The Cinder Track #2 - Ravenscar to Whitby 24/05/23

11.9 miles, via Ravenscar Brickworks, Peak Alum Quarry, Brow Alum Quarry, Stoupe Brow,

 Howdale Wood, Allison Head Wood, Fyling Old Hall, Ramsdale Beck, Fyling Thorpe,

  Robin Hood's Bay, Bay Ness, Rain Dale, Hawsker Bottoms, Hawsker, Stainsacre,

 Cock Mill Wood, Larpool Wood, Larpool Viaduct, and Prospect Hill. 

NB: Historical Reminiscences are in Italics.

Long Distance Trail
Means Selfies!
#2 at Ravenscar

Two rest days are spent, to useful creative extent, and for getting ourselves out of our holiday let for a while to see the sights of Scarborough, so that when we land on Wednesday Morning we are feeling ready to go once more, not having to head out to early as the Parental Taxi takes me up the bouncy coast road to the top of the Ravenscar headland once again so that we might start the notionally downhill back half of this rail trail, and after getting dropped off at 10am, My Mum can head off to reconnoitre the finish Line and I can prepare myself to immediately head into a landscape where I walked purposefully, on a school trip. for possibly the first time in my life. The trail for today starts on the pavements, as the railway vanishes underground and inaccessible, so we are compelled to trace Station Road around the site of the resort that wasn't, with only the Raven Hall at the corner enduring, which marks the apex of a walk that my 10 year old self did with a school party whilst on a residential week at the Boggle Hole Youth Hostel back in 1985, which might have been my first experience of sustained uphill walking, which my little legs and under-developed brain were completely unprepared for, making what was intended as a bonding opportunity for many kids, gathered from about the city and county of Leicester, in a new school turn into something of a nightmare for me as I was dropped off the walking party and had to toil along the last long uphill stretch all by myself. Nearly 38 years on, I'm much better prepared, not least as we're headed downhill from here, tracing the Cleveland Way route down from the village to the amazing view over Robin Hood's Bay to the north, before we join the trackbed and double back through the over growth to spy the northern portal of Ravenscar Tunnel (notoriously hated by railwaymen for its tight curvature and foul atmosphere), which appears intact and dry, making it a sad omission from the Cinder Track, which starts its long decline away from the line's 200m summit as we resume our north-westerly push into a sea of gorse that clings above the long fall down to the sea, into a landscape that appears wild but is actually one where industry has scarred the cliffs, found as we approach the complex at the Peak Alum Quarry and Ravenscar Brickworks.

The Raven Hall, Ravenscar.

From the 1985 Vault - One of the Raven Hall Eagles.

The Robin Hood's Bay bay view.

Ravenscar Tunnel, North Portal.

The Cinder track resumes, downhill into a wild industrial landscape.

Hereabouts, Alum was extracted from shale between the 16th and 19th centuries, for use as a dye fixative, and bricks fired from the quarried clay into the 20th, where a significant amount of the workings remain, on the cliff and down the hillside, if you've time to seek them out, and we'll poke around the tramway bridge, the loading sidings, and the kilns and mark our 6,000th mile on the trail as we do so, rather later in the year than intended, but due as we needed a small personal triumph on this holiday break to go with the seasonally excellent weather, and methinks we ought to get this trip moving on as there's still 10+ miles to go along the trail from here. So trot on, with the view across Robin Hood's Bay being our constant companion as we press on, where the few coastal farmsteads on the marginal fields below the moor brow enjoy a spectacular aspect around, as the Ravenscar headland rise behind us, coming around to the Peak Alum quarry, which I recall as the point where our 1985 joined the Cinder Track, which if we did indeed track up from the beach after leaving the Youth Hostel via Stoupe beck, marks about 100m of ascent in just over half a mile, which explains why I was gassed on that occasion as there's no countryside in Leicestershire, not even a run up Old John in Bradgate Park, than can prepare you for something like that. The place where our walking party broke for rest and watering, by the Stoupe Bank Brow road, is now lost under a sea of gorse, as is most of the quarry site, and so we won't break here, moving on as the railway starts a shift west and inland, in order to pass over the interceding pair of becks that flow into the bay, and also to lose (or gain) height at a manageable gradient, in the Swiss fashion, and below Stoupe Brow we can break for one of my best elevenses spots with a view so far, before we carry on through the picturesque scattering of farmsteads in these high fields, with their own cattle creeps below the railway line and apparent rights of vehicular access along the bridleway.

The Tramway bridge, Peak Alum Quarry.

Peak Alum Quarry and the Brickworks.

Farmsteads on the apron above the bay.

Stoupe Brow Bank Road bridge, where we joined the Cinder Track 37+ years ago.

From the 1985 Vault - Mrs Hopwood & Miss Oakley Navigating, with a Landranger.

The Elevenses viewpoint, above the hidden valleys.

The Stoupe Brow Farmsteads.

