Abbey days

Rievaulx Abbey, the onetime "shining light of northern monasticism", looked big, beautiful and intricate. A sign pointed up the valley and read 'footpath to Bow Bridge', we took it.

Local dog walkers were out and about in the valley, and we met them by springs glowing with marsh marigolds, along ancient thread of canal, under willows cream with catkins, by old quarry faces in a sea of garlic and along the lovely River Rye. Sweet cameos all. Pied wagtails flitted in a bath-sized seepage, a bumblebee searched for a nest site. We didn't see any wild brown trout from Bow Bridge, but liked the iron letters YNR chiselled deep into its sandstone.

From the flat of the valley rose a nicely engineered path and we went over the boardwalks and down by the river and found, a week early for Easter, and early in the season, a freshly-emptied parchment-brown pheasant egg.

Then we turned around and, after a few minutes of a dead-end farm drive, settled at a sandwich stop vantage point.

The bank was specked with wood anemones in a band of spaced-out scrub. The remnants of once giant oaks look across the valley and down to the abbey a mile away. The may was out, it was definitely a day to 'cast a clout', and we took a siesta to the music of brand new lambs, a cascading river and the beat of a woodpecker. As wrote St Aelred: "'Everywhere peace, everywhere serenity".

Until woken by rage against the machine - by a bird. Along trundled a red PO van, the belligerent male pheasant raced it and charged, risking life and wing, making contact and getting ruffled under the front bumper. The postman said it's a regular.

We ambled on and dipped down through coppiced hazel to a beckside path to Ashberry Hill. Then a climb of 200 feet to a brow that is opposite and well above the main axis of the Abbey.

The skirt down and round the hill was on track with a mohican of garlic, the woodland spring flowers show was quite advanced. There was a fine white farmhouse, a garden, and a powerful spring pouring into the river. The back road was reclaimed by pedestrians.

Back at the Abbey, we took the tour, and enjoyed the revelations in the exhibition building and puzzled at the enigmatic copies of Masons Marks that have recently been set around it. On May 4 there is a do called 'Sheep in the cloister', and on September 12, a 'Heritage Hike'.

Fact file

Distance: Three and a half miles, or two miles for half the figure of eight.

Time: Two hours.

General location: Near Helmsley.

Start: Rievaulx.

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

Date walked: Saturday April 12 2003.

Road route: Signed of the B1257 Helmsley to Stokesley road.

Car parking: For Abbey visitors only. Overflow car park was not yet open, very limited roadside. Use Moorsbus at busy times.

Lavatories: English Heritage.

Refreshments: Many inns, cafs and teashops in Helmsley.

Tourist and public transport information: For Moorsbus info, Sutton Bank National Park Centre 01845 597426 and www.moorsbus.net. Rievaulx Abbey 01439 798228, English Heritage 01904 601901 and www.english-heritage.org.uk. Helmsley TIC 01439 770173.

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

Terrain: Small valley.

Points of interest: Rievaulx Abbey: entrance £3.80/£2.90/£1.90. Half price with voucher in Moorsbus Timetable.

Difficulty: Easy.

Dogs: Suitable.

Weather forecast: Evening Press and recorded forecast 0891 500 418.

Directions

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

1. Abbey entrance, right to road, footpath on left (fieldgate, signed Bow Bridge). Steps on right before bridge over River Rye and left to track.

2. Bridge, 150 yards, stile/fieldgate to grassy path on right through fields (signed Hawnby). Stile to riverside path, steps, boardwalks, then grassy path.

3. Stile and left to farm track (metalled), uphill.

4. On right-hand bend, fork left to stoney track downhill.

5. Fieldgate on right to grassy path (signed Ashberry) by stream. Stile/fieldgate to woodland track. Fieldgate at end, left at barn to road, left at bridge, left at next bridge and back to Rievaulx.

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: 09:15 Saturday, April 19, 2003