Glaisdale

GLAISDALE has three adjacent bridges on the River Esk. While we sat in the car under the dripping arches of the Middlesbrough to Whitby railway line, the occasional car went past on the Esk Dale road, and a photographer gave the pretty and romantic arched stone of Beggar's Bridge a ten-minute once-over.

Then there was more action. Four off-road motorcyclists balked at crossing a swollen side stream ford, a dozen tiny long-tailed tits fluttered like the last leaves in the bare branches, and we set off up a stone track, a green lane running with water.

After a while, there was a spot with little old iron pits that are now colonised by oaks, and also a nice green antique caravan.

Then the track picked up a bit of metalling, the weather vane on a farmhouse quivered with the southerly, and we joined Smith's Lane, the back road to Rosedale.

A last climb to 800ft opened out the views, east down Esk Dale to the sea, and at a southerly angle, across moors to the Fylingdales radar station from where sun came also, rays low and intense.

An info board read Welcome To The Egton Estate and here we turned down into the valley of Glaisdale, on tracks part sunken and with flooding springs.

After a thin conifer belt, we paused at the walling of a sheepfold. Here I felt I should with the sun to my back cast a giant shadow on the far side of the valley. We admired the classic shape, the pattern of farms up to the head, the village of Glaisdale running down the far flank at the mouth. A cloud of a thousand seagulls rose and settled on a pasture, like in one of those shake-the-snow domes.

A track contours back above the valley floor though West Arncliff Wood, which is SSSI and "ancient semi-natural" and "ancient replanted". The route has old cut-stone reinforcement at a stream. Nine years ago, I saw large black pigs ranging here; recently hazel have been coppiced. In the wood, on the right, very near the track, there is for some purpose a closet-sized post and rail-fenced enclosure, with inside a particular and regular stacking of a dozen metre-length logs that are brambling over.

Across the pastures a squat oak is lightning hollowed. Apples hung like baubles, hedges were heavy with other fruits and the walkers' bridge took us over a torrent of a beck. Note the outside privy at Hart Hall, which is on the other side of the front garden. It is made of stone from the period and dumps straight into a trickle of a tributary. Not surprisingly, the hall has a folklore of naked hobgoblins.

You come in halfway up or down the village. Up is a shop or two; down is the Arncliffe Arms and the bridges where the water had fallen some and horse riders were taking the ford.

Fact file

Distance: Four miles.

Time: Two hours.

General location: North York Moors.

Start: Beggar's Bridge Glaisdale.

Right of way: Public.

Map: Drawn from OS Explorer OL27 North York Moors eastern area.

Dogs: Legal.

Date walked: December, 2006.

Road route: Glaisdale is half way along the Castleton to Whitby road through Esk Dale, a few miles south of the A171 Guisborough/Whitby road.

Car parking: Free, by bridges and at point three on map.

Lavatories: Railway station.

Refreshments: Glaisdale.

Tourist and public transport information: National Park (01845 597426).

Terrain: Valley sides.

Points of interest: Glaisdale blast furnaces operated between 1869 and 1875.

Difficulty: Moderate.

Directions

When in doubt look at the map. Check your position at each point. Keep straight on unless otherwise directed.

1. From car park, ford/footbridge to track, not path. Ignore right after 50 yards, uphill. Detour at gate on left (signed path), 100 yards to iron workings. Track metalled after house.

2. Right to road, half mile.

3. Cattlegrid, 20 yards, grassy path on right (signed), fieldgate/stile by wood (waymark), path by wall after wood, 200 yards.

4. Fieldgate on right by sheepfold to path downhill (no sign), 20 yards, sunken path on left after wall end.

5. Fieldgate into farmyard, right, 20 yards, fieldgate to track (waymark), contour, fieldgate into wood, fieldgate out (waymark), contour, grassy path, fieldgate (waymark), step-stream.

6. Fieldgate (waymark) by wooden barn and left downhill on curved sunken path 200 yards. Before fieldgate turn right across field (fingerpost) to gate/stream by oak tree (waymark), one o'clock for 100 yards.

7. Footbridge, 20 yards, gate to hedged path/flagged trod, left-hand bend (waymark), right-hand bend, 100 yards, fieldgate and immediately left to fieldgate (waymark).

8. At and before next fieldgate, turn right over grass 100 yards to stile (waymark), ladderstile, cross drive, fieldgate (waymark), 50 yards, fieldgate on right (waymark) and diagonally across hillside, down to stile and right to road, verge/pavement.

9. Track on right after Arncliffe Arms, footbridge, left and rejoin outward route.

Please observe the Country Code and park sensibly. While every effort is made to provide accurate information, walkers set out at their own risk.

Map of the walk>>