or ‘Five Get Over Excited’ ….
When philanthropist David Ross was approaching his 50th birthday (about a decade ago) he wanted to celebrate it by commissioning a work of landscape art on his estate in Rosedale, North Yorkshire.
Andy Goldsworthy was selected to create the work of art and he did so in a restored stone barn in about 2018.
But this wasn’t just any old barn and neither was it a normal work of art. Andy Goldsworthy doesn’t do normal works of art.
Later, with the support of the Ross Foundation, Goldsworthy proposed to restore a total of 10 barns which are linked by a 6 mile walk. He called this project ‘Hangingstones’.
I became aware of the genius of Andy Goldsworthy in the early 90’s in Grizedale Forest. I would stumble across his work whilst out walking or running there and be left amazed, puzzled and intrigued by his work. He also has work on the ‘far side’ of YSP not far from my home in Sheffield.
I stumbled across a mention of ‘Hangingstones’ on social media about 8 months ago and ended up ‘booking a key’ for a visit more than half a year hence.
At 0630 yesterday four men and a collie got in a car and drove to Rosedale. About 5 miles from there the weather turned wintery.
The met office forecast had shown cold dry and sunny weather for the day.
When you book you get a date and a start time for no more than six people and you pay a fee of £10pp. This fee is used to maintain ‘Hangingstones’ and also allows you access to the parts of the route on private land.
You have to navigate to a beautiful house to collect a key, map and written directions and then follow these to the start point car park.
(Barn 1 is the last of the 10 to be finished – Goldsworthy expects to finish it in 2025)
We four were well equipped and experienced mountain walkers. We needed to be !
The walk is a loop of a reasonably remote valley in which you reach a barn every twentyish minutes – reaching up to near the top of the North Yorkshire Moors at about 330m / 1000ft. You really do need to be able to navigate and some of the walking is rough.
Even the marker stones to keep you on route are by Goldsworthy and seemingly pointless minor diversions reveal other works of his hidden in the landscape …
So it was that we set off. By the time we reached barn one the weather had deteriorated. At barn two we had a team decision to abandon the walk due to the severity of the blizzard we were walking in and the increasing likelihood of not getting back out of Rosedale.
We trudged back to the village intent on leaving asap. Tom walked to the cross roads to see the road conditions. They were passable (it was pheasant shooting season a large number of 4x4s were about).
A cafe was open. A blue crack in the sky opened.
We’d go for a cuppa and give it twenty minutes.
We finished the cuppa and it was a different day outside.
The snow had stopped but the significant wind chill hadn’t and slowly the day turned to a bluebird alpine day. An absolute joy.
At each hut we would wait for Tom to unlock the padlock and pull back the door and we would peer inside and laugh out loud at how the incredible imagination of Goldsworthy had restored a small hillside barn in to a mesmerising work of art. They were all incredible. Some of them were completely mindblowing and we’d just stand and stare at what he’d created.
There seems to be a deliberate aim to not advertise Hangingstones too widely. I shan’t describe all of the barns. Many days of each month you can’t book so that the sculptures ‘rest’ and the landscape recovers. The entry fee does seem to be being spent on care and maintenance and all of the barns were in stunning condition.
You can’t access any of them without a key. There are plans also to allow dawn and dusk access to some of the barns to see the light play in them. Apparently ‘guides’ might become a thing to (as in a human to guide you – the lack of guidebooks and interactive media serves only to increase the impact of the barns).
(I will happily professionally guide anyone round the route by prior arrangement)
Lunch was had inside the highest barn with bright sunshine and a biting wind outside.
We navigated our way between the latter half of the route in ground akin to snowshoeing in Lapland. It was surreal.
Even the last barn – at the end of about 4.5hrs on our feet (plus the first abandoned hour) had us stood mesmerised at what was inside. Genius.
And back along the river to the car. Return the key and papers. Then drive round to the Lion Inn on Blakey Ridge ‘for old times sake’ for a warm and a hearty feed.
Goldsworthy is a genius.
Hangingstones is one of the best day walks i have ever done.
The disappointment of (sensible) abandonment due to unsafe weather …. turned in to the most wonderful ‘alpine’ day.
Thank you to Paul, Mitch, Tom and Bob the Collie for a brilliant day.
