I’ve overnighted while cycle-touring in all sorts of places. Docked ferries, (former) jails, military barracks, tractor sheds. Even a rare-breed tropical spider house in the Amazon – though it wasn’t called that, it was called a ‘holiday lodge’. But last night, in the Yorkshire Dales, I experienced a rather special first: staying overnight in a church. By myself.
And no, I wasn’t on the run, needing asylum, or on parole from Les Misérables. I was staying in St Mary’s, Arkengarthdale, one of fifty-odd churches round England you can ‘champ’ (‘church-camp’) overnight in through the summer, thanks to the Churches Conservation Trust (champing.co.uk). You have the whole building – which, by definition, is historic and rather wonderful – to yourself, all night.
Luxury it isn’t. There’s no shower, it probably won’t be heated, and you kip on the provided camp bed. (You either bring your own bedding, or rent it for the night.) Facilities might vary from an electrical socket and not much else, to indoor flushing loos, a well-appointed kitchen area, and zippy fast wifi (all of which I enjoyed at St Mary’s). Nor is it cheap. But it’s a unique experience, with a genuine goosebump factor.
To get to Arkengarthdale, up in the northern Dales, involved a train to Kirkby Stephen and a rather glorious afternoon ride. Most of that was uphill to start with, as I climbed out of the lush Eden Valley, hazy and green as a 1980s butter advert, to the bare Pennine tops. I stopped off at the Tan Hill Inn, the legendary highest pub in Britain.
I was last at the Tan Hill Inn for an article in 2023, when I rode from here to the lowest pub in Britain. Arriving in the freezing February dusk, I was very grateful to see the pub lights on the horizon, and to cosy up with the handful of hardy visitors enjoying the live music.
This time it was rather different. On this warm summer evening, the place was full of cars and campervans – I stopped counting at a hundred. And it was thronging with even more people, most of whom seemed to be queueing at the bar. I had a few soft drinks with me, garnered from the Spar in Kirkby Stephen, so instead of waiting to be served I carried on down the long hill east towards Arkengarthdale.
The church was left open for me when I arrived there about seven. It gave me quite a thrill to know this space was all mine for the night. The camp bed was laid out, along with a plain but inviting table with plates, cutlery, mug and wine glass. (Yes, you’re welcome to bring your own. Respect the place of course, but celebrate the miraculous, such as water that turns into wine. Well, vines do it.)
I unpacked, rolled out my sleeping bag, and had a quick wash. Before dinner I nipped down to the Red Lion at Langthwaite, five minutes’ walk away, for a pint of Black Sheep IPA. The pub is an institution, and Rowena the landlady has run the place for 45 years.
I sipped my pint in the evening sunshine outside, on the road to Booze. Literally. It’s a narrow lane to the hamlet of that name a mile away.
Back at St Mary’s I rustled up dinner (a pasta’n’pesto pouch from Aldi with a tin of mackerel, rather good, actually) and enjoyed a glass of wine in the serenity of the church’s light and space. A stroll round the lanes watching the evening close in, and I was ready for an early night.
My bike stayed inside in the porch, and I could bolt the door from the inside. I wasn’t worried about me, more about my Spa Cycles Wayfarer. Though I suspect cycle theft here is pretty unusual.
Later, in the wee hours, I had another uplifting experience. This is Dark Sky country, where scant light pollution means velvety black backdrops for stargazing – something now impossible anywhere near a town, city or even main road. But here the heavens seem three dimensional, textured, deep, as if you could reach out and touch the nearer stars. (You can’t. Even the nearest is four light years away. Sorry.)
With my phone’s astronomy app, Stellarium, I could spot constellation after constellation – Cygnus, the huge swan vividly flying south; Taurus, the bullish triangle with the angry orange Aldebaran; and Andromeda, in which – tantalisingly, glimpsingly – I could just make out M31, a spiral galaxy like ours. The Milky Way was a creamy flood, the Pleiades a sparkling, clustered septet, and I even spotted several man-made satellites breezing around.
Staying at a church makes you pause for thought. In this case, my pause was that I’m one of eight billion people living under our sun. Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. And our galaxy is one of 100 billion in the universe. That we can see. And there might be 100 billion universes. We don’t know.
Hmm. Evidently, Creation is quite big.
What I did know was that I was getting cold after half an hour standing in the dark outside. So I had a cup of tea, then went back to sleep, blissfully, peacefully, till seven. After which I had some cereal, fruit and tea – breakfast of champs – and set off this morning into the sunshine for Reeth.
I’ve had a rather fabulous stay in St Mary’s. One of my biking chums, seeing (and sharing) my enthusiasm, half-jokingly suggested I put together a bike ride to stay in all fifty-odd champing venues. Sounds like a cracking project to me. I might tire of Aldi pasta pouches, but I don’t think I could tire of the venues.