Alone Beneath The Sky: The Cinder Track #1 - Scarborough to Ravenscar 21/05/23

10.7 miles, via Falgrave, Woodlands, Gallows Field, Newby, Scalby, Burniston, Cloughton,

Newlands Dale, Hayburn Wyke, Staintondale, and Bent Rigg.

Long Distance Trail
means Selfies!
#1 at Scarborough

May time brings us Spring Jollies, and for the first time since 2019, we make tracks for somewhere further abroad than the Pennine Moors, as I'm feeling the need for a break away from home in every way, to clear my head and to continue getting my post-Covid self back into some sort of order, and a trip to the North Yorkshire coast seems to be the best way to go about that, especially as My Mum is still willing to taxi me around and drive into the relative unknown, while also enjoying her own period of time away, and basing ourselves in Scarborough allows me to approach the coastal trail that I've had in mind for a while, namely The Cinder Track on the old Scarborough & Whitby railway line. It's notably too long a haul at 21+ miles to attempt in a single shot, but very manageable when divided into two pieces, established as a multi use track following the line's closure in 1965, a relatively minor line with the NER's catalogue, opened in 1885 and operating as only a single line along the stretch of the coast on the fringes of the North Yorkshire Moors, not really serving any major centres of population and never being particularly profitable, while also featuring awkward switchback junctions at both ends of its length, some long and steep gradients and major feats of engineering along its permanent way. It feel like the sort of excursion that I need as my body still works out its post-Covid issues, requiring no navigation and just enough of a workout to ensure that I don't shamble my way through it, and after so many weeks of changeable weather, which have felt like Winter has endured for a month longer than normal, pushing April Showers deep into May, it looks like we are going to be blessed with a whole week of sunshine while we here as clear skies are forecast for the entire break, allowing us to bask as we go, despite the low air temperatures and the probability of persistent on-shore sea breezes, which will provide the healthy sea air that we need.

Sunday morning's start on this jaunt begins at Scarborough Railway station, an impressive pile at the end of the A64, at 10.05am, and before we approach the trail proper we head inland on Westborough, past West Square and the Victoria Hotel, in a distinctly seaside town fashion, and the imposing Methodist chapel to hang a left down Belgrave Terrace to land on the bridge above the long excursion platform on the station, home of the world's longest bench, and then pass along Westover Road to place ourselves above the south portal of Falgrave Tunnel, where the line north started, passing under the terraces which we will pass among, to emerge into the old town goods yard, now occupied by Sainsbury's. A path leads us around the car park to meet the start of the The Cinder Track, by the Safe-Way park play area and next to the Wykeham Road bridge, which we will pass under to find ourselves already among many local walkers and exercisers as we pass through the brick cutting with the basketball court in it, before entering the shaded cutting that mars the edge of the terraced Victorian town, with the Hibernia Street and Manor Road bridges passing above, with the Woodlands estate to the west, ahead of the Woodlands Ravine, and its road, passing its way down to Peasholm Park, and our ongoing route along the edge of Manor Road cemetery up to the Gallows Fields park, once home to the town's yard for storing excursion trains, now a large green space between the Barrowcliff and Northstead estates. The scale of the line reduces beyond, visible in the narrow width of the Cross Lane bridge and the feeling of confinement as we are squeezed in along the western edge of North Cliff golf course, passing into suburbia as the Newby Farm Road dares to encroach over the line, ahead of meeting tightly placed walls that turn out to be the four-arched viaduct that passes over the ravine of Scalby Beck, one of the minor streams that flow directly to the sea from the nearby moors, where a detour down the steps into its wooded glade need to be made to observe its considerable height from below.

Scarborough Station's long excursion platform, and bench.

Scarborough Goods Yard, now Sainsbury's.

Safe-Way Park, and Wykeham Road Bridge.

Manor Road Bridge.

Gallows Field, formerly the carriage sidings.

Cross Lane Bridge.

Suburban encroachment on Newby Farm Road.

Scalby Beck Viaduct.

