Where is malham cove on a map

The jagged sides are the result of a process called frost-shattering. Here the repeated freezing and thawing of water in little cracks in the exposed rock weakened them until chunks broke off leaving a craggy edge to the rock faces. The other distinctive feature of this valley is the drystone wall running along the bottom.

This is the ancient boundary that once separated the medieval estates of Fountains Abbey, to the west, and Bolton Priory, to the east. The land owned by the monks of Fountains Abbey included Malham Tarn and its lucrative fishery. Monks developed commercial interests in mining, quarrying, iron-smelting and milling too, and by the start of the thirteenth century Fountains was one of the wealthiest monasteries in England. As you descend through the valley take a closer look at the wall.

It is relatively straight-sided with a wide and slightly overhanging top. This is different to the more usual type of wall, which has a narrower top. Continue along the edge of the hillside until you reach a stile. Climb over the stile and follow the footpath leading fairly steeply downhill into the valley there are almost steps cut into the rocky ground here.

As you descend the path becomes gentler, the valley widens and the ground becomes grassy. The path crosses over a drystone wall and leads you to the limestone pavement.

As you approach the pavement stay on the right hand side of the drystone wall the footpath over it to the left takes you to Gordale. Head right and up onto the limestone pavement.

Hardly surprising then that it was considered an ideal location for the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I. Malham Cove is where wizards Harry and Hermione camp out whilst trying to evade and defeat the evil Lord Voldemort. While the landscape certainly looks like it could have been created by magic, the truth to its formation is still pretty incredible. During the last Ice Age the area we are standing in was covered by ice.

The ice scoured away the soil and weaker surface rocks leaving a broad expanse of exposed limestone. When the glaciers melted and retreated, they dumped the rocks and dirt that had been frozen in the ice and these formed a soil over the limestone. In many places vegetation and even forests grew up. When it rained, water trickling through the vegetation became acidic and it gradually dissolved away the limestone beneath.

Limestone is a massive rock which has cracks in it, produced as a result of its drying process when it formed, and tensions within the rock. The acidic rainwater trickled into the cracks and gradually widened them.

Over time this created fissures and gaps in the rock known as grykes. The blocks of limestone in between the cracks are known as clints. When the ice finally retreated from around 10, years ago the soil on top of the limestone pavement was washed away by meltwater. In the last couple of thousand years forest clearance and farming have increased the soil erosion. The resulting exposed limestone has been attacked further by the weather, widening the cracks grykes.

Where rainwater has trickled over the bare blocks clints it has created further little gullies across their surface known as karren. We have been left with a bizarre rocky landscape, scored with lines and riddled with holes and depressions. The rock remains bare as when limestone is eroded it produces very little soil for plants to grow.

Peek into the cracks though and you will see some surprisingly lush mini oases. While we are up here, gaze out over Malhamdale below. You will be able to see some of the span of Malham Cove stretching out and get a sense of just how this feature dominates the area.

Carry along the limestone pavement moving away from the footpath where you joined it until you meet a drystone wall. This is where you will pick up the path that heads down the hillside to your left. Walk down into the Cove with the drystone wall on your right. The footpath is stepped down alongside the drystone wall, with the Cove to your left. When you reach the bottom follow the path to your left to go and have a good look up at the Cove.

Gazing up at the sheer sides of the cove, you can almost feel a sense of vertigo at the scale and grandeur of this crescent-shaped sweep of cliff face. Wordsworth wrote a sonnet about Malham Cove that captures something of the awe of seeing it in person:. It might not have been shaped by giants, but this is rather an enigmatic landform; there is still much uncertainty about how it formed.

Part of the explanation for the cove is that it is a dry waterfall. This means a waterfall created it, but there is no water here today. Between and million years ago earth movements here caused faults to develop. We are now standing over the Mid Craven Fault, and this created the steep slope in front of us.

Jump forward to around 10, years ago the end of the last Ice Age and a river flowed down the Watlowes Valley and over this slope as a large waterfall.

Over time the force of the water in the waterfall gradually wore away the rock face it flowed over, eroding backwards from the fault line and creating the semi-circular shape in the cliff that we see today. However, a river and waterfall alone would have caused Malham Cove to retreat into a narrow gorge, not this wide crescent.

The cove is 70 metres high and its curved walls extend for metres. The precise nature of its formation is still debated, but the width of the Cove suggests that ice might have contributed to the cliff erosion during the height of the Ice Age.

The Cove was potentially carved out by ice that slowly descended the cliff, plucking away great blocks of the limestone as it went. This may not have been a single glacier, but an ice stream within a much larger ice sheet. So the ice carved out the rough wide sweep of cliff, and later it was further shaped by waterfalls, melt-water and the weathering of wind and rain.

When the land thawed after the end of the ice age the water flowed underground instead, leaving the valley and waterfall dry. Major storms occasionally caused water to overflow Malham Tarn, gurgle down the Watlowes Valley and create temporary waterfalls over Malham Cove. Early tourists to this curious landscape, like writer and vicar John Hutton in , were captivated by what they saw:.

Since such occurrences have been rare. Retrace your steps to where you descended the Cove and follow the footpath towards the village of Malham. Stop just before the footpath joins Cove Road. Gaze across the valley to the opposite side and you may notice some funny indentations and ridges in some of the fields.

