Walking in North Yorkshire: Thirkleby

Balk and Bagby from Sutton Village

7 miles Wet

It's over 2 years since we did this Tom Scott Burns walk. It's short, fairly flat and so would be ideal for today's inclement weather.

We drove into Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe on the A170 from the A19 and parked in the Whitestonecliffe Inn Car Park. Tom Scott Burns tells us that hikers are welcome to use the inn's car park. Thirty years later the pub is no longer open for business however the large car park is still available for use.

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

We walked from the pub and turned right onto the A170 which we followed through the village. The residents of Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe seem to be fans of novel weather vanes and we spotted several interesting ones as we walked down the street.

Weather vanes in Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe

The A170 is a busy road and traffic whizzed past us as we crossed the bridge over Sutton Beck and quickly turned left off the road and into a safe track at a footpath sign.

We have watched Bamber House deteriorate over the years

Sutton Hall is now luxury holiday apartments

Cottage garden on high street

We turn off the A170 at the footpath sign

Walking away from Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe

We followed a track on tarmac then across fields to the town's sewage works. Keeping to the right of the sewage works we passed through more fields next to Sutton Beck, until we emerged beyond a static caravan park at the tiny hamlet of Balk.

Keep to the right of the sewage works

The first of several caravan parks we pass today

Walking between house backs and the river to reach Balk

The Old Mill at Balk

The mill buildings

TSB tells us that Balk originates in the Old English 'balca' or 'bank' and would have applied to the ridge of land between Balk Beck and Hood Beck.

We turned right onto the road and walked through the village. admiring its three storey mill, now renovated into housing, and opposite it, the old mill buildings which have been taken over by a furniture manufacturer.

We stayed on the road heading west until we reached the larger village of Bagby where we turned left onto a track near new housing just before entering the village. There is no obvious footpath sign here and when it does appear, 20 yards along the track, it can be found almost hidden in bushes.

Entering Bagby

Follow this track between new houses..

Eventually you see a footpath sign

We headed south along this track, towards Thirkleby, passing by another caravan park and the grounds of Thirkleby Hall before emerging on to the road by the picturesque old school house.

Field paths are wet today

A big clump of (I think) sulphur tuft mushroom

Another caravan site near Thirkleby

The old school house at Thirkleby

We walked through the village and came to the isolated church of All Saints'. Here a memorial bench around a huge yew made an ideal resting place for any passing hiker who might want to stop for coffee and scones, and thus it was to be.

Isolated All Saints Church

Re-built in 1722 in the Italian style

The yew provides shelter for our coffee break

After coffee we looked in at All Saints Church, which is open to visitors and is nicely kept and interesting to walk round. It is bigger than one would expect for the size of the village, with fine stained glass windows picturing St George and St Martin.

All Saints from the rear of the church

Looking towards the altar

St George

St Martin

Leaving the church we walked back to the road then crossed straight over to join a field path leading to a footbridge, then quickly on to the Little Thirkleby Road, where we turned left to walk parallel with the route we had followed into Thirkleby, this time to the right of Thirkleby Beck.

Leaving Thirkleby

Bullocks enjoying fallen apples

Thirkleby backs

A couple of tricky stiles

Then a long period without waymarks

The next bit of the walk became rather tricky. We could find no way-mark signs (most unusual!) and field enlargement appears to have swallowed up the footpath described by TSB. Previously we have used the GPS to keep exactly on the track so we were able to march across the arable fields alongside and occasionally through crops knowing we have right of way. Perhaps a problem to be expected with Tom Scott Burns's walks is that paths are so little used that farmers feel entitled to plough them up. Continuing across these fields we found that the farmer had crops right up to the edge of the field, removing the footpath completely and making walking difficult, particularly in today's muddy conditions.

No path!

Look here, remember this?

A Standard 10 from the 1950s

We get a better look

In 2014 when we did this walk we saw an old Standard 10 in the undergrowth and have only once spotted it again. In today's wet conditions we caught a glimpse of it again although it had slid farther towards the beck and deeper into the undergrowth.

2014

We continued across the fields, always careful to ensure we were on rights of way, until we reached the farm of Low Osgoodby Grange. The path took us through the farm buildings which are home to hundreds of pigs.

Low Osgoodby Farm in the distance

The path takes us alongside the farm buildings

Pig barns

From Osgoodby Grange we followed the farm's track to the tarmac road where we turned left, heading back towards Balk. In the distance we could now see Whitestone Cliff.

Passing Mount Pleasant Farm we re-entered fields for a couple of miles and again found waymark signs to be noticeably sparse. At one point our right of way had been ploughed over and later on the track was blocked with bales of hay. Perhaps so few people use these tracks that the farmer doesn't feel they need to be kept open.

We leave this lane to walk across field margins

Our path was blocked in a couple of places for many yards

More path blocking forces us onto the soil

The right of way is straight across this field, the trees being the old margin

A waymark sign at last

Just before reaching the tiny village of Balk we turned right and followed our track, now clearly way-marked, across fields until we reached the road at Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe. Here we turned right and walked back to the Whitestonecliffe Inn and the car park.