Dropping down we settle into a treelined cutting on a firmer surface that has none of the impacted ballast gravel and infilled sleeper ruts that dominated the surface on the way down, it's almost easy going, unless you're cycling up it, though gaining clear scope on your location isn't easy as there are fingers of woodlands and streams reaching inland that you have to be attentive to the map to identify, with Howdale Wood and Alison Head Wood containing the three upper branches of Stoupe Beck before we come around to Old Hall Garth Plantation, and the three-arched Bridge Holm Road bridge looming large overhead, before we find ourselves by the broken bridge on the minor road up to Fyling Old Hall. Signs indicate that the Boggle Hole Youth Hostel is only a mile distant, but we shan't be taking an actual walk down memory lane in that direction, as while the Bay Mill block endures, the annexe building where we stayed are long gone, and the memory I have of the place is it largely being perpetually cold, as it was October when we stayed there, with uncomfortable bunk beds, mediocre food that compelled us to subsist on Kendal Mint Cake, and not really enough activity laid on that varied enough from actual school work, with certainly none of what you might anticipate on an 'outward bounds' experience, which has me wondering its purpose, even at this remove. Back to our trip, we rise to meet the site of Fyling Hall station, which could easily be missed under the trees and over growth, though its station house remains, with almost as many occupants as the site once served, and thence its onwards, through the depression that falls to the west of Robin Hood's Bay, still in the shade and being kept away from the coastal views, with Ramsdale Beck being well concealed as we pass over embankments and through cuttings with the cattle creeps and occupation bridges filling in the points of visual interest, though banks of tightly placed trees clad in thick ivy do make for a visually arresting image as we drift north.

The Howdale Wood embankment and Bridge.

The Bridge Holm Road bridge.

1 mile to the east lies the site of unforgotten experiences and memories.

From the 1985 Vault - The Beach at Boggle Hole.
(I don't know why I don't have a picture of the Youth Hostel itself?)

Fyling Hall station remnants.

Occupation bridge, near Ramsdale Beck.

The ivy clad path northwards.

Meeting the Middlewood Road crossing, another sign to the youth hostel triggers the memory of being offered the option of busing out to Whitby for a morning in the museum in Pannett Park, or walking to the Abbey, which my almost 11 year old mind saw as a no-brainer, unlike most of the lads who saw exercise as a better alternative to schoolwork, and once the parties met up for lunchtime at Whitby Abbey, I was told that they'd walked part of the railway line, which they through would've interested me a young train enthusiast, but I regarded the trek they made, of around 7 miles, to be surely more like a forced route march, that couldn't possibly have been more fun that learning about Captain Cook or the Whaling industry. We can start to feel closer to civilisation as we pass the caravans of the Middlewood Farm holiday park, where we get a sense of coastal presence once again, to the east and southeast as we share latitude with the cove village of Robin Hood's Bay, and the Ravenscar headland looms large in the distance while the villas of Fyling Thorpe align themselves around the old Thorpe hall and along the alignment of Thorpe Lane to the west of us as we drift around to the northeast to eventually meet it, with the tower of St Stephen's church drawing us on before a bridge absence puts us on the pavements again. We still can rise up to the site of Robin Hood's Bay station, with its main building and goods office still intact, along with the Station Workshops and Fyling Dales village hall developed on the site, with the main car park being found on the good yard, all parked above the bowling greens and the upper part of town at Mount Pleasant, where the crowds are out and about, with our route needing to find a way east beyond the B1447 and the elevated terraces, tangling with the Cleveland Way before we slip back on the alignment at the point where it's closest to the coast, naturally in a cutting, before we emerge to a lunch spot where we can look over the bay we have passed around.

From the 1985 Vault - Robin Hood's Bay, from afar-ish.

The Caravans of Middlewood Farm holiday park.

Fyling Thorpe's Villas, along Thorpe Lane.

Robin Hood's Bay station buildings.

The old alignmnet among the terraces of Mount Pleasant.

The Lunchtime Viewpoint, looking back to Ravenscar.

There'll be no more remember-berries from now on as we're on another significant gradient rise onto this previously unseen rise, having kidded ourselves that the whole day will be downhill, but we have to climb to get around this headland, which doesn't have an obvious name or identity, but there's a lot of it, with what appears to be a weather station at its apex as we curve around the falling rough fields around Bay Ness farm, which also appears to identify the National Trust preserve in this landscape, with gorse and bracken abounding as we are elevated up, into a cutting that obscures all sense of the coast behind us to the south, before we arrive above Rain Dale, where direct line sight downwards can be had to waves breaking on the beach, 100m below. There's not much else on this top to give us a contextual location, as there's nothing to see inland as we press to the northwest, with and apron of fields dropping away to the cliff edge, accessible by cattle creeps under foot, as we are drawn forward, and its's fine place to give a status and location update to Mum with only one cliff crag punctuating the coastal edge ahead, which isn't identifiable to me, feeling that we might have only the sheep of Bottom House farm for company up here until we come upon the Sea View Caravan Park at Hawkser Bottoms, where a farm track bridge needs to be observed up close before we get a feel for where we're going ahead, as Whitby Abbey peaks onto the horizon above the meadows and the depression of the Esk Valley penetrates the landscape across our path beyond the hedges. That's us over the other summit on the Cinder Track, and it surely is all downhill from here, as hazy warmth starts to grip us after sea breezes had kept us cooled for a long while, and it all starts to feel a bit sultry as we pass into the scattered village landscape of Hawsker, where a brick occupation bridge and tuck shop are found ahead of the house cluster by the level crossing on the A171, the only major road passage on the the latter half of the trip, and we'll shadow the coast road for a while down here, though less attention will be paid to it as we come past Hawsker station, still intact with a trio on camping coaches in its grounds (including a BR Mk3, which must have been fun and games to get up here, as there's no clear or easy run to this hilltop from any nearby railhead).

