Spectacular Muker To Keld Wildflower Meadows Walk, Swaledale | Yorkshire Dales National Park

In the north of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, you will find the unspoilt beauty of Swaledale. In this video, we will show you a 6-mile circular route from the village of Mucha to Keld, which now has to be a new contender for my favourite Yorkshire Dales walk. Wander through colourful hay meadows dotted with old stone barns. Discover cascading waterfalls that feel almost hidden away in an enchanting gorge. Explore abandoned ruins with far-reaching views across the dramatic landscape. If you would like to do this walk yourself, then I will include practical information at the end of this video. But for now, I hope you enjoy the incredible scenery that this walk has to offer. There are some public toilets here on the right, but we're going to head up this path here, keeping the tea room on our left. Heading through the pretty stone cottages, you will find a sign pointing you towards Mucha's hay meadows. Next, we're going to follow this sign to Gunnerside and Keld through the meadowland. This way. Wow, look at that. For reference, we're doing this walk in June because it's the best time of year to do this walk because all of the meadows are in full bloom and it looks absolutely amazing. The Mucha meadows are some of the most remarkable hay meadows in the Yorkshire Dales and many are now protected as part of the Mucha Meadows Site of Special Scientific Interest. The meadows are at their best in June after they've had time to flower but before they are cut back in mid-July. At this time, you'll see a huge variety of grasses and wildflowers such as buttercups, common sorrel, wood cranesbill, yellow rattle, pig nuts and many more. As well as the abundance of plant life, hay meadows also support a variety of insects such as bees and butterflies, plus small animals and birds. It's so colourful and there's a lot of bees. They seem very happy around here. Since the 1930s, over 97% of wildflower meadows have been lost. However, the Haytime Conservation Project has been working alongside farmers and partners to restore the precious hay meadows in the Yorkshire Dales and have helped secure the future of over 700 hectares of degraded meadows. As you're walking through the meadows, you'll see old cow barns like this one here. The 18th century barns, or cow houses as they're called here, were used to shelter cows in the winter and store hay harvested from the surrounding meadows. We think from looking at the map that we just keep following this footpath until we reach the river and then we'll cross over. We've just reached the river so we're going to turn right and cross over that bridge that you can just see over there. After the bridge you'll come to this sign that says left for Keld or right for Gunnerside. We're going to go left to Keld, this way. Now we're heading through the valley keeping the river on our left. Isn't this gorgeous? After following the footpath down towards the waterfall and going over the footbridge and you can see there there's the remains of Belty Hill lead smelting mill. Just taking a moment to look back at the way we came. Look at that view! On the right hand side we've just come across what seems to be the remains of an old tractor. Turn right at the tractor and head up the hill to take a detour to see Crackpot Hall. This is Crackpot Hall which is the remains of a 17th century farmhouse. Take a look around the abandoned farmhouse which has been unoccupied since the 1950s, except for the resident sheep. You can look down into the barn from here. You can still see a rusty tin bath on the stone floor in front of the fire. As we can see here there's some 17th century spaghetti loops. And if that wasn't enough of a reason for this mini detour then look at this amazing view over the valley. That detour was well worth it and not very far out of the way either. Yeah literally a couple of minutes if that. Follow the path and you will soon cross a bridge over First you reach the upper falls which have a 15 feet drop. This is a tranquil spot to take a break before you continue. Cross the footbridge to view the lower section of the falls which cascade almost 10 feet down to join the river Swale. Once you're done at East Guildforce follow the path up the hill towards Keld. After a short but I think essential ice cream break we're going to go back the way we came which is heading back down that path there where there's some people coming out Don't take the left turn back to East Guildforce instead continue straight on towards Muica. You can either keep going straight ahead or you can take the fork to the left like we're doing. Take care on this next part of the route as it's quite steep and rocky however the path is very pretty surrounded by moss covered rocks and lush vegetation. Once you reach the bottom the gorge is lovely and peaceful and it's where you'll find Kiston There are two waterfalls an upper force and a lower force. First we spent some time above the upper force before heading down to the lower force which was the most impressive of the two. I don't know if the camera will pick it up but all of the rocks are shimmering from the reflection of the water it looks really nice. Right we're going to follow the route back up. We've come back up that same path that we took to get down towards the waterfall and now we're going to go this way following the river. Keep following the path until you reach a stone wall. We head through this hole in the wall here and it rejoins the path. When we rejoin the path we've turned left which takes us downhill this way. We just heard a woodpecker and now we've spotted him through this tree. The route's dropping us back down towards the river. You think we've got food? There's a reference point as to how far we've come on the way back to Muica. We can see over there the first waterfall that we came across and the lead smelting mill. It's taken us about 10 minutes from the last reference point to rejoin the river. Continue to follow the river. Eventually you'll turn left at a barn where you will find yourself back at Muica Hay Meadows. We were happy to get the chance to see the wildflowers one more time before returning to Muica. If you have decided that you would like to do this walk yourself then here are a few things you might like to know. In terms of difficulty I would describe this walk as moderate especially if you take the detour we did down to Kiston Force due to the fairly steep and rocky sections as you can see by how slowly Aaron is taking this part of the path. While overall the rest of the route isn't too taxing you do have to be okay with an incline. It's fairly steady most of the way although it does become quite steep in some places. To get there head to Muica in Richmond. There's a car park in Muica which charges £4.50 for the day although please note they only accept payment in coins. You can pay by the ring go app although we tried to pay when we got there but couldn't get any internet so no joy. However you do also have the option of the lay buys at the western side of the village. If you're travelling to Muica from the Southerndales then you could go via Buttertubs Pass which is possibly the most well-known road in the Yorkshire Dales. This incredible road crosses the high moorland between Wensleydale and Swaledale and gives you dramatic views over the valley. Just watch out for the sharp turns and of course the oblivious sheep. As for facilities there are public toilets available in both Muica and Keld although make sure you have a couple of 20ps with you. Keld is also a good stop for refreshments with Rewkins Park Shop campsite tea room being one of the first things you see when you arrive in Keld. If you enjoyed this video or found it helpful we do have a playlist of other walks in Yorkshire which I will link here. If you're looking for a walk with more waterfalls then we have a video showing you the stunning waterfall trail at Ingleton. If it's more wild flower meadows that you're after then how about a circular route that includes the meadows on the Grassington Park Estate. Thanks for watching!