The landscape of Lower Wensleydale is one of narrow lanes that swoop and curve following the swell of the land. Bordered by drystone walls and fences, they cross rivers on old stone bridges or undulate between flail-cut hedges and ivy-covered trees. Close by are the moors, where curlews cry and sandy tracks lead among the heather. This is the landscape that has inspired the work of Simon Palmer, one of Britain’s leading watercolour artists.
Simon has lived in a village near Masham for 30 years. He was born in Yorkshire in 1956, his dad a railwayman, but the family moved to south London when he was eight months old. Somehow though, Yorkshire was always in his blood.
“When you’re growing up, you don’t realise how alien you can feel to an