Above the bay Ness Headland

Transitioning away around the headland to the northwest

Above the fall of Rain Dale.

Working towards a headland of uncertain identity.

The Cattle Creep at High Hawsker.

The Cincer Track arriving above the Esk Valley, and Whitby.

Occupation Bridge, High Hawsker.

Hawsker station, and its camping carriages.

The interest beyond comes from the upstream Esk Valley opening out the landscape on the moorland side, which I've travelled through on occasions in the past but couldn't claim to know well, and that will keep the attention as we drift down to Stainsacre, where no station ever stood, passing under the Summerfield Lane bridge and noting the Stainsacre Lane bridge, by the Windmill inn to be only the second plain plate girder bridge that we've seen since we started, and we'll spy our last look towards the highpoints on the coast from here too, as we fall to render the Abbey and tall buildings of West Cliff beyond sight as we settle in with the fall of Stainsacre Beck. Shade runs over the path for the first time in a while as we pass down above Cock Mill Wood, finding that we don't have any extra gears in my legs to get us close to the finish time I'd projected for myself, and views are hard to come by for while, until we get a completely changed profile on the upstream Esk Valley from our passage above Larpool Wood and below Larpool Hall, which means we must be close to the main feature on the line, to be seen once we're over the Larpool Road bridge, and that's Larpool Viaduct, 13 arches and almost 300m long, towering nearly 40m above the Esk and constructed single track width entirely from red bricks, it's honestly one of the most majestic engineering sights to be had. Much time could be wasted here trying to spy its best angle, but as we're already overdue, we need to move on, pressing on to the north bank of the Esk and into Whitby town proper, meeting path of the steep spur line that rises to our left, that once connected these high lines to the railway in the valley, shadowing it through a deep and wide cutting featuring a large three-arched occupation bridge before we come up to the Prospect Hill junction site where we pass under the A171 on it passage towards Middlesborough, before we settle in behind Caedmon College and a bunch of back gardens before the Cinder Track ends abruptly on the high and shaded embankment above the Stakesby Vale Bridge.

The upstream Esk valley, from Hawsker.

Stainsacre Road bridge.

Cock Mill Wood.

The Upstream Esk, from Larpool Wood.

Larpool Road bridge.

Larpool Viaduct, looking north.

Larpool Viaduct, looking south.

Occupation bridge, above Prospect Hill Junction.

The Prospect Hill bridge / tunnel

There's no easy means to get to Whitby West Cliff station, which is still intact half a mile to the northeast from here, so it's down to the town we'll have to head, over the A174 and joining the Bagdale Road as it slips below Pannett Park (Oh, Hello!), which lands us among proud townhouses from the days of Whitby as a major Whaling port, as well as the much older Bagdale Hall, as we come down to Victoria Square, with its pair of churches and past the bus station to find Whitby Town station beyond, just west of the quayside and as close to sea level as our trip will take us, where Mum can be found awaiting my arrival in the shade of the tearooms at 3.05pm. It's not as straightforward dash back to base from here through, as we both feel the need to have fish and chips while at the seaside, despite us landing here between lunch and tea times, but that can be gotten easily and in the exactly required portions, at the Royal Fisheries restaurant on Baxtergate, before we depart, by bus, up the hill and in the wrong direction to the Park & Ride on the Guisborough Road, where the Parental Taxi can be located, wisely kept away from the parking trauma that comes in the town itself, before My Mum can demonstrate here continued motoring mettle by tilting our way back down the A171, with us both carrying thoughts of returning to these latitudes in the late Summer.

The Stakesby Vale Bridge, Whitby.

Georgian Whitby, Bagdale.

Whitby Town station.

Long Distance Trail means Selfies!
#3 at Whitby.

Incidentally, I would like to apologise for the quality and selection of the pictures from my 1985 trip that I have to share here, for it seems that my 10 year old self had no ability to create a narrative or even get good coverage of the week away that we took from Gartree High School, for there's none at all from our visits to Danby Lodge, York or the Humber Bridge, it's almost as if I pointed the hopeless 11mm camera that I'd borrowed at things randomly, while the knowledge that I had only 24 exposures on my roll of film constrained me completely, and it's not as if the rest are all pictures of my classmates either, I'm just glad I have a functioning memory of it as there's little visual evidence to stitch together what I experienced at all...

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 6010.8 miles

2023 Total: 88.6 miles

Up Country Total: 5,530.1 miles

Solo Total: 5668.2 miles

5,000 in my 40s Total: 4600.6 miles

Next Up: What if the True Value of a Holiday Away?