{"id":29763,"date":"2023-08-24T12:23:02","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T10:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=29763"},"modified":"2023-08-24T12:23:02","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T10:23:02","slug":"a-walk-in-hockneys-yorkshire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/2023\/08\/24\/a-walk-in-hockneys-yorkshire\/","title":{"rendered":"A walk in Hockney\u2019s Yorkshire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Writer Chris follows the Yorkshire Wolds Way as it travels across the top of stunning steep-sided Horse Dale<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

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A walk in Hockney\u2019s Yorkshire<\/h2>\n\n

Joyful zingy colours, exuberant strokes and large formats typify David Hockney\u2019s exciting take on the rolling landscapes of his home county. Chris Gee <\/strong>walks the Yorkshire Wolds Way in search of the views that inspired the influential artist<\/p>\n\n

Photos: Olivia Brabbs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

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This 79-mile National Trail is well waymarked and easy to navigate

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Listen for the song of the yellowhammer, commonly seen beside the Wolds\u2019 arable fields<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

Y<\/span>orkshire<\/strong> may seem worlds away from the sun-drenched poolsides of California where David Hockney found inspiration for the aquamarine-hued works that first brought him international fame in the \u201960s and \u201970s. But these peaceful, rolling Yorkshire Wolds landscapes have lived in the Bradford-born artist\u2019s imagination since boyhood, sparking years of exciting and intense creativity. His work has made the Yorkshire Wolds famous, as the subject of striking watercolours, richly coloured paintings and vivid iPad drawings. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Born in 1937, Hockney spent his teenage summers working as a farm hand in the fields around Huggate. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Art in 1962 and travelling to the USA, Hockney soon became famous for his pool paintings of California, becoming associated with the Pop Art movement of the time. He returned regularly to Yorkshire in the 1990s to visit his mother, but by the late <\/strong><\/span>\u201990s <\/span>stayed for longer periods of time to capture the landscapes of his boyhood. Between 2004 and 2013, Hockney settled back in the seaside town of Bridlington and this gave him easy access to the Wolds\u2019 landscapes he found so fascinating.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\u201cHockney was often seen out on the Wolds, working en plein air creating drawings and oils\u201d <\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

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During those years, Hockney was often seen out on the Wolds, working en plein air creating drawings, watercolours and oils. More recently, his painterly iPad works capture the essence of this beautiful and yet rarely visited corner of Yorkshire. Of the iconic dry valleys, Hockney said: \u201cEast Yorkshire, to the uninitiated, just looks like a lot of little hills. But it does have these marvellous valleys that are caused by glaciers, not rivers. So, it\u2019s unusual.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

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In 2017, David Hockney donated his large-scale work The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate<\/em>, East Yorkshire in 2011 to the Pompidou Centre in Paris, France <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

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The colours of arable fields in late summer come to life in Hockney\u2019s The Road Across the Wolds<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

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The scene that inspired his artistic eye

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Today, the Wolds is known as \u2018Hockney Country\u2019 and there are online trails that guide you to the locations that inspired him. For a helpful itinerary, see visiteastyorkshire.co.uk<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Accompanied by my sprocker spaniel Ruby, I\u2019m walking an 11-mile route that embraces my favourite part of the Wolds, taking us through a quintessential part of \u2018Hockney Country\u2019. We begin in Millington, a quiet village that nestles between chalk ridges, not far from the bustling East Yorkshire market town of Pocklington \u2013 aHockney favourite. In nearby Millington Wood, charcoal \u2013 which Hockney uses for sketching \u2013 is still made in the traditional way.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

A LARGER VALLEY, MILLINGTON <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

Here we join the Yorkshire Wolds Way, a 79-mile National Trail that runs from Hessle on the north bank of the River Humber to Filey on the North Sea coast. The 11-mile section from Millington to Thixendale travels through archetypal Wolds scenery of curvaceous dry chalk valleys grazed by sheep and flat Wold tops, where rich, well-drained soil means arable farming holds sway. <\/p>\n\n

September is a favourite time to visit, the hawthorns in the hedgerows heavy with deep red berries and those arable fields a patchwork of post-harvest beige separated by green hedgerows, something Hockney captured so well in paintings, such as The Road Across the Wolds <\/em>(1997). It\u2019s a landscape of quiet lanes with broad verges. Despite the Wolds Way being a<\/span> National Trail, it\u2019s peaceful here, as travellers tend to pass by on their way to the North York Moors or Yorkshire coast. <\/p>\n\n

