There is an area of land bordered on the west by the A19 and to the east the escarpment of the Hambleton Hills that makes for nice walking.

This space is a maze of back roads, a pattern of small hills, fine houses and pretty little villages.

Kepwick is one of these with its sandstone houses tight up to the slopes. The castellated gatehouse of Kepwick Hall gives an estate flavour, and there's a car park near the arts and crafts-influenced church.

A farmer shuffled back and forth on his John Deere 3200, we took the footpath through his neat machinery field, puzzled a bit about the route, diced with decrepit field furniture, took the skew-whiff bridge over Bridge Beck, then some ridge and furrow pasture, then a field, and made it into the National Park and started on our 650ft climb to the tops.

There's a wood on French Hill, and nearby the Nab is a chic shape with a frizz of pines and a necklace of stone wall. These we passed on the way up, an ascent made easy to Nab Farm by a metalled track. But at the farm we puzzled because the way was signed into a quagmire of a field. I am told the National Park's Ranger is sorting things out.

After that all was sweet, over the little alder-lined Old Gill and up the escarpment of the Hambleton Hills, on clean path and by a ribbon of limestone wall.

We did just under a mile on the Cleveland Way, enjoyed from an altitude of 1,200 feet the big views west over the flat lands to the Dales and also caught glimpses over heather and pale grasses to headlands east and deep in the moors.

Then we took a route back down that was new to us, and it was smashing, very spacious at first, easy going, and with a clear view of the neo-Tudor Kepwick Hall.

About halfway down there was the unexpected bonus of the sightline, through a wooded valley, to the escarpment just the other side of Sutton Bank.

After Gallow Hill there's a dip into a steep bilberry clad gully that was fun, then birch woods that were pretty. Sandstone walls now, and then finally another deep cut gully this time richly covered with rhododendrons that then fan out over the crags.

Fact file

Distance: Five and a half miles.

Time: Three hours.

General location: Western edge of North York Moors National Park.

Start: Kepwick.

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

Date walked: Saturday, December 6, 2003.

Road route: Kepwick signed off the A19 north of Thirsk. Take road map for lanes.

Parking: Car park, by church, free.

Lavatories: None.

Refreshments: None.

Tourist & public transport information: Thirsk TIC 01845 522755. Sutton Bank Visitors' Centre 01845 597426.

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

Terrain: Escarpment.

Points of interest: I have informed the authorities about rickety field furniture and wire embedded in ground within first mile of route.

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. Left from car park, 100 yards, fieldgate on left (signed) to field, fieldgate (signed). Unless re-signed/re-routed, deviate necessarily from OS map i.e. straight down, climb fence. Right to raised track, 100 yards, old stile on left, 10 o'clock across field, distorted footbridge, stile, 11 o'clock uphill to stile in corner of field, watch for embedded wire. Straight across field.

2. Right to road. At corner, fork left uphill on tarmac drive.

3. At farm, ignore fieldgate on right. Large metal gate and straight through concrete yard to track.

4. Cross stream, 20 yards, grass track on left (fingerpost), uphill to fieldgate. Track joins wall to right.

5. Fieldgate at top, right to track. Pass first junction (road end on right).

6. Half a mile before conifers, fieldgate to grassy track downhill (wire fence to right), head for lower corner of wood.

7. Fieldgate in wall and right downhill by wall, old wooden fieldgate then wood and wall to left.

8. Birch copse on right on hillock, 150 yards, fork right to path downhill into deepening gully. Fieldgate and path downhill into Kepwick.

Click here to view a map of the walk

Updated: 16:51 Friday, December 12, 2003