Meg Peacocke is a poet of distinction, having won the Chomondlely Award in 2005. Amongst her most well known works are:
"The Long Habit of Living" 2021
"Honeycomb" 2018
"Broken Ground" 2018
"Finding the Planes" 2015
"Speaking of the Dead" 2003
The stone etchings, by Pip Hall, a local letter-cutter, were targeted at large stones along the circular route of a familiar walk around the River Eden in Kirkby Stephen, between Stenkrith Hill and the Swingy Bridge. The walk comes close to Ladthwaite Beck where it spills into the River Eden just west of Hartley Beck and Hartley Quarry.
Pip Hall is a well known letter carver who lives and works in the small Cumbrian village of Dent Dale within the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
Jan - Hedge Laying
"The sky's harsh crystal, wind a blade, trees stripped, grass dull with cold. Life is a kernel hidden in the stone of winter."
Feb - Cattle brought in for Winter
"Thin strakes of run on the byre door. Fork a load of silage out, straighten your back to watch them shove their muzzles in, and wonder if they crave the hazy nights when they can roam among tall summer grasses, sleek and sound and warm."
Mar - Walling
"From fields and fell run cols run small. I am the rain tear in the eye blood in the vein I am the sea."
Apr - Lambing
"Coltsfoot, celandine, earliest daisies. Twin lambs race to the mother baby cries, Mam! Mam! Jolt out of them and now they jostle the ragged ewe, boosting each split hoof high off the bitten turf. Pinching jaws and hard curled coats are braced against these April suns and sleets."
May - Gathering and Marking Sheep
"Penned in a huddle, the great tups are clints of panting stone. The shepherd lifts a sideways glance from the labour of dagging tails. His hands are seamed with muck and sweat runs into his eyes. Above us, a silent plane has needled the clear blue. Paling behind it a crimped double strand of wool unravels."
Jun - Clipping and Shearing
"Light drops like honey from branch to branch. Elders balance their dishes of cream, while fledglings try small quivery leaps, testing the buoyancy of the air.
Jul - Haymaking and Silage
"Silage. Tractor incises the first green furrow. Skillful geometrician, the driver judges an arc of weather."
Aug - Showing Sheep at Shows
Each side of the stone is etched with a verse, as follows: "Squirrel's speaking his mind. Knapweed purples the banks. For touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing, I give thanks." "Crabapples tart on the tongue, Hazelnuts milky, Rosehips cool in the hand, Thistledown silky."
Sep - Farmers' Markets
"Revetted banks, a concrete post. Rabbits tunnel the cinder waste. Angle iron, link of a broken chain. Listen, and catch the hiss of steam again."
Oct - Sheep Sales Stone 1
"Sandstone. A desert wind, grain by grain, laid down these rocks. How did we trace a path through ancient dunes?"
Oct - Sheep Sales Stone 2
"A million million blanched and compacted shells. How did we swim through the drift and not perish?"
Nov - Tupping Time
"Through hazels and alders, softly or in spate, Eden moves in the valley it has hallowed from Mallerstang to the shifting Solway sands."
Dec - Tree Planting
"There sails the heron drawing behind him a long wake of solitude."
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