Chalk and please

THEY may not be as spectacular as the Dales, or as bleak, brooding and atmospheric as the Moors: but the Yorkshire Wolds have a quiet peace and beauty all their own. It's a chalk landscape of high, wide fields and narrow, secretive valleys under a sky that seems to stretch forever. There are lovely villages, too, and almost forgotten treasures such as the medieval village of Wharram Percy, tucked away in the secluded valley of Deep Dale.

All this had largely passed me by. I'd driven through the Wolds a few times, usually on my way to the coast, but had never stopped to explore. For some reason it's not a landscape that is immediately appealing seen from a speeding car.

Then a copy of the newly-updated national trail guide to the Yorkshire Wolds Way dropped on to my desk: and I was hooked.

The Wolds Way (the word Yorkshire was only added last year) is a long-distance footpath, officially opened in 1982, that runs for 79 miles from Hessle Haven, beside the Humber, through the heart of the Wolds to spectacular Filey Brigg on the coast.

Along the way it takes in the Humber estuary, high upland fields with breathtaking views and big skies, woodland walks and deep, V-shaped chalk valleys carpeted in green.

The revised guide, published by National Trail Guides and the Countryside Agency, is your introduction to this secluded and often forgotten landscape.

Lavish photographs emphasise the beauty of the Wolds; while beautifully clear maps based on the Ordnance Survey's 1: 25,000 series and detailed directions open them up to the walker. The guide is also packed with information about interesting features along the way, as well as essential advice on matters such as transport and accommodation.

It is intended for those planning to walk the entire route - something which can be accomplished easily within a week, the guide says. It's up to you whether you do it north to south, or south to north - though the guide recommends the latter. "It is usually better to walk with the sun on your back, especially on bright days when walking towards it can be dazzling," it says. "Another south-north justification is to do with the landscape itself. From its inauspicious beginnings on the muddy Humber bank, the beauty of the scenery intensifies by the day. Filey Brigg is a fine place to finish."

Don't let yourself be put off, however, by the daunting prospect of a 79-mile walk. The guide includes a couple of circular walks for the weekend stroller - and, with the help of the detailed maps, anyone with a car can join the trail at almost any point, walk a stretch of their own choosing, and then find an alternative way back to the car along one of the many narrow, almost deserted lanes typical of the Wolds.

I decided to join the Wolds Way near Huggate, attracted by the prospect of walking beside Iron Age earthworks along the top of a steep-sided valley which, I hoped, would offer spectacular views.

I parked the car in a layby off a narrow country lane a mile or so outside the village and, skirting a small plantation, headed off southwards along the top of steep-sided Pasture Dale. The views were breathtaking, the grassy valley slicing sharply down and curving away ahead, the skies huge.

I followed the path around the top of Pasture Dale, then cut up beside Jessop's Plantation, a lovely little woodland of gnarled silver birch trees, their upper branches studded with what looked like crows' nests.

At the other side, the path forks sharply right to follow the top edge of Nettle Dale, its steep slopes clothed with yellow-flowering gorse thickets. Ahead of me, a wonderful view opened out of Millington Dale and Cow Moor, the green slopes appearing slightly dusty from the underlying chalk

I headed towards them, breathing great lungfuls of clean air. At the end of Nettle Dale, the path turns left again, dipping down to the foot of the dale and climbing steeply up the other side to join the line of an earthwork which, the guide informed me, had been thrown up by La Tene tribesmen in the late Iron Age.

From here, I left the Wolds Way, using the map to cut back northwards along a public footpath, which joined up with a narrow lane I followed back to my car.

It made for a satisfying circular walk of not more than five miles, all of it along well-marked paths. It was a glorious day: but even so, the landscape was almost deserted, apart from a couple with a dog I passed near Jessop's Plantation.

My walk may have been short, but it was enough to give me a taste of the hidden beauty of the Wolds - a beauty I'm convinced you'll only really be able to enjoy on foot.

I shall certainly be back for more: and already I can feel the urge growing to walk the entire path from one end to the other.

u The revised guide to the Yorkshire Wolds Way is published by National Trail Guides and the Countryside Agency, priced £12.99.

Updated: 16:28 Friday, April 16, 2004