A well Settled afternoon

The town of Settle in North Yorkshire's Craven district has always held a fascination for me. Before the A65 bypassed the town, it was an unavoidable, but picturesque bottleneck on the way to the west coast or Lakes. My dad liked the place, and would always opine that it was 'just like Switzerland' when he drove under the railway viaduct. It turned out that his only experience of Switzerland had been a journey in a sealed train at the end of WWII, and the totality of Switzerland to him - as a thankful soon-to-be ex Sapper - was a peaceful land with big hills through which his train to freedom and home wended it's merry way. I remembered this yesterday when I returned to the town. Off the bypass at the Settle/Horton-in-Ribblesdale turning, past the Falcon Hotel and into the main square, with its Ye Olde Naked Man Cafe, the house where Edward Elgar stayed with his friend, the local doctor, and centre-piece stone shops with upper floor galleries. My purpose in going to Settle was to show off the town's railway station - the starting point for the Northern Rail's Settle-Carlisle line '72 miles of splendour' as the station sign unselfconsciously, and entirely truthfully, proclaims. If you're heading west from Skipton, turn off the A65; third exit from the roundabout just after the railway bridge. Follow the Settle/Horton-in-Ribblesdale, visit dad's Switzerland and a railway station that, if anything, rather downplays the wonders it plays host to.