GEORGE WILKINSON road tests a rural roam just right for Boxing Day.

Hovingham is just right for a festive frolic or for a rural recovery from over-indulgence. That said we immediately popped into the Spa Tearoom and loaded our sacks with sticky delights.

Then it was off, along the beck, passing the houses of pale limestone and on to the abandoned railway line. The line is marked at the beginning, at the highway, by a sign reading 'Private road sawmill only' but 50 yards in is an info-board that tells it has recently been allocated public permissive access as part of a Countryside Stewardship Scheme.

And very nice it is too, a flat, smooth cinder track, for head-up carefree progress, fuss free for children except for the spot where it by passes an old and dicey bridge over Spring Beck.

Just relax, stride or stagger, enjoy the views over the fields to low hills in the mid-distance and a mile to the north to the village of Stonegrave.

Fresh green beans had pushed an inch through the brown soil as the sun burnished the stubble and shotguns rang out. Most of the track is elegantly lined with cherry, silver birch and sycamore, in avenue style.

Over the last mile of rail trackbed the surroundings are less formal, there's a pond with alders, a wren squeaked in the scrub and then we walked a low embankment that has commendably been spared the plough.

Then a bit of back road took us past ramshackle sheds and the gilded gates of Cawton Cottage, which is huge and not a cottage. Three cyclists hissed by, and a red pickup with a maximum battery of lights zoomed past and sprayed us, that was the total traffic.

Oswaldkirk, a few miles to the west, caught the sunshine, and we reached the hamlet of Cawton, where pure white ducks scooted on a pond, perhaps nervous with SADD (Seasonally Affected Duck Disorder).

We turned on to the Ebor Way, a good track of crushed limestone all the way back, it gently gains a few feet in altitude as it skirts the edge of Cawton Heights resulting in a fleeting view of a fillet of the North York Moors. The low fields are of rough grasses, the ash trees are big, the oaks heavy.

We passed the traces of Hovingham Spa. In 1890 someone wrote that they were 'formerly much visited by invalids' with baths, pump room and villa and three springs, one 'sulphur-sodaic', another 'chalybeate', another pure, beneficial for 'scorbutic diseases, gravel and general weakness'.

Half a mile on Hovingham came into view. When you reach the outskirts and the day's only gate (no stiles, no boggy bits) and should your children need reducing to the aforementioned state of general weakness, there is a good playground with swings, slides and such.

There were gardens and geese, a Jubilee bridge, as in 1837-1887, and a ford to paddle through if you want plus two warm and welcoming watering holes.

Fact file

Distance: Four and a half miles.

Time: Two hours.

General location: Howardian Hills.

Start: Hovingham.

Right of way: The route is along public rights of way and a permissive path.

Date walked: Saturday, December 13, 2003.

Road route: From York via Sheriff Hutton.

Car parking: Public car park between the two inns, free.

Lavatories: None.

Refreshments: The Maltshovel, the Worsley Arms Hotel, the Spa Tearoom (shut Mondays and from Christmas Eve until January 6, 2004).

Tourist and public transport information: Helmsley TIC 01439 770173.

Map: Based on OS Explorer 300 Howardian Hills and Malton.

Terrain: Farmland.

Points of interest: Hovingham Hall, occasionally open to the public.

Difficulty: Easy, flat tracking.

Dogs: Suitable, but must be kept on leads on disused rail line.

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. Right from car park through village (pavement). Opposite last house on right, track on left (Private Road sign), 50 yards, barrier (CSS sign).

2. About 50 yards before fence, avoid rickety bridge in overgrown area via track to left, rejoin former railwayline track.

3. At fence, right to footbridge, left to road.

4. At bend, track on left (Ebor Way), ignore side turns.

5. As track swings right to farm, join grassy track ahead, 100 yards fieldgate and into Hovingham.

Click here to view a map of the walk

Updated: 16:11 Friday, December 19, 2003