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National Trail means Selfies!
#4 at Fridaythorpe |
To late Summer holidays
with My Parents then, to walk the remainder of the Yorkshire Wolds Way
and hopeful for a largely relaxed week, away from the stresses of
work, abandoned to its own devices as I dash out at lunchtime on
Friday so we can all take a leisurely ride out to Filey to take up a
week's residence at Perran Court in The Bay development, south of the
town. Unfortunately, an easy start is not what we get as even before
we've even gotten in through the front door, My Dad takes a fall in the
hallway, cutting his forehead, and we have to get the ambulance responder
called out to tend to him before spending a large chunk of the
evening at A&E in Scarborough hospital as he gets assessed and
glued back together. Fortunately, indications suggest that he hasn't
done any lasting damage to himself and the worst knock has gone on
his confidence, so we can all return to base for a very late tea and be
thankful that we hadn't planned anything for Saturday, as we sleep
off most of the morning and do little more than shopping and seeing a
few sights through the teeming rain in the afternoon. Thus, Sunday morning means
walking time, and rising for an early start as we have chosen to holiday
close to our destination on the Yorkshire Wolds Way, and therefore about as
far as we could get from our start point for the week, but we've
ridden the A166 on our ride out so heading back out there offers no
difficulties for my Parental taxi, and it's only a 45 minute burn
away. An early start to proceedings then, as this will be the longest
day on the Way, and I know that it could get challenging after many
miles on the flatter lands of Yorkshire, so away from Fridaythorpe at
9.15am, with its village green and duck pond looking exactly the same as I did
the last time I came this way (aside from all the cones set out for Wedding parking at St Mary's church) and head out to meet the farm track off
the Thixendale Road, past the animal feed mill and out onto the high
fields.
Out of the contemporary East Riding in this early going too, and soon into North Yorkshire, though I'm pretty certain that the old Ridings boundary used to reach all the way to the River Derwent, as if the local government reorganisation wished to take from the East it's most dynamic geography and give it to the North, which surely had enough already. The benefit of starting at a Wolds high level altitude means that
your first challenge will not be an ascent, and it's less than a mile
out that we encounter Brubber Dale, stretching down from south to
north and to be traversed on the trail from east to west, slightly
damp going after yesterday's rains but nothing too challenging, with
the 40 mile marker to be located at the bottom and an easier ascent
to be found on the way out, up a side valley, once you're done with
scaring the local sheep. Easier and level going
on the farm tracks over the top, around the trees that enclose Gill's
Farm, but we don't have long to enjoy being at over 210m up, as the next
descent come along soon enough, down into the much larger beast of
Thixen Dale, and even after many visits, these dry and grassy dales
carved into the chalk seem ever so slightly surreal, and there's a
grass maze cut into the turf down by the path switchback, just to add
to the oddness. Rain falls from the gloomy sky, so some trees at the
valley bottom provide so welcome cover as we move between the fields
of livestock and chalk farming, and each corner of the valley seems
to invite further exploration, but the Way demands we stick to the
road which will lead us to the village of Thixendale itself, nestled
in between the high valley sides and still gaining new houses despite
it being at the convergence of many yellow roads and located in the
middle of nowhere. I'm guessing it grew to service the Manor Farm,
gaining a church, pub and school along the way, and now it's a sort
of idyll for those who seek actual solitude, but it's not a place we'll
linger, hitting the steeply rising track on Beamer Hill to find that
the best view of the village is to be gained from above, before
turning our back on the many arms of Thixen Dale and instead dodging
among the Highland cattle to meet the track onto the top of Cow Wold,
appropriately enough. Sticky going on the track, but a wholly new
spread of views to the north, just as the sun starts to break through
and give the fields a more golden hue, and the Raisthorpe Estate
offers signage to get walkers off their track and follow the field boundaries
instead to make the descent into Vessey Pasture Dale.
Another steep
descent down, and a more yielding ascent out as we go north, and after
solitude in the opening miles, we meet two pairs of walkers out here,
both acknowledged and then burned off as we rise to the fields over
the 215m contour, our high point for the day, before taking the turn
to follow the path above Deep Dale. It doesn't live up to its name in
the early going, being more of a wide depression in the fields below
the vast and tree lined Wharram Percy farm on the opposite side, but
once we've met the 45 mile marker (more or less where I predicted it,
btw), the valley become much deeper, with the grazing cattle
thankfully far away, and it's a pretty dramatic view down, rather
spoiled as the rain comes over once more.
