HE coarse and richly speckled millstone grit defines the central Pennines of God’s Own County, capping the limestone hills and providing rootage for purple- and pink-flowering bell heather. Extending east of Wharfedale and Coverdale, from Caldbergh Moor in the north to Beamsley Moor at the south-eastern tip of the Dales, the gritty Yorkshireman’s flat cap covers about 840 square miles and forms the Nidderdale plateau, stretching southwards through the Pennines into Derbyshire. The southern gritstone moors and fells are
