The athletic legacy of Ingleborough peak told in new book by local author Victoria Benn as part of the Stories in Stone conservation project

Ingleborough is the most walked mountain in the county but up to now its athletic racing legacy has never been captured in a book.

Threshfield based author Victoria Benn’s latest book, Peak Performance, rectifies this providing an authoritative guide to its historic place in rural sporting life.

Victoria, daughter of locally renowned athlete, coach and commentator Roger Ingham, said she was brought up on a diet of visiting and taking part in the Yorkshire Dales’ and Lake District’s iconic, countryside racing and wrestling venues.

It was this which prompted her to write the new book as part of the Stories in Stone programme by the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust, which focuses on conservation and community projects in the Ingleborough area.

“When I began I’d only thought of it being published as a pamphlet,” said Victoria, who has also written Studs & Crooks, the story of Kilnsey Show and Sports.

“But the team behind Stories in Stone were keen to have something more substantial and I soon found more to tell than I appreciated, including an amazing heritage going back 200 years.

“Fell races and cross country races across the Dales and the Lakes punctuated my early life.

“Our car would always be full of mum, dad, me, my brother Matthew and two or three other runners.

“One of the most legendary races of all is still the Ingleborough Mountain Race first run in 1934 and won by local man Leonard Haworth.

“I wanted this book to include the full story of the race including every winner I could substantiate.”

Victoria said she found out the race was inspired by a bet that very few could complete the course in less than 100 minutes.

A Yorkshire Evening Post story reported that the young farmer had made history by climbing and descending Ingleborough (2,373 feet) in one hour and eight seconds, with two-thirds of the course covered in thick fog and a raging gale at the summit before he returned to Ingleton High Street to breast the tape.

Victoria also recounts that fell racing legend Bill Teasdale, a shepherd from Cumbria, who won all of the major titles in the sport, twice won the Ingleborough Mountain Race. His first win set a new record in 1952, knocking over six minutes off the previous best for the arduous seven-and-a-half-mile course.

The man who came in second asked whether Bill had already gone home.

“I knew Bill through my dad and visited him again while writing Peak Performance,” said Victoria.

“Some of his comments on the race are included and the book cover has a silhouette image of his second win in 1955 with Ingleborough in the background.”

The book gives an insight into the challenging conditions this race is often run in, with stories of the thick mist descending and runners lost in the fog on Ingleborough’s plateau, trying in vain to find the marshals and one runner finding his way down by a trail of orange peel.

Victoria said it had been a labour of love.

“The likes of Ingleton Sports, Clapham Sports and many others grew out of village feasts, ancient religious celebrations and livestock fairs that included cattle sales, dancing and drinking as well as wrestling, running and horse racing.

“The Ingleton Amateur Athletic Sports became its own event in 1895 and by 1904 it had moved from a field opposite Ingleborough Hall to Batty Croft behind the New Inn where wrestling, trotting races (harness racing), track and field events, weightlifting and tug ‘o war were all featured, but there was no fell race.”

Victoria said one of her greatest moments of satisfaction in writing Peak Performance was finding out more about the people involved. “The book shines a light on some real sporting champions who I feel have not received the recognition they have deserved.

“Like Robert Moorhouse, a local farmer from Halton West near Hellifield. He had three successive wins in Ingleborough Mountain Race during the 1940s.”

The Three Peaks Race, Three Peaks Cyclo Cross and The Fellsman are three other major and enduring events that all incorporate Ingleborough and Victoria devotes sections to each.

In a world where today’s ‘ultra’ runners now compete over many days and often hundreds of miles Victoria tells of how Ingleborough still stands tall in the athletic world.

“Longer races like the Three Peaks that have followed wouldn’t have been possible without the inspiration of people like Fred Bagley and Malcolm Withnel who organised the first one. Fred also won the first race in 1954.

“Bradford Road Cycling Club’s John Rawnsley organised the first Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross race in 1961, which he also won. He then went on to organise it 45 times.

“Victoria and Chris Wilkinson hold a special place in Ingleborough history being the only father and daughter to both win the Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross. Victoria is also five-time winner of the women’s Three Peaks race, and record holder since 2017.”

Victoria said there were times when there was not the full complement of marshals to be able to reach each of the three summits.

“There were occasions, I found, when the marshals were a man down and on those occasions they had to be just as fit as the runners.

“One or two had to leave the first summit and get to the third one before the runners made it there.”

The winning rosta for the Three Peaks Race also features Olympian Jeff Norman.

The Lancashire-born runner won the gruelling race six times between 1970 and 1975 setting a course record in 1974, just two years before representing his country in the Marathon event at the Montreal Olympics.

The most unusual finish to a win so far, Victoria said, was Ian Ferguson in 1991, who somersaulted to victory over the finish line.

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