DISCOVER Ilkley Moor
Ancient markings, alien abductions, poetic graffiti, stone circles, Victorian mindfulness, Charles Darwin in a plunge pool… and the most famous song in Yorkshire. Welcome to the beautiful and slightly bonkers world of Ilkley Moor.
IT’S QUITE SURPRISING how many songs there are about hats. All Around My Hat, You Can Leave Your Hat On, Wherever I Lay My Hat, Hold On To Your Hat, Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat, Raspberry Beret… I could do this all day. Probably. But when it comes to melodies of millinery, one song stands homburg and trilby above all others. It’s called On Ilkla Mooar Baht ’At, and it’s known as the unofficial anthem of Yorkshire. (Some even call it Yorkshire’s National Anthem, particularly those of the firm persuasion that Yorkshire is a nation unto itself.)
The title means ‘On Ilkley Moor Without a Hat’, and it’s a wondrously wry cautionary tale about the importance of wearing a hat if you set out across Ilkley Moor. Not just that, mind. It’s also a song about fooling around in the heather with someone you fancy. It’s also about mortality and transience and what Mufasa the Lion called ‘the circle of life’. And it’s about ducks. There’s a lot going on in that song.
But that’s because there’s a lot going on out on that moor, too. Ilkley Moor, whence this complex epic originates, is packed with more interest and intrigue, more history, heritage and habitat, than any upland of its comparatively
compact size has any right to boast. Stories layer this moorland, from archaeology to art; from Victorian mindfulness to (rumoured) alien abductions.
The best way to discover these stories is to go for a walk, obviously. As long as you bring a hat.
The giant and the genius
First, the what’s what of Ilkley Moor. And that starts with the fact that it isn’t really Ilkley Moor. The given name for this self-contained dollop of upland, fringed by the West Yorkshire trading colonies of Keighley, Ilkley, Guiseley and Bingley, is Rombalds Moor. ‘Rombald’ is often touted as being a resident Yorkshire giant. Legend says he was fleeing a quarrel with his equally giant (and alas nameless) wife when he tripped over, creating the broken rocks of Cow and Calf at the north-eastern edge of the moor.
