"There must be dales in Paradise
Which you and I will find.."

Friday 14 October 2022

 


Arden Great Moor Circular


10.5 miles              Fine and warm


A lovely autumn day with sunshine and very little wind tempted us to do a longer walk from The Walker's Guide to the Hambleton Hills.

Tom Scott Burns suggests starting the walk from Arden Hall but we prefer to park at Square Corner (the 'P' top left in the map below) on the Osmotherley to Hawnby road and make Arden Hall our rest spot.

Today's walk from The Walker's Guide to the Cleveland Hills


Leaving the car we walked southwards along the forest path up the shoulder of Black Hambleton.

Just before reaching a gate we saw a standing stone on the left, bearing the inscription 'Cray Hall Stone'.  Tom Scott Burns says that he has been unable to find any further information about this old boundary stone or the hall it refers to, and our modern day Google search has proved equally uninformative.  

Black Hambleton

Cray Hall Stone mystery

After a long climb we walked along the drovers' road known as Hambleton Street for about 2.5 miles, with fine views to our right across to Kepwick, until reaching the ruins of the old drovers' inn that was known as Limekiln House.

On the Drovers' Road

Looking down on Kepwick to the left and Nab Farm to the right

We presume these are limestone workings


Bert RIP - Man or beast, we'll never know

Riders on the Drove Road

We turn off left at Limekiln House Inn site

The only evidence of the old drovers' inn is a memorial stone and nearby another small stone stands in memory of Bert, man or dog, we don't know. We left the Hambleton Drove Road at this point to turn left across the moor following a track that led us quickly to Thorodale Valley.

First glimpse of lovely Thorodale Valley

Clive starts the steep descent

... and the full valley comes into view

Lovely Thorodale

High bracken on the valley floor

We hear beaters shouting above, pheasant shooting season is underway

It is always a pleasure to walk through Thorodale although today we were walking towards a low sun.  
We followed the track through Thorodale Wood then North Moor Wood with brief glimpses of Thorodale Lake below. We walked down to Arden Hall passing the memorial seat erected in memory of three hikers who were killed in a road accident on their way home after a walk.  Normally we would sit here for our coffee but today the bench was out of the sun and looked uninviting.  We were surprised to see someone has erected a cable run from a nearby tree but there was no other sign of outdoor entertainment.

Just past the seat we came to the rear of Arden Hall and after a quick look at the buildings we retraced our footsteps back up to a sunlit field, where we sat and enjoyed our coffee and scones with a beautiful view across Arden Hall towards Daletown Common.

North Moor Wood

Approaching Arden Hall

Memorial Bench

What's this?

Cable runway

A nice spot for coffee

The pheasants seem very tame

A bucolic view

Autumn finery


Arden Hall occupies the site of the Benedictine nunnery of St Andrew, founded in 1148.  All that's left of the nunnery is an old chimney, now embodied in Arden Hall.


Approaching the rear of Arden Hall


The front of the hall


TSB says that the name Arden was probably derived from arn, an eagle, and doen, a deep valley - the valley of the eagle.

After our coffee we rejoined our earlier path, this time turning right to walk towards Mount Pleasant Farm.  As we walked past the farm we had fine views over to Coomb Hill on our right and the rooftops of Arden Hall below.

Clive looks towards Coomb Hill

The rooftops of Arden Hall below

Walking towards Mount Pleasant Farm, Hawnby Hill to the right

Mount Pleasant Farm

A Texel ram dwarfs the Swaledale sheep

Hawnby Hill with its distinctive nick on the skyline


Walking up from the farm we passed the pretty cottage known as Harker Gates then on into the woods of North Moor. Ahead to our right was the unmistakable profile of Hawnby Hill.  

After crossing Eskerdale Beck by a small bridge our path took us past two ruined farms, Brewster Hill and Cow Wath.  Although no longer occupied, the outbuildings of Brewster Hill are still in use.

Harker Gates

Down to Eskerdale Beck

Blueberry Wood

Fungus in Blueberry Wood

Greens Wood and we are about to get a surprise..

Walking through Greens Wood Clive suddenly stopped and pointed ahead.  Just 15 feet in front we could see a set of large antlers, a stag must be lying in the sun.  It became aware of us and jumped to its feet and ran up the hill a short distance where it stopped and for a minute stared at us.  Eventually it moved off, but what an enjoyable meeting it had been for us.

Can you see the antlers?  A stag lying in the sun just in front of us!

It becomes aware and runs uphill

.. where it stops in the bracken to watch us


It moves a bit further

... before stopping to watch us once more

We continued following the faint path, now with the River Rye running parallel below us until after a couple of miles we passed the ruins of Far House.




Lots more fungus - waxcaps?


Pretty sure these are Fly Agaric... and poisonous


We passed by Low Locker Farm and over a large bridge at Dale Head.  Just upstream from this bridge is the source of the River Rye.

Cow Wath ruin

Lots of partridges near Far House

Partridge season starts 1st September but they are still in large numbers here

Large bridge

Approaching the ruins of Dale Head Farm

Dale Head

We now walked across the heather of Low Locker Moor to join the Osmotherley to Hawnby road where we turned left to walk back down to the car at Square Corner.

Low Locker Moor

As we walked we noticed clouds of smoke on Black Hambleton, too much to be the result of controlled burning and a short time later a fire appliance made its way slowly along the path we had followed up Black Hambleton. 

The last half mile

Fire on Black Hambleton

They'll never get that up to the Drove Road

They can and do

A short drive took us to Osmotherley and the Golden Lion where we discussed an interesting walk and our first close encounter with a mature stag.  We wondered why it was alone in rutting season, had it been defeated and was it licking its wounds when we came upon it lying in the sun?


To surprise encounters!












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