These are medieval strip lynchets and are evidence that people once farmed the area. Lynchets are basically earth terraces. It is thought they were formed as soil collected on the downslopes of fields that were ploughed for long periods of time, or that they were deliberately dug to create deeper soils for growing crops on the slopes. Here farmers grew barley and oats, and this continued right up until the nineteenth century. There are also the remains of a corn mill further down the valley.

The lynchets are yet another facet of the fascinating landscape we have encountered on this walk. From tarn to cove and beyond, this wondrous world within the Dales has been inspiring visitors for centuries.

It is hardly surprising then that Warner Brothers decided this awesome environment would make an ideal location for the Harry Potter film.

The cove and its pavement are intriguing and almost other-worldly. This is all thanks to the limestone rock, which has been shaped over the millennia by earth movements, ice and water, creating a truly wizardly wonder. Leave the footpath and join Cove Road watching out for cars and bikes. Follow Cove Road through the town of Malham.

Pass through another kissing gate and enter into the beautifully picturesque National Trust owned wooded ravine, which eventually leads up to Janet's Foss. The smell of the wild garlic pungent wild ransom and in spring, bluebells, dominate and carpet large sections of the wood. Foss is the old Scandinavian word for waterfall. According to legend Janet, or Jennet was the Queen of the local fairies and lived in a cave behind the waterfall.

The cave was formed by limestone bedrock being dissolved and eroded by the action of water and re-deposited on mosses growing on the lip of the fall. This has caused a remarkable but fragile tufa screen that reaches to the plunge pool below.

Take the path that climbs away up to the left of the waterfall to pass out through a kissing gate turning right onto a lane. As the road bends around to the right, follow the footpath sign for Gordale Scar to the left passing along the very broad path, initially passing through the Gordale Scar private campsite. Keep on the path as it draws around the corner to reveal the Scar itself. Approaching Gordale Scar. Entering Gordale Scar.

Gordale Scar is a narrow cannon towered on either side by sheer walls of rock, hundreds of feet high. Gordale Beck tumbles down the ravine, forming one final waterfall here over the tufa. The walk now heads up the waterfall, but if you do not fancy the scramble, which is difficult in places and should not be attempted unless you are a fit and experienced walker, there is an alternative for the next two miles, which is described below.

Approaching the waterfall. Climber on Gordale Scar. Climbing up through the scar. At first there does not really appear to be a path up the waterfall, but as the waterfall is approached a sketchy path can be seen to the left of it, which climbs steeply and involves some scrambling. After the initial scramble, the route becomes easier and passes a further waterfall up to the right, before heading slightly to the left passing up some man made steps.

At the top the path swings around to the left and heads away from the valley below. Path eventually flattens and becomes grassier underfoot and easier to walk on, and then passes over a wall by way of a stone stile and continue on the same line following the sign for "Malham Tarn 2 miles".

The next waterfall at Gordale Scar. Climbing away from Gordale Scar. Follow the wide grassy path between a series of large cairns interspaced every hundred or so yards, through the limestone outcrops. As the limestone outcrops start to end, the path heads diagonally left across the field to pull in alongside the wall. As the wide path bends around to the right to run parallel with the wall, a more minor path heads off left continuing on the same direction to a stone stile in the wall a few yards ahead.

Pass over the stone stile and turn right along the lane for a few yards this is where the alternative path is joined and then head to the right along the track, which keeps in close by the wall, ignoring the metalled road. Passing through sites of old settlements, Fountain Fell ahead.

From Gordale Scar return to the lane turning back right to cross the bridge then right through a gate following the "Malham Cove" sign. Follow the wide path across the field to the corner of the walls, and turn right up hill with the wall on the right hand side. Go over a wooden ladder stile and continue on up across the field to eventually pass up some man made steps and through a gate.

Here turn left to follow a wide distinctive path by the wall to the left. Go through a further gate and keep on for another five hundred yards slowly rising and finally bending around to the right to pass through a kissing gate out onto a lane.

Turn right onto the lane and follow mainly uphill for one and a quarter miles passing through old settlements and field systems. Just after a cattle grid the lane bears left away from the wall. Here turn right off the lane and keep on the track by the side of the wall. This is where the original route passing up through the Scar is rejoined.

Both routes then continue along the track by the side of the wall and keep ahead at a 'T' junction at Street Gate. Street Gate is the junction of two ancient trans Pennine routes, the one currently being followed is from Arncliffe to Malham, whilst the east-west track is the route from Wharfedale to Ribblesdale. Keep on by the wall and as the track starts to pull away from the wall it heads down towards a small plantation ahead, where Malham Tarn can now be seen over to the left.

As the plantation is reached, turn left off the track before reaching the cattle grid following a path along the side of the plantation Great Close Plantation. Track heading towards Great Close Plantation. The path keeps in close to the wall initially before keeping ahead as the wall bears to the right for a few hundred yards until a track is reached.

Turn right onto the track and pass through the gate to enter the land around Malham Tarn. Follow the track around the tarn for as far as you want before returning back to the gate. It is possible to circle the tarn and then using the lanes meet this walk again by the roadside parking area at grid reference