WEST Scrafton is halfway down Coverdale, the three-village valley with the racehorse and castle town of Middleham at its mouth. The Primitive Methodist Chapel dates from 1866. There is no pub or shop, just a beck, hardly any traffic, a few stone cottages; and a wall with a dozen recesses for bee hives.
We quizzed a retired farmer, as you do, and took a track out for a mile over pastures of rough grass and rushes. Then we faced a steep bank that disappeared up into the mists. As it’s a 350ft climb, we decided to make an angle of it using an incline, so that was all right.
At the top, at 1,500 feet, are the Great Roova Crags, van-sized blocks of hard grit rock in dark grey. There was a lot of grey as we were in cloud and a persistent drizzle. Sandwiches in the lee of the rock were accompanied by the angry fluting of a curlew.
On the OS map there is a trig point a stone’s throw away, but we gave up searching for it. There were no views on the day, plus it’s flattish here, a half a square mile of it.
But we did stumble on the shooting house at the crags, built against a boulder and with roof windows. Strangely, outside the shooting house are iron compass points set in the ground; one doesn’t imagine gamekeepers ever need a compass. We did.
Out it came at every track junction, and out came the satellite navigator to fix a grid reference.
All I can report for the misty mile across the tops is that the grouse seemed to have managed large families and the grouse butts are well camouflaged with living heather and bilberry.
This is open access land and we had to stay in it and connect with Red Way, the only legal way down. So we roughed it across a beck and boggy valley, as good a choice of crossing as any I think, including a steaming ten minutes in the bracken.
We stopped at Ulfers Crags, small ones, for the rest of our sandwiches and a few of the hundred or more crows came to carefully check us out.
Red Way, a track, provided a mile-and-a-half of comfortable drift down to the hamlet of Caldbergh; Coverdale was luminous in the faint damp light.
That left two miles back to West Scrafton along the valley. For us a couple of streams, a wood colourful with late bluebells and a grand fungus, a patch of parkland. By then, enough done, we took a lazy mile of the lane which was fine as there were only two cars.
Fact file
Distance: Six miles.
General location: Yorkshire Dales.
Start: West Scrafton.
Right of way: Public and open access.
Dogs: Illegal.
Date walked: June, 2010.
Road route: Via Middleham.
Car parking: Road side northwest of West Scrafton and by East Scrafton.
Lavatories: Middleham.
Refreshments: Middleham.
Tourist and public transport information: Leyburn TIC 01748 828747.
Map: Drawn from OS Explorer OL30 Yorkshire Dales northern and central.
Terrain: High Moor.
Difficulty: Compass walk.
Please observe the Country Code and park sensibly. While every effort is made to provide accurate information, walkers set out at their own risk.
Directions
When in doubt look at the map. Check your position at each point.
Keep straight on unless otherwise directed.
1. Left from village green, over bridge and immediately drive on right (fingerpost Nidderdale), fieldgate/gated squeezer, pass front of house, track uphill near wall.
2. Track turns right uphill on an incline, 300 yards at rocks, switch back uphill, no path, and up to Great Roova Crags. Round the crags at their southern end, step over low wire fence, and above crags to their northern end.
3. From shooting house built into northern end of crags, take grassy track heading north east. Ignore a grassy track on right after 300 yards.
4. Join main stone track for 50 yards, take good track on right heading east, pass small quarry after a third of a mile, pass grouse butts. Downhill. Fieldgate between wall and fence, 50 yards.
5. At fieldgate in wall don’t go through it but turn directly down to step across stream, angle 1 o’clock through young trees for 200 yards to gate in fence. Aim east, straight across and then up towards crag/stones, use sheep paths where available.
6. From crag, depending which one, continue east for 20 to 100 yards, cross ditch, about 50 yards.
7. Left to main stone/dirt track and downhill.
8. Fieldgate into field, track, ford, fieldgate, fieldgate, downhill.
9. Fieldgate to road into Caldbergh for 150 yards, track on left (fingerpost), 50 yards, fieldgate, straight on between buildings, downhill by wall, steps by fence, footbridge, squeezer, cross field, path in trees to footbridge with gate and stile, follow line of trees which mark old boundary across park, stile/fieldgate beside and below garden wall (fingerpost), right to drive.
10. Left to road back to West Scrafton.
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