The northernmost of the Yorkshire Dales, Swaledale can well claim to be the most beautiful; certainly to be the wildest and most romantic. It is, a local writer claimed 'as close to Heaven as you get on Earth' and it has been celebrated by Yorkshiremen and others for over two hundred years. Stretching from the wilds around Muker and remote Arkengarthdale, through a landscape once scarred by lead mining, but now marked out by regular grey field walls and barns, and picturesque villages, to the splendour of Richmond with its great Medieval castle and its graceful eighteenth century bridge, theatre and houses, Swaledale is the classic Yorkshire dale, and here is a photographic portrait of it in all seasons and all weathers by a local photographer,