GEORGE WILKINSON takes in an exceptional view in a corner of North Yorkshire.
NEWGATE BANK has a view that is for many, according to the Stokesley website, “the best in Yorkshire... of chequered fields running up to the heather moors”.
For me what makes this vantage exceptional is the presence of Easterside Hill in the middle ground. The smooth shape fills a fair bit of sky when one stands on the purpose built platform at the carpark.
Acquainted from a distance, it was time to enter the scene, down into the valley, as the road does, but on tracks and paths, till the wind could hardly more than sway the foxgloves and all was lovely and deep in Bilsdale.
Tall oaks gave shelter by the by.
Three buzzards flew high and then flew low over the woods.
Harebells were the prettiest flowers and there was the rush of last night’s rain in the river Seph, in its last mile with that name before it joins the River Rye.
At the most ramshackle farmyard we were offered a kitten but had no room in the rucksack.
We moseyed on down again through conifers to bottom out at the hamlet of Laskill which seems but a bridge, a farm and a few houses.
However, look closer and, across the valley road is a little, one-time Quaker meeting house and burial plot and, in modern times it has been discovered that way back in the 16th century the Rievaulx monks had here a blast furnace of pioneering design. Another wood and then we could see our task; one of the finest banks of the North York Moors. It curves for many miles with considerable symmetry and changes name by the mile.
We could see the length comprising Ayton Bank, Rievaulx Bank and Helmsley Bank.
After a little battle with the bracken, the main ascent is made metalled and certain by a last quarter mile of a road.
The tarmac that ends here runs from the bank top straight down to Helmsley.
We took to one of the benches, a reward, a rest before the last leg.
This is along the top of the bank, 2½ miles of quite flat track – and fast if it takes your fancy – above Helmsley, Rievaulx, Ayton and finally Newgate Bank, all the while with the heather circle of Rievaulx Moor on the shoulder. It is flat but there’s a trig point, nicely bright and white and the view is exceptional being 360 long distance degrees.
Directions
When in doubt look at the map. Check your position at each point. Keep straight on unless otherwise directed.
1. From carpark, cross road and left to verge path.
2. Track on right downhill (sign by road) into wood. Track on left cuts back (no sign), 50 yards, path on right (waymark), picks up fence and loops right, downhill. Gate (waymark) into yard, metalled drive, pass house.
Left at junction (fingerpost and waymark).
3. Stile on right opposite house (fingerpost) and immediately left by fence. Fieldgate on left (near fingerpost), immediately right, 25 yards, stile/double fieldgates (waymark).
4. Gated footbridge over River Seph, 100 yards, right to grass path uphill, fieldgate (waymark), 50 yards, pass stone barns, fieldgate (waymark), track, 50 yards, left (fingerpost) 150 yards, fork right downhill (fingerpost Laskill only), new fieldgate, track, fieldgate.
5. Fieldgate by house, through farmyard, fieldgate out (waymark), right (fingerpost and waymark) after last and modern barn, right at end of the barn (waymark), 20 yards, path into wood (waymark post), stile and path swings left and down. Just before fieldgate into field, fork right down to stile in corner, cross field.
6. Stile and right to road (sign), right to main road, take care, 200 yards, path on left (sign) after wood and take middle fieldgate, sunken path uphill, left to pass old tin and wooden sheds, 50 yards, ignore left fork. At wood edge turn left at junction (fingerpost Oak House), 100 yards, right fork (fingerpost) 50 yards.
7. Fieldgate (waymark) into field, by wall to your left, fieldgate, fieldgate near ladderstile (waymark on far side), by fence.
8. After ruins, right 150 yards up to ladderstile/fieldgate to open access land. After 200 yards a path angles up left through bracken to wood edge, then keep by wood edge, or sometimes better on path 20 yards below, except when you come to gully. Close and parallel is a forestry track. After half a mile below the woods, stile at corner, right on track 20 yards by trees, left to main forest track.
9. At junction, right to road steep uphill.
10. At top, path on right (sign), 20 yards, track, 2 miles. Into wood, ignore track on left, track on right to carpark.
Fact file
Distance: Seven miles.
General Location: North York Moors.
Start: Newgate Bank.
Right of Way: Public.
Dogs: Legal.
Date walked: July 2010.
Road Route: From York, via Helmsley.
Car Parking: Free Forestry Commission carpark.
Lavatories: Carpark.
Refreshments: Helmsley.
Tourist & Public Transport Information: Helmsley TIC 01439 770173.
Map: OS Explorer OL26 North York Moors western.
Terrain: Mixed.
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.
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