'THE STRID ON THE WHARFE" - BOLTON WOODS

The Valentine's Series card numbered 2306 is a photo of the "Strid". The Strid is in an ancient mainly oak woodland along the River Wharfe in the heart of the beautiful Yorkshire Dales near Bolton Abbey. Over hundreds of thousands of years billions of gallons of water have gradually eroded the rocky bed of the river; the water action has gorged out a deep channel through which the waters of the river Wharfe are squeezed at an incredible force.

Just 750 feet upstream of the Strid the river Wharfe is around 80 feet wide, this narrows to about 20 feet at the start of the Strid, a series of deceptive waterfalls follow.

At its narrowest point the Strid is only about 6.6 feet wide and foolhardy visitors have attempted to jump across the roaring chasm.

But here's the catch: it is is 30 feet deep here!

Failure to complete the leap is invariably fatal.

There is no recorded incidence of anyone having survived a fall into the thundering waters of the Strid - which mercilessly sucks its victims into the underwater caves and eroded tunnels which lie hidden underneath each side of the rocky channel.

Needless to say, the Strid is an extremely dangerous place!

Wordsworth speaks of this danger in his poem of 1888 already quoted here on CW:

Young Romilly through Barden woods
Is ranging high and low;
And holds a greyhound in a leash,
To let slip upon buck or doe.

The pair have reached that fearful chasm,
How tempting to bestride!
For lordly Wharf is there pent in
With rocks on either side.

This striding-place is called THE STRID,
A name which it took of yore:
A thousand years hath it borne that name,
And shall a thousand more.

And hither is young Romilly come,
And what may now forbid
That he, perhaps for the hundredth time,
Shall bound across THE STRID?

He sprang in glee,--for what cared he
That the river was strong, and the rocks were steep?-
But the greyhound in the leash hung back,
And checked him in his leap.

The Boy is in the arms of Wharf,
And strangled by a merciless force;
For never more was young Romilly seen
Till he rose a lifeless corse.

Now there is stillness in the vale,
And long, unspeaking, sorrow:
Wharf shall be to pitying hearts
A name more sad than Yarrow.

THE FORCE OF PRAYER; OR, THE FOUNDING OF BOLTON PRIORY