Kirby Knowle to Felixkirk and Boltby

8.5 miles                            Grey, damp and still

We reached Kirby Knowle from the A19 Knayton turn-off and parked at the side of the road near to St Wilfred's Church.

Today's route from The Walker's Guide to The Hambleton Hills

St Wilfred's Church, Kirby Knowle

Visibility was poor as we set off bearing right towards Upsall Village, which Tom Scott Burns explains is from the old Norse word 'up-salir' meaning 'high dwellings'.  Just before reaching Upsall we turned off the road into fields and followed yellow way-marks and a faint track across the meadows to a beck.  As we crossed the beck we saw a stone clearly engraved 'The Turton Beckstead' embedded in the dry stone wall adjacent to the beck. TSB informs us that in the 1860s some mourners were carrying a body to Kirby Knowle for burial.  The bearers set down the coffin to briefly rest at this spot but on lifting it again it felt much lighter and they discovered that the corpse had disappeared. The empty coffin was buried and the site at Beckstead Wood became known as Lost Corpse End. 

We leave the Upsall Road

A faint track...

Lost Corpse End!

Clive reads the engraved rock...

The Turton Beckstead

We continued to the next field where we saw a sheep in a distressed state.  It had wandered near to a fencepost where loops of barbed wire had been carelessly left .  The sheep had caught itself in the wire and the more it had tried to free itself the more entangled it had become until it was now unable to move, held close to the fencepost.  A couple of years ago we came across a cow in similar circumstances and were unable to do anything but try and find a farmer.  Since then Clive has carried a Leatherman tool in his rucksack, determined never to be caught out again and he swiftly climbed the fence and set to work cutting through the wire, which was round the sheep's neck, body and legs.  She seemed to know he was trying to help and stood still through most of the procedure. Twenty minutes later she was free and dashed off to rejoin the flock.

"Help!"

Well and truly snagged

Clive gets to work with wire cutters

A long job to free it

Cutting the last bit free from its neck

It rejoins the flock and off they go....

The field path exited onto a road and we turned right to enter Felixkirk.  We entered the churchyard and found to our surprise that the church was padlocked. The last time we passed by here we had been able to enter and look around but this time we were restricted to walking round the graveyard where we read the sad epitaph of Hannah Cornforth:

'Twenty years I was a maid

One year I was a wife.

Eighteen hours a mother,

and then departed life.'

Felixkirk

St Felix Church, barred to visitors

Hannah Cornforth's epitaph

Leaving Felixkirk we turned right at the road junction and passed the lodge to Mount St John, once a preceptory in the days of Henry I. We turned right down a lane towards Cinque Cliff House where the path has been diverted by the new owners, through fields around the back of the house.  We came to a gate with a nice wall alongside and this made an ideal resting place while we enjoyed our coffee and scones.  Much refreshed we set off into a lane which led out onto the road where we turned left to walk into Thirlby.  This village has several attractive weathervanes, I wondered if a local blacksmith was responsible.

Weathervanes in Thirlby

We walked through the village eventually coming to a ford where Bob Hunter, who worked with 'Mouseman' Thompson of nearby Kilburn, and whose trademark is a wren, has a workshop.

The Wren Man

Several houses in the village have house place-names bearing the wren motif

Just past the ford we left the village through a gateway into a field where we followed a barely discernible track to Tang Hall, crossing a couple of becks and an unusual stile on the way.

Very greasy wood on this unusual stile

In the end we jumped for it!

We followed the beck to the village of Boltby coming out next to a pack horse bridge at Gurtof Beck where someone had set a couple of mosaic like tiles into the wall.  We waked through the village past the church of All Saints, admiring the colourful Virginia creepers on some house walls.

Gurtof Beck

All Saints Church, Boltby

We turned left at the far end of the village and followed a series of field boundaries which climbed to the right of Ravensthorpe Manor, a modern 'big house'.  We descended into some fields of horses and crossed the elevated ridge of Birk Bank back to Kirby Knowle and our car.

Clive shares his apple

By Ravensthorpe Manor

Across Birk Bank

Back to St Wilfred's!

