Spring Jollies are upon
us, and the latter half of the Trail to the Coast awaits, three days
across the virgin territory of the East Riding of Yorkshire and no
need to have My Parents driving me out to my start point as I can do
that from home and only have to rely on them once I am deep into the
lands of no railways. A long day awaits, so a very early start comes
calling, off the train in Selby just before 9am and down to the river
front to slip across the Ouse and into the remaining Riding that has
so far gone unexplored, early footfalls carrying me along the A19
through New Barlby, past its assortment of tall factories and flour
mills, and avoid a verge walk along the Barlby bypass by entering the
bottom corner of the village and slipping across Barlby Meadows to
the A19 and the former alignment of the ECML. A field walk leads over
to Osgodby, and the side of the A63, offering a welcome footway as we
are lead down to my target for the day, the 1848 Y&NMR Selby to
Market Weighton line, forming an almost completely straight route
across the flattest sort of terrain, before closure in 1954. The
alignment is far from completely intact, of course, so we can enjoy
less than a mile of formation, maintained as a nature and wildlife
reserve by the local parish councils, before running out at Cliffe
Common, were the intersecting county lanes all present the original crossing
houses, still in use but all showing later extensions that make you
wonder why the residents didn't just seek a larger house. This remote
corner of level fields also had a station, which gives you a picture
of mid 19th century economics, but the formation beyond
isn't easily traceable, so no path is made toward Menthorpe Gate and
the insurmountable problem of the river Derwent, instead having to
take the verge walk along Lowmoor Road northwards, through many
arable fields and past the business park that occupies the home of the
former Whitemoor Colliery (once part of the famous and
extensive Selby Coalfield).
Eastward progress is
resumed by the side of the A163, not offering me a path to walk, but
it's one of the distinctly quieter major routes so the going isn't
too fraught, and its less than a mile to North Duffield, which gives
me a pavement to walk, as well as many celebratory reminders of the
passage of the Tour de Yorkshire, which I start to feel sorry that I
missed back on May Day weekend. More road walking beyond the village,
with my pace still feeling good as distant hills are glimpsed beyond
Aughton Church, and our reason for having to make this passage soon
appears, the 1793 toll bridge on the Derwent, ridiculously narrow for
contemporary usage, but the only available crossing point when making
the shortest point to point passage in this direction. Bubwith is met
ahead of schedule, by a quarter hour, and I'm sure that this is
another of those villages which would charm me completely if I
lingered there, but it's my cue to get off the main road and find a
track that is a bit more peaceful, taking the lane down to All Saints
Church and then striking down the riverside path to find the railway
formation and the start of the Bubwith Rail Trail. Before that 9 mile
track is engaged, we pause to see the remaining arches of the Derwent
bridge, surely the only major feat of engineering on one of the most
straight-forwardly navigated railways in all of history, and then the
track is engaged east once more, taking us through a pleasing wooded
stretch to Bubwith station, where buildings and platforms remain, and
then its onwards, flatlands and farming dominating along this
straightest of tracks. Easy going, good for the pace, but mental
measurements of distance get harder as the terrain varies so little,
so you note the peace and quiet you are enjoying, having the trail to
yourself, and spotting more relics of the railway along the way,
platforms and crossing house at Highfield, more platforms and goods
yard at Foggathorpe, and it is gratifying that redevelopment has not
reached these remote corners.
Far off hills suggest themselves on the long track out to the A163 crossing at Lincoln Flats, and resolve into the shape of the Yorkshire Wolds as the drag in to Holme-on-Spalding-Moor goes on, the distant factory by the lineside appearing close from more than a mile distant, and another station house and platforms are met here, at the last viable bailing point, though back gardens have encroached right up the edge on the south side. Press on, as Church Hill rises to a 50m height to the south, dominating the landscape for quite a while, as the Wolds come closer whilst not advertising a passage for the old railway lines beyond, and the landscape gives just the slightest hints of starting to undulate as we roll past the last, and best pair, of platforms and station house at Harswell Crossing. Not much further to go before the track ends abruptly at Shipton Lane, the A614, and kudos needs to be give to East Riding council for maintaining this track to be enjoyed, and I'd be willing to offer even more praise if they could extend it further towards Market Weighton, but despite what Google Maps says, there is no further access to the trackbed beyond the Crossing House (dolled up in stucco with an Ionic portico!). So road walking for the last three miles, happy to still be ahead of schedule, but not enamoured at all with the verges and roadside walk up to the Shipmanthorpe roundabout, and whilst the A1079 York Road gives me a footpath and a feeling of finally departing the Vale of York, boredom has kicked in and the end cannot come soon enough. Market Weighton arrives pretty quickly, past the missing formation of the railway for the last time before suddenly finding myself in the town centre at Market Hill, illustrating that this is actually a small settlement at the heart of a land of even smaller ones, all done at just shy of 4.45pm, with My Parents only 10 minutes distant, for my ride to my bed in Woodmansey, and that's a new distance record down, and despite doing it in the easiest sort of terrain, it's not a mileage that I will be wanting to attempt again, any time soon.
