I got a bit of a shock recently when I drove over the narrow road across the moor between Swaledale and Wensleydale, and looked down at the village of Askrigg to see that the church tower had turned completely white.

It seemed such a strange thing that I stopped the car and got out for a better look. It was definitely true, my eyes weren’t deceiving me, the church tower was white from top to bottom. ‘Blimey’ I thought ‘That’ll put the cat among the pigeons’.

On getting home I did a quick internet search to find out more. The Northern Echo newspaper had the headline ‘Askrigg villagers left furious about St Oswald's renovation’ and thundered out to its readers: “A village is furious with its vicar for having a 15th-century church tower rendered in white, making it an abomination which can be seen for miles.”

A little while later, when the bruhaha had settled down, I asked an artist friend who lives in Askrigg what they thought about the change. They told me that the village was not really divided about it. Those who knew about the church and its history were very much in favour. Those who were loudly protesting were just complaining about what they perceived as a sudden and unwarranted change.

The church is grade 1 listed so any decision for change would have been carefully thought through and passed endless rounds of paperwork. The white rendering on the tower took the church back to how it looked before the Victorians had removed it. The rendering was necessary because it helped protect the tower against damp, which was becoming a serious problem.

One of the reasons I like living in the Yorkshire Dales is the timelessness. I first got to know the dales as a child visiting my aunt’s farm and being put to work pulling thistles and mending dry stone walls. I feel comfortable in the familiar landscape that hasn’t changed a jot in the passing decades. It’s a deeply embedded atavistic memory and when I moved here I was a bit surprised to find my aunt’s broad Yorkshire dialect emerging in my own speech.

The timelessness is of course an illusion. Over a longer time span the dales have changed a lot. In the 18th century parts of it were an industrial and mining landscape. There was coal mining at Tan Hill and lead mining all along the upper part of Swaledale with air pollution from the smelting and lead poisoning in the water. Quite different from the idyllic serenity there is now, with only ruins as silent sentinels to the past. 

How do you feel about change? Have familiar places changed much since you first knew them, and do you consider this to be unsettling or creating improvements?

Rowan on Moor

A Moodscope member

Here’s the story about the Askrigg church on the BBC website: 

Village's church tower makeover divides opinion https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8v8259qvdo