BLUE Bank is so named, to hazard a guess, because of the sea view. For those Whitby bound who have journeyed from the south over the North York Moors, there’s a hit of said blue and then the plummet to the fish and chip factory.

Whitby looks good from the bank top, abbey and all. South, inland, a kestrel hovered over a line of pylons along the slopes of a valley. Said pylons mean that you can’t really lose the general direction, but you do have to concentrate to keep to the narrow path through the grass and bracken mix until a track, and until you lock on to the 66,000-volt lines. Anyone walking this part of the National Park gets a reminder that global warming is not the only Doomsday scenario or indeed the primary one.

Looking along the shimmer of the pylons to Fylingdales Radar Station over heather burnt to black stumps was spooky. Nearby two prehistoric mounds persist and an anemometer spun on the automatic weather station – would it still trigger a hot day post-apocalypse message “come to Whitby”? But the road was not empty; it pulsed with focused cheer.

By the Grosmont road there was a large surfaced area marked as a car park on the OS map, but gated shut with industrial strength steel. Visible half a mile away stands a part stone circle called the High Bridestones.

We turned across Sleights Moor and our spirits lifted as a track took us to some ace places. First a pond, pretty with a fringe of rush through which danced blue dragonflies. After a sandwich and a sunbathe we moved a couple of hundred yards to Flat Howe on Black Brow, one of a pair of that name.

Typically for a prehistoric barrow it’s built on a grand spot, the top of the world here with a trig point marking 948 feet. The trig is set with respect, not on the howe but beside it and lower.

One quarter of the view is of the seaside including Ravenscar and its hotel. We set a compass for north and wandered through a rock field and over peat bare but for fragile moss and across heather burnt, short, mown and here and there shaggy.

Such right to roaming brought us ley-line fashion to the survival self-congratulation of a millennium beacon. Here is a bench from which to scan the Esk Valley, nice to see it from this side, across to Aislaby and down to Sleights, the village below Blue Bank.

A two-carriage train crawled up Esk Dale, we had track then vague paths and reached Fair Plain using a route that on the 1853 map is described as the “Boundary of Sleights Moor Perambulated in 1843”. Another raptor haunted the large sandstone blocks in a small quarry just over the road from the car park.

Directions

When in doubt look at the map. Check your position at each point.

Keep straight on unless otherwise directed.

1. From car park, path south (sign), 50 yards, fieldgate. Fork left at second pylon, step stream, path angles gently downhill.

2. Join stone track ahead, not right uphill.

3. At tracks crossroads 100 yards from barn to your left, right uphill on stone track (Little Beck sign, High and Low Quebec).

4. Pass pylon, 50 yards, stone track on left, concrete sleeper ford.

5. Track on right at Y-junction, uphill. Fieldgate and cross main road to verge of Grosmont road.

6. At green barrier on right, cross parking area to track, 400 yards, pond. Cross moor for 200 yards northeast to trig point.

7. North across moor, no path, eventually aim to right of trees.

8. Right to good stone track.

9. Track ends, pick up faint paths near or within 50 yards of wall.

10. Track. Right to track just before fieldgate to road, first track on left, fieldgate and cross main road.

Fact file

Distance: Five miles.
General location: North York Moors.
Start: Blue Bank.
Right of way: Public and open Access.
Map: Drawn from OS Explorer OL27 North York Moors eastern area.
Dogs: Illegal.
Date walked: July 2008.
Road route: A169.
Car parking: Two adjacent free car parks at top of Blue Bank.
Lavatories: None.
Refreshments: Sleights.
Tourist and public transport information: Whitby TIC 01723 383636.
Terrain: Moor.
Points of interest: Idea that the Flat Howe barrows are part of a seven-mile southeast line of them.
Difficulty: Moderate.

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