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‘The Striding Place’ is one of the best known stories of the American novelist Gertrude Atherton (1857–1948). Atherton hailed from San Francisco and made her name as the author of fiction “bathed in the glow of romance”, as The Academy phrased it, though she is mainly remembered today for her supernatural tales. She also gained notoriety as a snob and a bigot. Henry James frankly declared “I abominate the woman”.

Following initial literary success in America, Atherton crossed the Atlantic in 1889. It was during a trip around the north of England that Atherton would visit Bolton Abbey, a twelfth-century priory in ancient woodland in North Yorkshire. Atherton recounts in her autobiography how struck she was by the scenery. Her attention was drawn in particular to the river Wharfe, a “narrow turbulent stream with a dark history”. She recalls how it “roared along through the woods between high gloomy banks, and at one point was so narrow that an active man could leap across”. This is the striding place of the story’s title: a spot where you can stride across the racing waters, albeit with considerable risk. A slip, as Atherton continues, “meant death”. Atherton was not the first writer to be drawn to this atmospheric location. In 1807 William and Dorothy Wordsworth visited the priory and William was moved to compose a poem, ‘The Force of Prayer’ which tells the story of William de Romilly of Egremont who in 1154 attempted the leap while carrying his greyhound and fell to his death. Atherton’s story was initially rejected by The Yellow Book , the leading literary journal of the time, as “too gruesome”, though Atherton considered it her finest work. The main drama focuses on the water, but the woods around the river are crucial to the story’s tense movement towards its terrifying close. Today, you can still visit the woodland, Strid Wood as it’s known (though don’t try to jump the stream—especially if you’re carrying a dog).