A week's trek in Catalonia

Coastal walk near Cadaques

Trek photos here

Hawnby Hill and Hazel Head from Hawnby

7 miles                                                 Fine and sunny

We arrived at Hawnby from the B1257 Stokesley to Helmsley road via the Laskill turn off and parked at the roadside near the Inn at Hawnby.

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

The Inn at Hawnby

The village sits under Hawnby Hill (298m) whose twin Easterside Hill can be seen over towards the B1257.   These two hills, known as Corallian Outliers, once formed part of the Tabular Hills and have a very distinctive shape.    We left the road opposite the Inn and immediately started to climb across a field, then through bracken until we reached the top of Hawnby Hill. From here there is a good view in all directions, to the left down to Arden Hall and to the right Easterside Hill.  We walked along the long ridge identifying places we had passed on our previous walks.

Start of climb from Hawnby to the top of Hawnby Hill

Looking back at Hawnby from our climb

Nearing the top!

Looking over at Easterside Hill from Hawnby Hill

Looking the other way, down to Arden Hall among the trees

The ridge walk was exhilarating in the bright sunshine with fine views in all directions and soon we reached a precisely constructed limestone cairn at the highest point, so neatly built we suspect it to be the work of one person.  Carrying on we descended steeply off the end of the hill on a faint path and soon reached the Moor Gate.

Approaching the highest point and cairn

A very neat cairn at 978'

Exhilarating ridge walk

Steep descent to our green path to the Moor Gate, then the moor track of Sunley Slack

We passed through the Moor Gate and walked along the sandy path of Sunley Slack and after about a mile came to a fork in the road.  We took the left fork and followed the path, seemingly walking straight towards Bilsdale Mast.  To our right was Round Hill and Clive noticed a post with a direction arrow pointing towards it.  We knew we wanted to turn left away from Round Hill somewhere near here and when we looked on the other side of the post we saw the yellow waymark pointed straight across the moor, but we could see little sign of a path.  We walked a distance onto the heather and found a faint track which we joined, following it across Hawnby Moor towards Hazel Head Wood, with grouse butts to our right side.    

Looking back towards Hawnby Hill

Looking back to Hawnby Hill from Sunley Slack

Take the left fork!

Clive notices a waymark post

"Where's our path?"

We had been walking for some time and decided this would be a nice place to sit in the sun and have our coffee and scones. We sat looking towards the ruins of an old building which Tom Scott Burns tells us was once a Wesleyan Chapel.  The sun was very strong for October and I quickly replaced my hat as I found my bald head starting to burn.  Just before the old ruin we took a gate leading into Hazel Head Wood.  A faint green path led us past several ruined buildings (once Hazel Head Farm) and eventually our path disappeared among signs of recent tree felling.  We set off in the rough direction we wanted and came back onto the green path. The last time we walked this it had been set among conifers but these had all been cleared.

Faint moorland path towards Hazel Head Wood

Old Wesleyan Chapel near our coffee stop

Gate into Hazel Head Woods

Path through the woods

Our path , no longer enclosed by trees

The green path through the tree stumps led us down to the Osmotherly to Hawnby road which we joined for a couple of hundred yards before turning off into more woods. We walked along a wide path which quickly lost height and eventually led us to the River Rye, where forestry vehicles could obviously pass through a foot or so of water, but we searched for the footbridge mentioned by TSB.  We quickly found it and backtracked slightly on the forestry path to fight our way through the bracken and brambles to reach the bridge, which is obviously little used.

Leaving the road

Where's the path??

We find the bridge

We followed our path upwards alongside a beck and then the trees of Blueberry Wood before dropping down past St Agnes House and Half Moon Plantation and to a large arched footbridge over the River Rye.  Once again at this point we wondered why someone had gone to the expense of this unusual bridge at such a quiet spot.  Perhaps a danger of flooding requires an arched bridge?

Blueberry Wood

Expensive arched bridge

A short scramble uphill from the bridge led to a well defined track bearing right, where we were surprised to come upon a party of about a dozen hikers, the first people we had seen today.   Once again our path became very faint as we walked through several fields passing cattle and sheep before suddenly emerging onto the Hawnby road once more, conveniently near the Inn at Hawnby where we sampled their Timothy Taylor Landlord.

A faint path through fields

Clive strides purposefully towards the Inn at Hawnby

Cheers!