Almost immediately, we follow the line of an old earthwork, one of many to be found across the Wold tops. The Wolds are dotted with burial mounds and tumuli and this high ground was clearly once revered by our distant ancestors. \u2018Wold\u2019 is an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning wooded hill, though these hills were cleared of their trees by early settlers many thousands of years ago. <\/p>\n\n

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Chris enjoys the flat walking in the valley of Millington Dale before the steep climb up its slopes <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

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The way drops down into Sylvan Dale, the first of the day\u2019s dry valleys. The slopes are dotted with gorse and the dale is a haven for barn owls, kestrels and red kites. The \u201clittle bit of bread and no cheese\u201d call from the hedgerows identifies the yellowhammer, a bird that favours the arable uplands, while meadow pipits parachute down into the grassy slopes and skylarks add to the soundtrack. <\/p>\n\n

Inevitably, we have to climb steeply out of the dale again, but the great thing about the Wolds is the chalk landscape drains well, so it\u2019s rarely muddy, even after prolonged rain. The map shows the route of a Roman Road once cut across Sylvan Dale, but there was no trace of it on the ground. These steep-sided grassy slopes clearly didn\u2019t faze the Romans in their linear cross-country journeys.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\u201cThe great thing about the Wolds is the chalk landscape drains well, so it\u2019s rarely muddy\u201d <\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

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The route takes us above Millington Dale, inspiration for Hockney\u2019s verdant watercolour A Larger Valley, Millington <\/em>(2008), to Nettle Dale, then it\u2019s another stiff pull to reach the Wold top again to continue along the top of Pasture Dale. When we lived in York, this was our go-to dale in the evening, great for watching barn owls and, in winter, short-eared owls.<\/p>\n\n

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Huggate St Mary\u2019s Church Spire<\/em>, August 2005 was one of Hockney\u2019s first oil landscapes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
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The view from York Lane above Huggate, where the artist set up his easel many times

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LOOKING TOWARDS HUGGATE <\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

We continue across Huggate Pasture, where it\u2019s just about possible to see out east to the sea, the first sighting of it on the Wolds Way before the grand finale at Filey.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

On reaching York Lane, we take a brief detour to the right to see the view that inspired a number of Hockney works, including Looking <\/em>Towards <\/em>Huggate: <\/em>Midsummer <\/em>(2004) and Huggate <\/em>St <\/em>Mary\u2019s <\/em>Church <\/em>Spire <\/em>(2005). He revisited this area, where he worked during his boyhood summers, in the 2000s \u2013 the view from York Lane is instantly recognisable as the spot where he placed his deckchair to work immersed in the landscape.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

We take another essential detour off route to the north-west to marvel at the Bronze Age linear earthwork of Huggate Dikes, which in many ways evokes the dry valleys of the Wolds. <\/p>\n\n

A chalk track lined with trees, reminiscent of Hockney\u2019s Late <\/em>Spring <\/em>Tunnel <\/em>(2006), leads to the earthworks. There is much speculation about whether these dikes were a defensive structure, a boundary marker, a means to cross from Frendal Dale to Horse Dale without being seen, or maybe it was simply an early form of art, mankind recreating the shapes of the landscape. Either way, it must have taken herculean efforts to dig deeply into this chalk soil. My wife and I spent many a lazy afternoon here watching brown hares and roe deer.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

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Wildflowers thrive beside the chalky trail that leads from Huggate Dikes <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

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Returning to the Wolds Way, we continue via Glebe Farm \u2013 \u2018glebe\u2019 being an old word meaning a piece of land that gave income for a clergyman. The trail headed for Horse Dale, my favourite of all the snaking dry valleys. It\u2019s a favourite for landscape photographers, too, while Hockney has captured it perfectly in exuberant iPad paintings. My thoughts turned to past visits with my wife and our dogs. We would sit on the grassy slopes among the chalkland-loving wildflowers, as little owls stared back from their nest holes in an old ash tree. <\/p>\n\n

THREE TREES NEAR THIXENDALE <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

