A small-scale solar panel development at Dent railway station, on the Settle-Carlisle railway, is pictured in the springtime edition of Dales 2008, a newspaper for the residents of the Dales National Park. Support is given by the Park Authority to small-scale renewable energy developments to meet local energy needs – providing they do not harm the character of the area.

Eric Treacy, the Railway Bishop, was among those who gloried in the view of Dentdale from the Settle-Carlisle line – and who was tempted at Dent station to pull the communication cord and step on to the platform to stay in this Shangri-la.

Dent is not just the highest station on the line – it is the highest mainline station in the land. The former stationmaster's house tickles the 1,150-ft contour line. Alexander Frater, in a train journey on the Settle-Carlisle, noted that beyond the viaducts of Dent Head and Arten Gill the line "began scoring points, dealing only in superlatives".

The approach to Dent station from the valley is both memorable and exhausting – a steep climb, winding at first. Alfred J Brown, an imaginative Yorkshire writer, wrote: "It is a mistake to rush up that steep road to Dent station hard on the heels of breakfast... it plays havoc with one's lungs and digestion; yet in spite of the wheezing and groaning, how rich the reward as one tops the rise!"

On my last trip from Hellifield to Carlisle by steam train, one of the specials, a number of fleeting glances at Dent took in well-remembered features – redundant snow fences, the main station building now in private hands, and available as holiday accommodation – look up the website.

The stationmaster's house, home for many years to Roy and Jenny Holmes, stood out, being the highest of Dent's skyline buildings.

I recalled a winter day when the wilderness effect was completed by a blackcock, "big as a littleish turkey", nonchalantly pecking scarlet berries from a thorn tree
at the head of an embankment. Not far away was a massive four-arch, brick-built overbridge (no 96) taking over the tracks the
so-called Coal Road 'twixt Dent and Garsdale stations. The road served a number
of little bell-pits from which
a hard, brittle coal was recovered.

When the stationmaster's house, for long a private residence, was taking shape in the 1870s, it had a novel feature – double-glazed windows. Two panes of glass were set slightly apart in the same frame. My old friend Cecil Sanderson, a former stationmaster, a native of the Plain of York who revelled in the high life, had a novel way of sealing the house against draughts. In the depths of winter, he sprayed the house with water from a hosepipe, forming a protective shield
of ice.

In its heyday, Dent dealt with a vast range of goods. In November, 1887, a corpse was consigned by rail the 56 miles from Leeds to Dent, at a charge of a shilling a mile. It cost the bereaved family £2.80. When a Lancashire school rented the main building at Dent station, files of old documents taken from the loft indicated that in 1896, the staff handled a mowing machine, 20 loads of corn, six bags of sugar, four buckets of lard and innumerable loads of basic slag, in two hundredweight bags.

Most of the stationmasters at Dent were promoted – and went joyfully to lower and warmer climes. Cecil Sanderson, stationmaster from 1938 until 1945, gave me examples of the weather's ferocity. Sandy, as he was called by his friends, said that "the snow didn't fall from above. It was lateral snow, with ice and hailstones mixed in. If you were not careful in windy weather,
you might be blown off
your feet."

Jack Sedgwick, my special friend at Dent station, was a signalman. At high-lying Dent, the signals had frequently to be cut out of snow drifts. Jack was a conscientious man who, nonetheless, did a bit of haircutting in the box. He remembered days when Bishop Treacy, on one of his photographic missions, joined the signalman and accepted a cup of tea.

At first, the signalmen had no idea of his high church position. He wore an ordinary tie. "Aye," recalled Jack, "he used to say he enjoyed listening to Dent box talk afore t'men found out he wor a parson." It grieved Jack, that when the box was made redundant, the woodwork was put to the torch.

Just before the Second Front (the invasion of Europe during the 1939-45 war) took place, a trainload of Jeeps went by. Settle-Carlisle men beheld it with drooping lower jaws. It was astonishing. Americans had remained sitting in the Jeeps. It was so cold, they had kept the Jeep engines running and the headlamps blazing.

Today, the railway aspect of Dent is composed of two platforms, each with a well-maintained shelter. The solar panel brings a touch of modernity. It does not unduly change the character of the station. The National Park planners ensured that this was the case.