Resuming the path, we find suburban Scalby has obliterated the alignment and the station site, and so pavements have to be paced as Chichester Close leads out onto station road and then on among the bungalows on Field Close Road and Lancaster Way to find the path leading us out of greater Scarborough, entering the green fields and losing the tarmac surface to give us the fine gravel footing that names the Cinder Track, starting its long ascent as it presses northbound into a depression formed by Cow Wath beck, passing the grounds of Scarborough RUFC in the west and being denied a sea view by the land rise in the east, though a coastal view back to Scarborough castle can be gained. A bench provides an elevenses spot before we press on, over the southbound beck via its skew bridge, and up towards Burniston village, where the suburbs encroach towards the line and the local nurseries offer refreshment, before we make the only major road interaction on the trail for the day as the A165 Coastal Road is crossed to find no station site where I'd figure to find one, and shadiness conceals the line all the way up to the Field Lane overbridge, where we have to descend to give it a look, to admire its robust stone construction and to note that the farm complex nearby is marked on the map as Prickybeck Island. Pressing on north, with sight of the woodlands along the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors seem more obvious in our landscape than coastal scenery as we progress on, with Mayflowers and Cow Parsley dominating our surroundings as we rise up towards Cloughton station, one which I'm happy to report has almost wholly endured, with both its goods shed and station building enduring as a holiday let, with a Mark 1 carriage sitting by its platforms, which we'll applaud as we pass around to see the village perching on the western side of the field rise beyond, all very picturesque but still looking a bit too manicured and suburban-aspirational for my tastes, despite their sea views(!).

Lancaster Way Scalby, concealing the alignment.

The Cinder Track in full affect, north of Scalby.

Cow Wath Beck Bridge, near Burniston.

Field Lane Bridge, 'Prickybeck Island'.

Cloughton Station.

Culvert north of Cloughton.

Now definitely coastal on our trail, we can also get another change of landscape beyond the Salt Pans Road bridge, as we definitively enter the North Yorkshire Moors National Park, and immediately get yellow flowering gorse bushes in our locality, with the gradient stiffening just a touch more as we rise among the increasingly dense over growth, getting looks back to Scarborough Castle and the coast down to Filey Brigg and Flamborough Head, and slipping in and out of shaded cuttings ahead of the Hood Lane overbridge, which also demands an examination before we seek a bench with a sea view to take a decently long lunch break, where the curious local Robins will do their best to keep me company. Thence we can drift with the track into the depression of Newlands Dale, isolating us from the coast and presenting reedy marshland at is base and moorland cattle grazing on its flanks, while giving us regular shade and revealing the apparently inaccessible North End House at its heart, before we drift above the landscape opening out a bit, above the heavily wooded fall down to Hayburn Wyke, where a camp site and tavern lie below the railway line, and a station site announces itself quite unexpectedly, with platforms reaching along to the station house which really looks like it could use some TLC, and the time of day means its also the moment to provide a progress report to Mum, best stated as 'Going Great, so far. Still, there's distance and ascent still to come for an hour plus beyond, as the legs have to find their higher gears as we rise on with the line sweeping inland under pretty dense tree cover, over and under old tracks in the woodlands that lead down into the deep cleft of the valley of the Hayburn Wyke stream itself, which is passed over almost invisibly via an embankment, ahead of another bend that completes the long S-curve on the line that passes under the Downdale Road bridge, and around to the intact site of Staintondale station, residentially occupied and offering a pair of platforms for a village that's quite a way inland to the northwest from here.

Gorse in the National Park Landscape, above Salt Pans Road bridge.

Hood Lane Bridge.

Entering Newlands Dale.

Hayburn Wyke station house.

Passing over Hayburn Wyke valley.

Staintondale Station.

The rise continues as we stay in the shade with farmsteads on the moorland fringe rising to the west of us, while all presence of the coast is lost as we find ourselves under tree cover and passing through dense tree cover as we shadow another southbound flowing beck, un-named on all maps and making this climb feel unusually divorced from context as we climb higher, only getting brief respite from it as we pass be Bees Nest farm and not emerging until we've passed over its upper reaches on another embankment to find ourselves by the Grange Farm complex, with our sightline to the northwest presenting Raven Hill, with its mast and windmill on our local horizon. That places us much closer to the finish line than expected, and it turns out turns out that I'd failed to account for a mile of overlap between the two plates of the OL27 map, which means there isn't a long press to do once we've risen up the long gorse-lined rise up towards Bent Rigg Bridge, and beyond, where the long drag hits the point where it could easily get too much after nearly 8 miles of constant ascent, which is something to say for the climb of around 150m that we've made since leaving Scarborough, regaining our sea views above the high cliffs around the Ravenscar headland that we finally find ourselves upon. Pass above the remains of the Ravenscar Radar Station on the cliff edge to the northeast, where early warnings of Luftwaffe raids on Northern England were made during the Second World War, with the line sweeping around to meet Ravenscar station close to the line's summit, servicing an extent hamlet and a planned resort town that never grew in the late Victorian period, it's as far as we'll be going today, as my legs aren't wanting to do any more miles, despite our proximity to the 6,000 in a career marker, and what could be a blasted cliff top feels all very appealing on a sunny day like we've had so for, wrapping the day at the Ravenscar Tearooms at 2.30pm, beyond which my Parental Taxi can collect me for the brisk run back down the hill for much needed showering and brews.