Will it freeze this year? Will there be snow and ice? Leafing through old newspaper reports in the Museum archives one does find many articles written over the years about extreme weather in the dale and how it can disrupt normal services. For example, on 4th March 1933:
‘What is considered the greatest snowstorm in the living memory of the inhabitants visited Nidderdale last weekend. Snow fell continuously for 50 hours, and altogether the fall covered a period of 60 hours.
This was in fact the biggest single snowfall of the twentieth century, and in winter weather which was not notable that year except for this event. It was unique, but there are much earlier reports of other remarkably severe snow storms, for example those in 1888 and 1895 when villages were left unapproachable for days.
Amazingly, curling on Gouthwaite Reservoir and Glasshouse Dam was a popular sport in the winters of the early 20th century, and in the Museum we have a polished granite curling stone which was one of a set of four stones that were used by the Pateley Bridge Curling Club. The members profited from the intense cold conditions that allowed them to enjoy the sport once snow had been cleared off a firmly iced surface.
The time came, however, when opportunities to play diminished, and the last time was in 1929. Sadly these weighty stones were then hidden in four feet of water in the Boat House at Glasshouses, until they were recovered some decades later.
The glacial temperatures that lead to water being frozen hard and long enough – such as when the River Nidd froze for several weeks in 1875 – have become more rare, and prolonged freezing conditions, suitable for curling, now occur so infrequently in the dale that the sport can only be played on artificial ice rinks.
Will we be able ever again to go curling in Nidderdale?