Thornton-le-Dale

I decided to do some research. In The Ryedale Story, by John Rushton, I came across the local and ‘notorious’ Lucy de Thweng whose “five husbands in quick succession made her the cause celebre of the 14th century”.

Further investigation revealed that apparently her contemporaries used the term “man eater”. Frivolity aside, I turned to authors Margaret Atherden, the chief of PLACE at York St John University, and Bob Missin and their chapter in ‘Wetlands In The Landscape: Archaeology, Conservation, Heritage, and also to Noel Menuge for his A Guide To The Wetland Heritage Of The Vale Of Pickering. Both books were published by PLACE in 2001.

Enough homework, because along Longlands Lane they strolled, and soon left behind the southern border of the North York Moors National Park.

But after that, this walk almost chops in half a sausage of land, the ex wetland, an English Nature designated natural area.

The Wolds were in view across the flat terrain. They saw lambs, herons, garlic in the woods and cowslips. A leveret played in rainbow showers and in the next field, a long narrow one, they watched a big fox paddle around for five minutes. But not paddle as in water, because, although the history here is of marshland, around 1800 it changed.

William Marshall, the agricultural writer, described the old way hereabouts, the ‘fenn’, as a “disgrace to the country” and the past 200 years have, with successful drainage, produced some of the richest farmland in Britain. The downside is that these days there is not a single natural lake, diminished wildlife and increased risk of flooding to those downstream.

In a landscape of isolated scattered barns, old and very old, they came across a new shed. Here the farmer chatted about its climate control and curtains for 350 cattle, and there was great interest in the slurry separation, which is by pressing into liquid and dry, an apparently sweet process that they filmed and photographed in some detail.

The fields were cracked dry under the showers, divided by ditch alongside thorn hedge, empty, and the dead-end roads were quiet with only two vehicles.

They turned, only a stone’s throw from the River Derwent, not the river it was. Trackside hedge blossom enchanted them, a deer wandered off.

The second time of close passing, they saw the trig point at 141 feet on the gentle rise of Harrow Cliff and touched the embankment of a dismantled railway.

Now the views are to the foothills of the North York Moors. A cuckoo called and they happily report they entered Thornton Dale via fertile allotments.

PS: Walk soon as the route passes proposed site of a gas plant in the village.

Fact file

Distance: Six miles.

General Location: Start: Thornton Dale.

Right of way: Public.

Dogs: Legal.

Date walked: May 2, 2010 Road route: A170, two miles east of Pickering.

Car parking: Car park with honesty box.

Lavatories: Car park.

Refreshments: Inns and cafés.

Tourist and public transport information: Pickering TIC 01751 473791 Map: OS Explorer OL 27 North York Moors Eastern Area Terrain: Flood plain.

Difficulty: Quite easy.

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. Along access road to car park. Before bridge, gate on left to path through wood, fork left near end for 100 yards.

2. Left to track, 50 yards, gate on right (fingerpost/waymark), 10 o’clock across field, gate (waymark) and left on grassy path then uphill.

3. Snickelgate and right to dead-end road. On bend, up bank, stile (sign) and stay by hedge to your left, downhill, snickelgate.

4. Fieldgate (waymark) and right to track, 25 yards, snickelgate on right and straight through yard but as cattle were out we skirted to the right of the yard and the large new barn then turned left at new barn corner.

5. Track beside house so that house is to your left (old waymark on nearby small gate by barn). Double-fieldgates (waymark), footbridge and drive ahead.

6. Pass barns, left at field corner by house and as right of way was blocked, we stayed by hedge for 100 yards, right at corner, ten yards, stepped over ditch on right and turned left. From hedge corner, right 25 yards then left to join old grass boundary to cross the field to hedge gap. Track, becomes stone.

7. Left to road, 200 yards, join hedged track.

8. Stay by hedge to left for straight stretch where no hedge to right then as track turns right, go straight on at fieldgate to grassier double-hedged track. At end, left to stone track.

9. At farm, right metalled drive, becomes road. Ignore left turns to farms.

10. Road on left (white lines at junction), first right. At junction with Rectory Lane, path on left (sign) through wood, ignore a right, fence gap (waymark) to path between fields, steps on right into car park.