Last week my wife and I had a very pleasant few days staying in Middleham in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales. Middleham is famous for its horse racing stables (15 in the area) and its magnificent castle (once the home to Richard III) - a subject I found very difficult to get a good image of that didn't just repeat everybody else's photos (I think the drone would have been the solution). However, although Middleham has 3 pubs (I recommend The Black Bull), a fish and chip shop and a hotel - NONE of these serves food on a Monday or Tuesday!!

I started my photographic journey at Ribblehead Viaduct where the light did not really play ball - a slight fail there! However the following day we ventured out to "Surrender" and "Old Gang" smelt mills. I had no idea that the Dales had once been heavily industrialised in this area, mining and smelting lead.

Nowadays the area of these ruins is peaceful and (on the day we visited) almost deserted. "Surrender" is literally just down and across from the decent sized car park, whilst "Old Gang" is about a 20 minutes walk along a good well marked track. Both sets of ruins are well worth the visitor's effort and as an added bonus the moorland teems with birdlife - grouse, lapwing and other small birds that were too quick for me to identify them. "Old Gang" has more extensive ruins than "Surrender" and is a fascinating journey into the past.

On our final day, unfortunately, the weather turned. However, undaunted we headed out to Winskill Stones where the driving rain, moody clouds and freezing wind certainly added atmosphere and I was pleased with the images I obtained of Gator's tree and the white farmhouse, framed by another lone tree.

From Winskill Stones we headed for the lone tree at Malham Lings. The weather was clearly putting the crowds off, as we found the very limited parking deserted. From there it was a yomp across a couple of fields to reach the impressive limestone pavement and the lone tree. What I had not realised was that the pavement was a bit of a scramble to reach (well worth the effort though). Being of a certain age now I found the descent slightly more daunting than I would have done in my youth and am not ashamed to say I opted to descent on my bottom (reasoning that damp trousers was far better than broken bones).

Again Malham Lings delivered photographically with the weather adding mood.

No trip to the Dales would be complete without photographing some of its iconic stone barns and the barn just outside Angram, sitting so beautifully in its surrounding landscape provided a fitting example.

All in all a wonderful few days and I hope we will return in the near future.