Continuing into Holm Dale, we stroll along the base of this dry valley, threading our way through grazing sheep and beef cattle before gaining height to head into Fridaythorpe. Fridaythorpe was the envy of many of the villages in the surrounding landscape, because it had access to water in its pond, a rare feature in this chalk landscape. The Saxons addressed the problem of water draining through porous chalk by lining hollows in the landscape with clay to collect water. There are tales of neighbouring villages coming to blows over access to water when their own supply dried up! <\/p>\n\n

We step through the lych gate to 12thcentury St Mary\u2019s Church. This ancient church is one of the famous Sykes churches, restored in the early 20th century by Sir Tatton Sykes II of nearby Sledmere House, who set about restoring the older churches across the Wolds. Sledmere House and its estate village is worth a visit, a clear favourite with Hockney, who painted a number of scenes of the attractive village. <\/span>The <\/em>Road <\/em>to <\/em>York <\/em>Through <\/em>Sledmere <\/em>(1997) is my favourite, with its colourful, cartoon-like quality.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

We turned west here with the Wolds Way as it continued its meandering course through West Dale and across into Thixendale. Some say that Thixendale is named after the 16 dales that converge on this point, but that seems to be an exaggeration, although there are certainly quite a few. More likely it is named after Sigstein, an old Scandinavian name. <\/p>\n\n

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Take a small diversion off the Wolds Way to see remarkable Bronze Age earthwork Huggate Dikes <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

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A favourite scene, Hockney painted Three Trees Near Thixendale (2008) in all four seasons <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

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Strolling north through the dale towards the junction with Fotherdale, a complex array of nest boxes and hides graces the valley slopes and trees on the left. This is the work of wildlife artist and photographer Robert Fuller, whose gallery can be found at nearby Fotherdale Farm. <\/p>\n\n

Our final leg headed effortlessly into Thixendale for another brief diversion along the road to Burdale to another favourite Hockney location. Beside the road are Three <\/em>Trees <\/em>near <\/em>Thixendale <\/em>(2007\u20132008), which Hockney would paint in each of the seasons. It was then simply a case of retracing our steps to Thixendale for a well-deserved pint of Wold Top brewery beer at the Cross Keys Inn and the end of this Wolds Way adventure. <\/p>\n\n

Like Hockney, I had once been very familiar with the Wolds landscape, but after we moved away to the Yorkshire Dales, our visits became infrequent. But as with Hockney, I was drawn to return and I understood why we had both missed this part of Yorkshire. In his works, Hockney has distilled the essence of the Wolds and captured perfectly the elements of this landscape that I find so appealing: quiet, winding lanes; iconic dry valleys; the rolling patchwork of arable fields and hedgerows; those pockets of trees and charming villages. I won\u2019t leave it quite so long before I return again. <\/p>\n\n

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Find the muchstudied three trees near the pond beside the Thixendale to Burdale road <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

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See Hockney\u2019s works <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n

\u2022 Head to the 1853 Gallery at Salt\u2019s Mill in Saltaire, West Yorkshire. This houses a permanent exhibition of Hockney\u2019s work and is one of the largest collections of his art. saltsmill.org.uk<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

\u2022 The immersive 360\u00b0 audiovisual exhibition, David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (Not Smaller & Further Away) <\/em>is on at Lightroom in London\u2019s King\u2019s Cross until 1 October. lightroom.uk<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

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Chris Gee has spent the last 10 years exploring the Yorkshire Wolds in all seasons and has completed the Yorkshire Wolds Way. Chris is author of Walking the Yorkshire Coast: A Companion Guide<\/em> (PixZ Books).





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DISCOVER OTHER YORKSHIRE LANDSCAPE ARTISTS <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Michelle Hughes <\/strong>
York-based Michelle produces original linocut prints inspired by the British countryside. Yorkshire and the Lake District feature heavily in her work.
michellehughesdesign.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


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Martyn Simpson<\/strong>
Working mainly with oil on canvas, Martyn produces quirky paintings of Yorkshire landscapes and townscapes.
martynsimpson.co.uk<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n

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Photo: \u00a9 David Hockney \/ Prudence Cuming Associates. Getty, Jonathan Wilkinson\/Kunsthalle W\u00fcrth, K\u00fcnzelsau, Germany<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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