THERE is a dragon on the settee in the Wensleydale home of Janet Rawlins – or to be exact, a fabric collage of one.

“Did I tell you about the dragon?" the artist asks. "I left it there to remind me.”

No, she didn’t, but I am here to talk about her latest book.

“In a minute, but look at this,” she says, showing me another textile collage, in hues of purple and green and gold depicting a Dales landscape, which has just been returned from Leeds College of Art and an exhibition of work by former students, of which she is one.

She tells me she wants to send a photograph to the printer who is making her Christmas cards before setting about reframing it.

“It’s my latest collage, and possibly my last,” she says, but that is hard to believe. Though 85, and with failing eyesight and painfully arthritic hands, she shows no sign of stopping work.

Her studio and conservatory in her home beside the river Bain are full of fabrics, paints, brushes and pencils. She is busy designing a logo for a volunteer transport group, and drawing an infant Jesus for a friend.

On her coffee table is a copy of the Dalesman magazine with details of Bill Mitchell’s Yorkshire by the late editor’s son, David, for which she designed the cover.

Two hours have passed, we’ve talked and run out of time, and I’ve taken precisely six lines of notes.

The next days she has handwritten notes written on the back of an envelope delivered to my home and sends several emails headed: “Me again – sorry.”

So here is the story of her illustrated book, An 1844 Pennine Way from Tees to Ribble: Five botanists walk from Crook to Settle, which recounts the journey made by the companions over a 14-day period.

The exercise book in which they detailed the walk was discovered by the artist and her husband, the late Peter Leyland, while restoring the library of his family home, West End House, Askrigg, in 1983.

In copperplate handwriting the botanists compiled a diary, detailing the 141 plants seen and sometimes gathered, with Latin names and locations: number miles travelled daily by train, coach, post chaise and on foot (328); inns stayed at, expenses for everything from tea and train tickets and tu’penny tips, which amounted to a grand total of £5.3s.01/2 d, (£5.15p) for the entire period.

It was 33 years later that Janet found the diary again, in a drawer at her home in Bainbridge, and decided to embark on another publishing venture following her book on wildflowers of Wensleydale.

Her delicate pencil illustrations imagine how the men may have looked – walking, sitting under a tree, examining a wildflower – bringing the story to life along with reproductions of her watercolours and collages.

Through friends, fellow artists, neighbours, people she had never met and some she had known all her life, she pieced together the story of Silvanus Thompson, author of Excursion into Teesdale 1844, and his companions, James Backhouse Sr, James Backhouse Jr, John Tatham of Settle and George Stacey of Saffron Walden, Essex.

It was the same Backhouses, alpine specialists and nurserymen of York, who were commissioned to create the Edwardian rock garden in Aysgarth.

Silvanus Thompson taught at Bootham School in York where Janet’s husband's stepfather, Anthony (Tony) Pim, was also a master.

Latin names of plants have been translated into English by Pete Shaw and John Beckett, who also provided an alphabetical chart of the plants and where they were found.

Margaret Bradshaw produced photographs of some of the plants, and Geoffrey Herbert’s photographs show the wild landscapes walked by the five botanists.

As for the dragon on the settee – that's another story.

An 1844 Pennine Way from Tees to Ribble: Five botanists walk from Crook to Settle is published soon by Bain Falls Publishing at £12.

Betsy Everett