Bank on it

ON the buses again for a linear walk from Newgate Bank to Sutton Bank, an appealing route. We left Helmsley on a typically animated Friday market day, and the Moorsbus took us up to the viewpoint bank in Bilsdale, 750 feet altitude, no effort.

Our destination is at 900ft which doesn't sound much of a climb, but there are two intervening valleys, both very much worth the effort.

First and immediately we descended into lovely Rye Dale. The river under Shaken Bridge was low and trouty, drizzling over a volume-measuring weir and flowing Rievaulx way. The climb out of Rye Dale wasn't hard, hazelnuts crunched and horse riders trekked by. We sat on oak roots and had our sandwiches with a view of the smooth rump of Easterside Hill. As the crow flies we hadn't done a mile.

And we hadn't done another when Victoria put down her map and picked up a short red leather and silver mounted whip. We hung this on a fir tree and speeded on to Murton Heights where there is a very fine farmstead.

Then we took the path signed to Cold Kirby and descended hot, steep banks of marjoram and mullein into the steamy, sticky, sultry, spring-trickling depths of Caydale, where meadowsweet and watermint shared the hothouse airs with tall spears of reeds and iris.

Back on the breezy tops again, we headed in hyper-stride by a blue-flecked linseed field and then a yellow one of lupins till, high on the Hambleton Hills, we met a York couple who asked us if we'd take their photo, it being their 30th wedding anniversary. Mrs Dale said it should have been at a kissing gate.

After a promenade down Cold Kirby's proud and wide and only street we tramped the Cleveland Way past fireweed-fringed forest to the new plantations around the Sutton Bank Centre. And on through the bilberries to a cup of tea under a birch tree, a glider in the sky.

Fact file

Distance: Seven miles.

Time: Three or four hours.

General location: Hambleton Hills.

Start: The top of Newgate Bank, Bilsdale.

Right of Way: The complete route is along public rights of way.

Date walked: Friday August 1, 2003.

Road route: Sutton Bank is on the A170 Thirsk to Helmsley road.

Car parking: North York Moors National Park Visitors Centre at Sutton Bank. £1.50 all day, this gets you a £1 voucher for the Moorsbus.

Lavatories: Sutton Bank, Helmsley and the car park on Newgate Bank.

Refreshments: Sutton Bank visitors' centre and Helmsley.

Tourist & public transport information: Sutton Bank Centre 01845 597426, or www.moorsbus.net

Map: Based on OS Explorer OL26 North York Moors Western area.

Terrain: Flat uplands and two valley crossings.

Points of interest: Exhibition of photographs by the Kirkbymoorside Camera Club at Sutton Bank Visitors Centre until 17 August 2003.

Difficulty: Moderate.

Dogs: Suitable.

Weather Forecast: Evening Press and recorded forecast 0891 500 418

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. Alight from bus opposite entrance to Newgate Bank car park, take verge south (Helmsley direction), track on right at end of field (sign overgrown), 100 yards, track down into wood.

2. Left at tracks junction, 50 yards, path on right downhill (at diversion sign), gate, path loops right, left before house to drive, tarmac then concrete, gate to path on right by telegraph pole.

3. Right to road, bridge, 100 yards, track on left and ignore diversion signs. At right-hand bend straight on over grass, 20 yards, gate to track (signed Tylas Farm), uphill, 100 yards, left to track (fingerpost) and ignore side turns.

4. Track meets wood to right, grassy track on right to skirt end of wood (just after blue waymarked post), right at corner, fieldgate, pass barn and fork left to grassy track across field.

5. Fieldgate in far corner of field (short corridor of fence afterwards), track, fieldgate to wood-edge path.

6. Left to road, straight on to track at bend. Right to track at valley edge, 50 yards, left (sign) to path downhill, left to dirt track, 100 yards, path on left (signed). Bridge across stream in valley bottom, path uphill.

7. Gate and right at valley top (so fence to left), dog-leg across road to track (signed, wall to right), dog-leg across road to grassy path (signed, hedge to right), fieldgate to grass track which zigzags through grass field with dip to fieldgate to narrow field, through yard. Right into Cold Kirby.

8. After last house on left, track on left (signed Cleveland Way) and ignore turns into fields. Stile to path through fields at end of track.

9. Right at wood edge, gate to fenced path, left on tarmac drive, 50 yards, path on right which twists through saplings, cross horse exercise path and ignore a right fork, right at edge of mature woodland then left to road to Sutton Bank visitor centre.

Click here to view a map of the walk

Updated: 08:04 Saturday, August 09, 2003