Kilnsey Crag: The Yorkshire landmark farmed by monks, inhabited by a witch and loved by rock climbers

Kilnsey Crag in Upper Wharfedale may be the smallest of the three - being 170ft (52m) in height - but it has one bragging right the others cannot match.

A pronounced overhang which leans out towards the B6160 Skipton-Kettlewell road below is said to be largest in England.

Formerly known as Kilnsey Scar, like much of the scenery in this part of the Yorkshire Dales it was shaped at the end of the last Ice Age by a glacier and meltwater scouring through Wharfedale and exposing the hard Carboniferous limestone.

Immediately to the south of the crag a small settlement then known as “Chilsie” (now Kilnsey) was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086.

In the Middle Ages the land was used for sheep rearing by the Cistercian monks of Fountains Abbey.

In the 1700s a lady known as Old Nan, regarded by local people as a witch, lived at the foot of the crag and earned a living by telling fortunes on Skipton Market.

Today, the only people seen here are rock climbers roping up for some of the most challenging routes in the UK, including the extreme “Northern Lights 9a” established on the overhang in 2000 by Yorkshire-born Steve McClure, the UK’s leading sport climber.

A painting of the crag by landscape artist J.M.W. Turner in 1816 is part of the collection in Tate Britain.

The crag regularly features on Yorkshire calendars and forms the backdrop to the Kilnsey Show, which traditionally marks the end of summer in the Yorkshire Dales.