Gunnerside: The remote Yorkshire village which gave its name to one of the Second World War's most dangerous missions

The village’s moorland surrounds form part of the 32,000-acre Gunnerside Estate, owned by billionaire Robert Miller, co-founder of Duty Free Shops.

Tatler has described the estate as "the holy grail of grouse moors", adding the tycoon's love of the sport and his considerable funds had meant he has created "probably one of the finest grouse moors in England".

The magazine stated: "Known for its challenging birds and its incredibly professional team of keepers, Gunnerside is a serious success story. If you are lucky enough to be invited say yes instantly."

One fan of Gunnerside’s shooting, Sir Charles Jocelyn Hambro, head of the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War, named one of the conflict’s most dangerous missions after the village.

Operation Gunnerside, which was immortalised in the 1965 Kirk Douglas blockbuster The Heroes of Telemark, saw saboteurs in Norway wreck the Nazis attempt to produce heavy water for the German nuclear ambition.

Recent years have seen the estate start to offer for moorland bird safaris to showcase their bird life management. Some tours have seen more than 60 species of birds recorded, including six types of raptors.

There's a complete contrast in scenery on the southern dale side and at Gunnerside Bottoms, with an incredibly dense network of irregularly shaped pastoral fields with dry stone walls and stone barns.

The distinctive farming system dates to the enclosures of the 18th and early 19th century, a period which saw much of the village's development.

It is also partly due to the Yorkshire Dales inheritance tradition of splitting land between all children.

However, Gunnerside, or Gunner's summer pasture, is among a number of settlements in Swaledale bearing Norse names, leading historians to believe Vikings used the land fo dairy farming from about the 10th century.

The meadows around the village boast a cornucopia of wildflowers, such as Wood Crane’s-bill, Pignut, Melancholy Thistle, and Lady’s Mantles.

Cows have long since been replaced in the fields by sheep, which spawned a wool trade developing in Gunnerside from the early 18th century.

It's a sunny summer's day and cyclists retracing the 2014 Tour de France Grand Depart route cross the grade II listed two-arch New Bridge over the Swale.

A fly fisherman casts for brown trout in the rocky river which merges with Wensleydale's River Ure north of York.

Apart from near watercourses, there's a limited amount of trees and the stone buildings of the village form a tight cluster in the valley, as if they're sheep sheltering during in a storm.

Almost all buildings in Gunnerside are constructed from local stone with stone slate roofs.

Many of the cottages in and around the village were built to accommodate miners who moved into the area.

By the 18th century, the centre for dairy farming had become a centre for lead mining, with significant mines around Gunnerside Gill.

From the beck crossing in the centre of Gunnerside and its approach, there are paths up the dale side to the former lead mines of Old Gang, Lownathwaite and smelting mills.

After a decline in the price of lead and the closure of the mines in the later 19th century, workers deserted the dale, leaving Gunnerside, with a "look of ruin and desolation", according to historians.

This continued until the arrival of Lord Rochdale as landlord in the 1930s, coupled with a surge in tourism.

The attraction for visitors of a lack of modern developments is due to the extensive protections of being in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, Gunnerside has conservation areas for the built up village as well as for the nearby barns and walls.

In addition, almost all of the catchment of Gunnerside Gill, which the village is on the banks of, is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, Special Area of Conservation, and Special Protection Area.

It's practically the epitome of a tranquil, bucolic scene, so it's difficult to imagine how, after being built in 1830 New Bridge was repeatedly swept away by torrents flooding down the dale.

“A chasm now yawns through whose impassable jaws rolls the turgid and muddy flood,” a local newspaper stated in 1888.

Looming large beside the road to New Bridge is the 1866 Wesleyan Methodist chapel, built to accommodate the influx of miners.

Locals have claimed the chapel was commissioned specifically to be “better than Reeth’s”.

Before the bridge over Gunnerside Beck, there are several higgedly piggeldy streets, one of which features the old Smithy, which dates back to around 1795.

It has been a popular tourist destination for years, featuring displays of artefacts made on site.

On the opposite side of the beck, the King’s Head Inn is another village landmark.

Despite having served the village and travellers since the 1760s, it has suffered turbulence in recent years.

With high numbers of holiday cottages, second homes and short-term rentals having fuelled fears the community is in decline, in 2020, Gunnerside residents hit back by creating a community benefit society in April 2020, buying the King’s Head and launching a community-run pub.

Recent weeks have seen a fresh threat to the community emerge after North Yorkshire Council warned Reeth and Gunnerside schools that the federation they formed in 2012 to help secure their future is illegal.

The schools have been advised they can no longer operate a system where younger pupils are taught at Reeth and older pupils at Gunnerside.