THERE is a rare chance to see a collection of photographs from one of the 20th century’s most prolific recorders of the Dales landscape and architecture at the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s headquarters in Bainbridge.

The spacious foyer at Yoredale is used yearround to showcase the work of local artists and photographers, but exhibitions organiser, Lesley Knevitt, was faced with an unscheduled gap early in the 2014 programme.

She contacted the Dales Countryside Museum’s Debbie Allen and together they have mounted People In A Landscape – Tracks Through The Dales, a stunning collection of 20 black-and-white photographs by the late Geoffrey Wright, writer, photographer, teacher and a founder member of the Yorkshire Dales Society.

“It was a wonderful opportunity to show the work of such a remarkable man and provides a snapshot of the characters and landscape of the Dales. It’s an impromptu exhibition, but a rare chance for people to see his work,” says Lesley.

The pictures are part of a collection of no fewer than 10,000 photographs bequeathed to the society by Geoffrey’s widow, Jean, and stored on their behalf at the Hawes museum.

Many are in the form of colour slides, but there are also thousands of black-and-white negatives.

The collection is available as an archive resource at the museum.

As well as a photographer of the English landscape in and beyond the Dales, Geoffrey was a gifted writer with such classics as Stone Villages of Britain, and Roads and Trackways of the Yorkshire Dales. For many years he and Jean lived at Helm, near Askrigg, but for health reasons they moved to Shropshire where Jean still lives.

Darlington and Stockton Times:
Reeth Silver Band, Bainbridge Green

  • People In A Landscape – Tracks Through The Dales can be seen at Yoredale, Bainbridge, until at least February 5, from 8.30am-4.30pm.

Contact Lesley Knevitt on 01969-652326. Pictures by Geoffrey N Wright reproduced courtesy of the Wright family and the Yorkshire Dales Society.