Filey walk

Filey is a place with a big image but a small permanent population and there weren't many of them around on a bitter winter's day.

Certainly no day-trippers, ours was the only metal in the big car park of swirling mist. Worried about the weather, we had phoned a shop before travelling and had been led to expect a "nice bright day", a chance of the "breathtaking views of Flamborough Head". The first of the town's many information boards shivered with the pre-history of ice ages.

We warmed up along a road of local brick stacked three storeys high as B&B, guest house and holiday let, caf and fish and chips. At Church Ravine and its iron bridge there was more information, that this ravine pre-1889 divided the Ridings North and East and that the inhabitants here are collectively Filonians, which sounds quite musical.

At noon, at the town edge fields the sun started a battle with the murk, brightening the delayed gratification of the coast.

The cliffs are high and steep, hundreds of feet, striated rock ledged with seagulls and below a grey of shale. The sea was empty, shadowed by a breeze, the horizon blurred and, at the rocks, a wash of falling tide. A cormorant skimmed the surface. A lone walker strode, a male multi-tasking a novel no less.

We moved west, slightly downhill, stopping to puzzle at the Filey Rocket Pole, a device for practising rescues in times gone by. A regularity of red signs "Beware Dangerous Cliffs" are posted over slumps of clay. A wedge of sandstone is carved with "Cleveland Way" and "Wolds Way".

Soon we were on the Brigg, one of the most distinctive headlands on the North East coast, a spike a mile in length at low tide.

Some way on to it the Brigg drops down from quite a height to almost sea level, and from here you have to retreat. There is a way down, a curve of engineered path and then, but only if the tide is right out, a ribbon of undulating and weathered concrete leads to the end.

All the way, 50 yards of rock hopping included, and you reach Brigg End, the cold sea lapping or crashing on the very last rock. This is a special place of seaweeds, sculpted stone and jewelled pools.

A birdwatcher told me the cormorants were shags and I saw small waders, probably purple sandpipers. There's a telephone should you be stranded by incoming tide, but don't, please.

I walked back off the Brigg, off the crunchy litter of oystercatcher-

emptied mussel shells and on to the miles of smooth wet light-mirrored hard-packed sands. Some locals hurried hunched.

You are allowed a salty dog in empty winter months, but not in child humming summer.

A slipway to the sea wall was a slope of fishing boats, and along the half mile of wall - life boat, loos, deck chair hire, Second World War mine, coastguard station bristling with aerials and a giant metal lobster brandishing black claws.

The end of the sea wall brought a shuttered sea front caf and a ravine back up to town where you can enter aromatic warmth and get a typical extra-welcome cup of tea.

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 West Avenue, over main junction with church on corner. Left at end of road to Mitford Street, right before mini roundabout (signed St Oswald's Church).

2. Iron footbridge (info board) and left to path, left to road, 100 yards, left at T-junction, 50 yards, right to road, 150 yards, roundabout, straight on (Scarborough Road).

3. After last bungalow, track on right (signed Filey Field Farm), then field margin track/path, swings left 50 yards then right uphill.

4. Right to cliff edge path.

5. After stone triangular sign/sculpture take path straight on to top of Brigg until a sign that forbids progress where ground drops in front. Return to four posts and EITHER: if tide in take alternate route on map along Cleveland Way on top of cliffs above beach as far as Life Boat Station (steps). OR: if tide right out take good semi-engineered path down to rocks and sea and turn left to follow concrete path all the way to end of Brigg, for 50 yards you have to rock hop. Then return and straight on to beach.

6. Up slipway to sea wall and follow to end where Tarmac path leads right immediately after large caf and up wooded gully by stream to car park.

Fact file

Distance: Six-and-a-half miles.

Time: Three hours.

General Location: Near Scarborough.

Start: South car park.

Right of Way: Public.

Date walked: Friday, December 9, 2005.

Road Route: From York, A64 and A1039.

Car Parking: Large car park at south edge of town, signed. Winter free.

Lavatories: Yes.

Refreshments: Plenty.

Tourist & Public Transport Information: Scarborough Tourism Bureau 01723 383636.

Terrain: Mostly coastline.

Points of interest: Have put this walk in today because tomorrow low tide at Filey is mid-afternoon. Check tide times online.

Difficulty: Moderate

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: 10:37 Saturday, January 21, 2006