Join the first tourists on a trot around the beauty spots and murder scenes of Teesdale

The guidebook was written by solicitor Richard Garland, who had grown up in the dale. It appeared first in the instalments in the York Herald newspaper in 1803 and was first published in bookform in 1804, just as the first tourists were venturing into the wilds of the countryside for pleasure.

Of the castle at Barnard Castle, Garland says: "from its elevated situation and the beautiful clothing of ivy on the Round Tower, with some fretted windows looking from the garden, ending with the bridge, it forms a most picturesque ruin"

Teesdale was given a mighty boost in 1813 by the publication of Walter Scott’s epic poem Rokeby, a brooding tale of civil war, piracy, treasure and love in which Teesdale itself, with its craggy rocks and rushing rivers, is one of the main characters. Everyone wanted to see the landscape in which the No 1 hit of the moment was set, and so Garland produced a second edition of his guidebook, complete with fold-out map.

It was continuously in print until 1852 and now, in 2022, has been brought back into print by Anthony Seward.

“I picked up a copy of the 1813 edition soon after coming to live in Teesdale,” he says. “I loved its romantic, enthusiastic style and, as I've got to know the dale, I’ve been amazed at how comprehensively it covers the routes that we still use today (albeit nowadays mostly on foot rather than on horseback).

“It vividly conveys the excitement of those early travellers who encountered the beauty and wildness of these scenes for the first time.”

So let’s saddle up and have a very rapid gallop through some of Garland’s Teesdale scenes although, as he says when setting off from Lartington, it will require some effort.

“A little personal fatigue may be expected but the pleasures received from the contemplation of the boldest and most daring of the wild features of nature are a rich compensation for the difficulty of enjoying them. Be an early riser (as indeed a tourist who would fully enjoy his object always must be) and ride to Middleton-in-Teesdale, a distance of 12 miles, to breakfast.”

Eggleston Hall nestled in the beautiful Teesdale countryside - so much better than Wensleydale, says Garland

The gallop takes him past Eggleston Hall, which in later days came to star in its own right in a television series and now has a garden centre nestling in its walled garden and a café in its cart-house.

“It is a handsome building in a style well suited to so wild a region as surrounds it; the pleasure grounds are most judiciously disposed, containing an artificial waterfall of considerable height and a subterraneous walk which has been blasted in the rock by the river’s side.

Eggleston Hall, which was the setting for the TV programme, Ladette to Lady

“After leaving Eggleston on the right is a lofty elevation called Foggerthwaite from which is a view of the most interesting kind. Below the windings of the Tees, even here a noble river, for many miles through an arcadian country, chequered in the most agreeable variety with arable and pasture grounds, trees, villages and farm houses present a very striking contrast at the bleak and barren heaths around you.

“To the west is a wild and confused heap of mountains whose dark heads seem to rival each other for superiority, and eastward the eye is arrested by the very distant hills of Hambleton.

“I know of no part of Wensleydale, whose picturesque beauties have been highly and justly extolled, equal to the view I have just mentioned. Indeed in their peculiar character, I believe this is inimitable.”

One of the endearing features of Garland’s writing is the way he weaves lurid tales into his landscape.

“Middleton-in-Teesdale bridge was built from the ruins of a former one, built in 1811, which in the winter of that year fell in when nearly completed. A butcher returning from Middleton market to Mickleton was induced by curiosity, or some less laudable motive, to venture beneath it at the time when its fall was momentarily expected. His wife, apprehensive for her husband's fate, most unfortunately shared it, in the tender anxiety of dissuading him from his rash attempt. In an instant both were destroyed in the presence of numerous persons who were assembled to view the tottering structure.”

This was butcher Richard Attee who had long, and loudly, predicted that the bridge would collapse. It came down on top of him and his wife, but in his last moments at least he had the joy of being able to say “I told you so”.

The Winch Bridge: "It is by no means pleasant to cross this bridge on account of the swinging motion," says Garland

A little further up river, the tourist encountered the Winch Bridge over Low Force, which is still one of the most exciting means of crossing the Tees.

“About the end of August 1802, a party of nine men and two women were passing this bridge to the Durham side from Holwick. Most of them being upon it at the same time, the unusual weight entirely destroyed the balance. One of the chains being previously overstrained, having an inclination on one side, it snapped and three were thrown into the Tees.

“One was dashed to pieces against the rock; the others falling into the water was saved. It was a melancholy addition to the fact that he was a young man who was preparing to go to London in a few days, and had crossed the bridge but a short time before to see others who were at work in a meadow they were mowing.

“It is by no means pleasant to cross this bridge on account of the swinging motion but the village of Holwick, on the other side, is well worth the trouble of visiting, being built on the summit at the lower scar of a vast chasm in a truly Alpine and terrific site. This dreary region was some years ago the scene of a horrible murder, which occasioned much interest at the time, but the perpetrator has never been discovered.”

The majesty of High Force from Garland's Tour

The next stop on the tour is, of course, High Force.

“The river is precipitated before you with a graceful, though perpendicular, fall and a remarkable castle-like rock, pushes its bold stupendous front forward with the tumbling stream.”

But no tourist just wants to gaze at the fall from a safe distance. They want to get up close and personal, feel the spray on their face, and then climb to the top, however dangerous it may be, and Garland does just that…

“You look down upon a waterfall, rushing almost under your feet, but at some distance below, over a precipice – the summit of which whereon you stand is 63 feet from the base and the height of the fall about 56 feet perpendicular – in one sheet of foam, shaking the very rocks on which you stand and stunning the ear with its deafening noise.”

Cauldron Snout in the 1880s, with a slender bridge across the top

Those early tourists were hedonists. Like crack addicts, once they’d been hit by the sensory assault of High Force they wanted more, and so Garland obliged, taking them up to Cauldron Snout. Today, the cascade is in the shadow of Cow Green reservoir, and in Garland’s day, it just had a slender plank across its peak for the foolhardy to gaze from…

“The awful and tremendous grandeur of the sight that arrests your attention is almost more than the mind can bear. A painful, pleasing expansion of the heart – that internal sensation and best criterion of the true sublime – seizes you with instantaneous and overwhelming energy.

“Directly before you, the river is hurled headlong down, from rock to rock, in a deep recess through the declivity of a mountain, all but perpendicular, for several 100 feet; and if it is possible that the horrors of this scene can be aggravated, it is by the uncouth aspect of the surrounding objects.”

Garland’s tour travels around all of the dale, taking in castles, villages, halls and an inexhaustible list of landscape features and more than a few more deathtraps. However, on this particular gallop, time has defeated us, and we must find somewhere to lay our heads for the night.

An excerpt of the fold-out map from Garland's Tour of Teesdale, from Eggleston and Romaldkirk on the right, past Middleton and the Winch Bridge up to "The Force", or High Force, on the left

“The tourist’s headquarters, for two or three days, will be at Barnard Castle, where are two excellent inns, the King’s Head, conducted by Miss Harrison, and the Rose and Crown, by Miss Donkin; at both places every accommodation required maybe had and conveyances to any part of the district.”

A Tour of Teesdale by Richard Garland is available, with fold-out map hand-glued into every copy by designer Tim Baitson, for £9.99 from the Teesdale Mercury shop, The Olde Curiosity Shop, the Witham, the Bowes Museum and McNab's in Barney, plus the Village Bookshop in Middleton-in-Teesdale, or by emailing t.seward396@btinternet.com.

Garland is very impressed by the visitors' arrival at Raby Castle. He says: "The sight of this hall when lighted up for the reception of company, and the uncommon mode of introduction, is inconceivably magnificent"