Another walking party
is overtaken as the path swings north with the hints of Wharram Percy
village appearing at the bottom of the valley, and to get there a
slippery descent will have to be made to find a Wolds valley with an actual
stream in it, forming a pond above the village site, where lunch can
be taken before further exploration is required. As one of the most
famous abandoned village in the country, Wharram Percy invites the
visitors, and the derelict church of St Martin is the focus, despite
only falling from use in 1949, and the 18th century
farmstead cottages are the only buildings of note on the site, but
the rising lanes contain the remnants of many Medieval dwellings and
would definitely be worth a closer look if we couldn't already say 'Been There,
Done That' on our Leicestershire trails. I'll leave them to the many
other visitors, as I'll go looking for my other passion, railway
relics, as the Malton & Driffield Junction Railway came this way,
oddly, operational from 1853 and soon absorbed by the NER, closing in
1958, and we can sneak in the woods to get a look at the north portal
of Burdale Tunnel, contained by its own lagoon, and if memory serves,
this is the one that is double width at one end, and single
width at the other. A digression also needed in the other
direction along the trackbed to the site of Wharram station, where
the station house and the goods yard remnants that once serviced the
nearby quarry remain, and it's worth a mile of extra walking and a
half hour onto the schedule to take a closer look before returning to
the Wolds Way route to walk against the parade of visitors walking
down the steep, slick and unfriendly track down to the abandoned village.
Rising to the higher
land gives us a clear view out over the northern edge of the Wolds,
across the Derwent Valley and on to the North York Moors fringe, a fine
indication of the distance travelled so far, and also useful for
showing where the rain might be coming from as we hit the road out
past Bella Farm, and an update is sent to My Parents telling of my
excellent progress on the day. A descending field boundary walk sends us
downhill to meet the lane outside Wharram le Street, which is only
the second village of note since our start, and again has new builds
attaching to it despite its remoteness, though its presence on the
B1248 makes it a bit less further away than some Wolds villages, and
this one's old, as the squat Norman tower of St Mary's church will attest.
Otherwise, it's just two Farms, Manor and Red House, and a scattering of
cottages, not the best place to try to break your journey as it's the lonely available village before the end of today's trail, and so the
next track has to be met to push the day along further, rising on
Broad Balk up the rise of Cowcliff Hill and again gaining us the best view of a village from
above. The ascent to the B1253
crossing is a bit of a drag, tempered by the knowledge that there's
only one more ascent after this one, and the golden hillsides and
fields keep the views interesting, and the first signpost to today's
destination suggests 5 miles to go as we slip away from the 'High
Street' and downhill towards a barn and paddock without an
associated farm. Hit the field boundaries beyond, with one eye on the
weather and the other looking down into the coming dale, one which
seems to lack a name, which is odd when you consider that the minor
promontory which we descend from is called 'The Peak', rather grandly.
Down through a rough field, carved up by many cows, and as we approach the bottom, the 50 mile marker is found by
the side of Whitestone Beck, which will name the Dale for the
purposes of today, and then its up the other side, through the sheep
and logs of recently felled trees to meet the snaking path up to Wood
House farm. I'll note the quality of farms out here, thinking that
Agriculture in the Wolds doesn't seem depressed and that the estates
haven't grown too large and unwieldy thanks to the nature of the
terrain, as this modest farm looks particularly healthy, almost
desirable.
Press on along the rising path beyond, up to the edge of
Settrington Wood and then follow the edges of Screed Plantation
off to the north, though switching sides with the path is less than
pleasant as it was dry on the east side and its raining on the west,
though it's the last dousing of the day, easing off as we pass
through High Bellmanear farm, which is all agricultural processing
these days without a residence attached. Push on to the last high
point of the day, at Settrington Beacon, at 199m up, where a radio
mast and a useless trig point hide on the edge of Beacon Wold
plantation, and it's a pleasant descent beyond, dropping gradually
downhill through a woodland of largely deciduous trees with
indications of the high edge of the hillside beyond, and it's quite a
vista once it reveals itself. At the very northwest
corner of the Wolds, we get a look across to the northern arm, and
over the Derwent valley up close this time, and down below we can
look to Rillington and Wintringham, arrayed in the fields off in the
distance, and the latter is our destination, but the descent has to be
done first, a rapid 50m down on a grassy track, to meet the carved up
fields of former chalk pits and the farm track on to our concluding
mile or so. Onwards, gradually downhill on Keld Lane over Milburn Fields, with the
ribbon of Wintringham and the rising hill beyond keeping the focus on
as we observe different bailing styles in the surrounding fields at
harvest time, departing the track by what appears to be an Anderson
shelter in the middle of a field, though the map claims it to be an
underground reservoir. Boundary and field walk, to cross Wintringham
Beck, flowing to the west to prove we are officially in the catchment
of the Derwent, pausing by the village pond to observe the old couple
doing their best to fight the blue-green algae out of it and to finish
lunch, really rather too close to my destination. Pop out onto the Main
Street, and there's no good or obvious reason for the Way to turn away from the
village to the East, but West we go, past the community hall and
getting a whereabouts check on My Parents before I reach the end of
my day, and as it seems they're still at the Wolds Way Lavender farm,
I'll add an extra 10 minutes onto my trip to meet them there. So head
off down Sandy Lane to arrive just before closing time,
having given My Parents a useful bonus excursion that has proved
much more satisfying than their usual wait by the roadside when I'm
on my travels, finished at 3.55pm and happy with another good blast and
distance done.
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