Western North York Moors

We parked in the new Marton Mission Room car park.

A sign pointed immediately down the River Seven, but our mission was to catch the views on a day when the weather was closing down fast.

So we stomped over the sandstone bridge by pastures of puddles and straight by The Appletree Country Inn.

However, this inn is the best place to start the walk from; we'd had delicious and sophisticated dinner there the night before, and that prompted the idea of the walk. But book in advance.

So to continue, to walk off the lunch we never had, passing the Appletree's vast kitchen garden and orchards, which contribute more than a morsel to the menu.

A lively llama snorted, the tin sheet village hall looked pretty in green and we turned on to a farm track.

Golden Hill was an easy ten minutes climb by outgrown wind-bent trees to an altitude of 150ft.

That's all you need in these flatlands and the all-round views are super. We were too late to see the moors to the north, too much rain and mist.

There's the site of an old quarry, then a curving descent across the fields to Double Dikes, which is now a thick line of pine and oak. Talking of oaks, it looks a bumper year for acorns.

It can be a bit wet underfoot in these parts, but the rights of way seemed much better tended than on our last visit in 1996.

And it's a lot drier than during the last glaciation when ice blocked the outflow of water and some of these lowlands were a lake.

Normanby Hill is about the same size as Golden Hill, but luckily the weather had cleared to the southeast and the views were terrific, to the Wolds and including the stick of rock thing that pierces the sky at Flamingoland.

More respect for walkers was evident in a flurry of waymarks and a neat and novel portable gate in an electric fence.

So we were in good spirits as we dropped down towards Normanby, passed scrub of yellow flower and red hip, then a kissing gate, orchard, and a yew hedge sculpted in the shape of pottery kilns.

The Sun Inn boasted "Sunday Roast with veg £5.50", and caravans, plus placards that read "Fight Prejudice..." and "59 percent say no to caravans". I jest, but it's a pity there was not one of those posters showing a nurse with a whip.

This route is punctuated by farms with ace brick barns; we passed more, some roofless, some heading that way, and joined the River Seven to take its low floodbank.

The river meanders, deep cut in willow-hung banks, so you see the water only now and then.

There's a good view of the flow over a weir from a metal bridge.

There's a big triangular little owl box in an oak, there were cows, and there's an airy and open last quarter mile over ridge and furrow back into Marton and its "pretty cameo of village housing".

Directions

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

1. From car park, left to road, right at junction, pavement then verge. Track on left (signed bridleway/White Thorn Farm).

2. Option - stay on track till Direction Number 4. Or, track on right, 50 yards, fieldgate, left 30 yards then diagonally uphill (grown-out hedge on right), left along top of hill and use "custom and practice route" which is a metal fieldgate near corner (100 yards before fence into quarry area) and immediately left by fence on field-edge path downhill.

3. Fieldgate into field near farmyard, 11 o'clock to left of house, gate, gate and left to track.

4. At T-junction, cross track to gates (waymark), 1 o'clock across field to gates, field/ditch-edge path to trees and straight uphill (hedge on left), fieldgate, uphill by hedge

5. Fieldgate and 1 o'clock across field (not waymark direction), gate in electric fence, downhill and skirt to right of scrub to metal snickelgate, path, left to track.

6. Right to road. Bridge, 100 yards, stile/fieldgate on left (signed), path on floodbank. Fieldgate, pass bridge on left then ignore right fork. Stile/fieldgate and continue on floodbank, fieldgate.

7. Gate (waymark), 50 yards on field-edge path, swing right, 50 yards, left to track and road, stile/fieldgate immediately on left (signed), diagonally across field, path with three stiles back into Marton.

Fact file:

Distance: Four miles.

Time: Two hours.

General location: The Vale of Pickering.

Start: Marton.

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

Date walked: Friday, October 22, 2004.

Road route: Marton is two miles south of the Keldholme junction, which is on the A170 Pickering to Kirkbymoorside road.

Car parking: Roadside or the Marton Mission Room car park; thanks for the latter, but please leave a space for the vicar.

Lavatories: None.

Refreshments: Inn at Marton and Normanby.

Tourist and public transport information: Pickering TIC 01751 473791.

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

Terrain: Undulating plain.

Points of Interest: Wetlands In The Landscape: Archaeology, Conservation, Heritage edited by Dr Margaret Atherden director of PLACE at York St John College.

Difficulty: Easy, but it may be muddy.

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

Click here to view a map of the walk

Updated: 15:49 Friday, October 29, 2004