5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 1645.7 miles
2015 Cumulative Total: 243.5 miles
Up Country Total: 1519.3 miles
Solo Total: 1406.7 miles
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River Ouse. Selby. Out
of the West Riding and into the East!
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Barlby Meadows. Whilst
following the Barlby Bypass would be a
railway walk, and the most
direct route for the day, sometimes you just
don't fancy playing with traffic and take the greener option instead. |
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The Y&NMR line,
near Osgodby. Praise the parish council for maintaining this
alignment,
as a habitat for bird and flowers, when it could easily
have been ploughed into oblivion.
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Cliffe Common. I had
not expected so many crossing houses to have
endured in such a remote
location, but I cannot say I favour the executive
makeovers done to
what ought to be considered historic relics.
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Whitemoor Colliery,
Lowmoor Road. Strange to think that a coalfield as large as Selby's
could have passed into history so quickly, even stranger to realise
that whilst the miners went
underground here, the coals came to the
surface at Gasgoigne Wood, so many miles away.
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North Duffield.
Providing a welcome pavement along the A163, and also giving us a
glimpse
of the changing styles of architecture used by the Methodist
church in the 19th Century.
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Bubwith Toll Bridge.
The only crossing of the Derwent for miles around, compelling
me to
make my passage here and not adding many more miles to my day. Also
the
River Derwent is not to be confused with the Derwent, the Derwent
or the Derwent.
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All Saints, Bubwith.
Prime East Riding ecclesiastical architecture, in a delightful
setting, I just wish the Victorians
hadn't been so aggressive when it
came to restoring it as now none of it appears to be particularly
old.
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Derwent Bridge, the
Y&NMR line. Sad that this is incomplete when the OS map claims
otherwise,
the only heavily engineered feature on the entire line
surely deserved preservation?
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Bubwith station. On to
the rail trail, and the odd feature of this line is surely having the
station-cum-crossing house on one side of the road, with the
platforms on the other.
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Highfield station. This
appears to have been an island platform, which
is unusual on this
type of line, or maybe I'm just missing something?
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Foggathorpe station.
Even if the settlement barely qualified as a hamlet, this railway
gave it a station, and the extensive goods yard here is now home to
many mounds of gravel,
none of which has been worked into a harder
surface for the miles of dirt track.
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Wild flowers galore
beyond Lincoln Flats crossing. The straightness of the line
does make
me wonder that railway might have been built in 1848 because it was
easy to navigate, rather than it actually tapping lucrative markets.
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Holme-on-Spalding-Moor
station. Back Gardens claim the platforms but the trackbed
remains
accessible, the patterns of redevelopment along this line are most
puzzling.
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Church Hill,
Holme-on-Spalding-Moor. I'm guessing that this solitary hill has a
fascinating history
as the only viewpoint for many miles around, also
providing a challenging walk to the church as well.
Hopefully the
peal of bells indicated a happy start to someone's married life
today.
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Harswell Crossing
station. The nicest preservation of all the station houses on the
line,
and clearly they had a different merchant providing the bricks
at this end of the line.
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The Yorkshire Wolds,
after 20+ miles of the flatlands of the Vale of York,
sight of hills
has the heart excited again, and despite the relative lack of
elevation,
they wrinkle plenty. Surely the Wolds Way is going to come
in a future season?
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The A614. Railway
walking ends and so does the fun, facing oncoming traffic
with a
tiring brain and sore legs is not what you want at the end of the
day.
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The A1079. Still not
quite there as the best part of the day starts to pass,
I wonder if
there's such a thing as an Un-historic Market Town?
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Market Weighton. Once
four railways converged here, now it has none,
and you wonder how
many towns of less than 5,000 souls could occupy the middle
of an OS
map plate and still be the major centre of population for miles around?
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Next Up: Railway
walking through the Wolds.
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