Malham Cove and Janets Foss
When visiting the yorkshire Dales, one of the `must see` places is Malham Cove. It is a spectacular 80 metre high limestone cliff and is one of the most popular natural features to be found in the Yorkshire Dales. This our destination for the day.
We parked in the village of Malham, and set out to walk to Janet's Foss, a small waterfall which carries Gordale Beck over a limestone outcrop topped by tufa into a deep pool below.
Lone tree on our route to Janet's Foss
The pool was traditionally used for sheep dipping, an event which took on a carnival air and drew the village inhabitants for the social occasion.
The name Janet (sometimes Jennet) is believed to refer to a fairy queen held to inhabit a cave at the rear of the fall. Foss is a Nordic word for waterfall, still used in Scandinavia, and is presented in a number of cases in England as 'force'.
From Janet's Foss we walked along a fairly well used pathway until we were in sight of the top of Malham Cove.
Looking toward the Cove from the side
The view from near the top toward the river and the road - it's a big drop.
You wouldn't run around on this Limestone pavement!
Now for the technical bit:
A limestone pavement is a flat expanse of exposed limestone formed by a combination of chemical weathering and erosion. Limestone pavements in England, Wales and Ireland are mainly formed on Carboniferous limestone
Clints (sometimes called by their German name, flachkarren) are the blocks of limestone that form the pavement. They are chemically weathered so that their surface is covered by a series of pits and hollows (called karren).
Grykes are fissures separating the Clints in a limestone pavement. They may be well over a metre in depth, and formed when the joints in the limestone were widened by chemical weathering.
End of class!
The cove was formed thousands of years ago by a large Ice Age river that once flowed down the (now dry) valley above the cove. It then plunged over the lip of the cove in what would have been the most spectacular waterfall in the country. Only after severe amounts of rain, such as after Storm Desmond in 2015, does Malham Cove temporarily turn back into a waterfall.
While the sheer height of Malham Cove is perhaps its most impressive feature it is also famous for its limestone pavement above. While care needs to be taken to negotiate its clints and grikes a walk across the limestone pavement is not to be missed.
This natural limestone formation in the Dales appears in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One, in a nail-biting scene when Harry and Hermione hide from Lord Voldemort in a rocky camp.
It is a spectacular sight, I just would like to see the waterfall.
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