A FEW years back, on a trek to trace my family tree, everything suddenly slipped into place. As I traversed the Yorkshire Dales, I located ancestors in the villages of … Crackpot and Booze.

No, really. You couldn’t make it up.

Turned out that a number of great-greats and beyond came from Swaledale and, in particular, inside a triangle whose points were the tiny communities in Low Row, Crackpot and Booze.

Blink, and you might miss them.

While one side of the family flew the flag of a Cornish seafaring pedigree, I discovered that the other worked the land among the farms of this beautiful part of England.

But those village names …

Booze : James F Carter (CC BY-SA 2.5)

Booze is a hamlet in Arkengarthdale, in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, and at last count boasted all of eleven households. It was once voted one of Britain’s best dead-ends.

The name dates back to 1473, when it was known as Bowehous,  derived from the Old English boga (bow) and hus (house) – so literally the ‘house by the bow or curve’.

Crackpot, meanwhile, gets from the Old English kraka (crow) and the Viking word pot (a pit or deep hole) – and in this case it refers to a rift in the local limestone.

Just south of the village you can find Crackpot Cave, which contains a column where a a stalactite has joined up with its stalagmite but is accessible only through ‘Knee-wrecker Passage’.

Isles Bridge, Crackpot

Low Row, some three miles west of Reeth – it’s between Healaugh and Gunnerside – runs alongside the road, and boasts a boozer my great-great Boozers may well have visited.

The Punch Bowl, a stone inn dating back to 1638, is just by the main road on which the village lies. There’s also a working farm, Hazel Brow Farm, which is open to visitors.

Low Row : Gordon Hatton (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The name Low Row comes from the Norse The Wra (a nook) and the surname Raw – that of my ancestors – which is associated with the village and its Methodist Chapel.

So there you have it. A Crackpot family, a Boozy secret and a Low Row lifestyle. Seems I was fated to become a journalist, after all!

For tourism information and attractions in the Dales, head to the Yorkshire Dales National Park official site.