Captain Cook Country from Great Ayton

8 miles                            Snow and ice

We parked at the roadside in Great Ayton High Street and walked down to leave the road and cross the steel bridge over the Leven, opposite Suggits Ice Cream Parlour.

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

Ayton High Street from our car park spot

Captain Cook

The River Leven from the steel bridge

Tom Scott Burns remarks that Great Ayton was known as Canny Yatton and in the early 1800s was the haunt of Au'd Nanny, a notorious witch described in Blakeborough's dialect verse T' Hunt o' Yatton Brigg.

"Her naals they war lang, an' humped war her back,

An baith lugs war pointed, her skin ommaist black... "

Just over the steel bridge we came to an old 'pissoir', now sited as a tourist attraction, and not a working one.  I remember when I was a boy it was painted green and when out on my bike I was glad to come across it, sited further up the High Street near what used to be the Friends' School.

We followed the river along field paths towards Little Ayton.

Pissoir, but not for use

Field tracks towards Little Ayton

We passed by Woodhouse Farm and after crossing a couple more fields came to a stile and a tarmac road.  We followed the road through Low Easby Village where we admired a 1966 Land Rover.  We stopped at Easby Mill to chat to a couple of friendly geese and I was pleased to spot a nice weather-vane featuring a huntsman.  

Woodhouse Farm

Horses at Woodhouse Farm

Looking back at Woodhouse Farm

Leaving the fields to join the Easby road

Easby and 1966 Land Rover

Weathervane at Easby Mill

Clive chats to a couple of geese

"Any food?"

We stayed on the tarmac road for half a mile carefully avoiding patches of black ice, before crossing a way-marked stile into fields just before Borough Green Farm, to begin a steady climb to Easby Moor.

Distinctive Kerry Hills, Welsh hill sheep at Easby

We follow the tarmac road for half a mile or so

Leaving at this stile to follow field tracks

A slow climb up to the moor

Looking back towards Easby

Through the moor gate and turn right

Reaching the Moor Gate we turned right to follow our path below the moor to Mill Bank Wood.   Entering the wood we walked for over a mile.  Our path had been used by motor cycles and horses which, together with snow and ice made it very awkward to walk. TSB says that the wood is named after an old Bleach Mill where woollen cloth was 'fulled' in order to soften and shrink it to a warmer, closer weave. The mill was destroyed on the night of 21st July 1840 when heavy rains caused enormous volumes of water to burst two fishponds at Kildale Hall. A wall of water 40 feet high carried away two stone bridges, a corn mill, sluice gates, an earth dam and the bleaching mill, as it rushed towards Great Ayton.  

We came out of the woods by Bankside Farm and joined the tarmac lane.  We sat on convenient stones in front of a barn to enjoy our coffee and scones while looking down towards Kildale and the old Church.  While we were sipping coffee a large walking group passed us with cheery remarks, the only other people we saw on the hills today.

Entering Mill Bank Wood

The old buildings of Bankside Farm

Looking down to Kildale Church from our coffee stop

Kildale from our coffee stop

A group of walkers pass by

We followed the farm road uphill from Bankside Farm until we came to a fork where we turned left to walk through the trees of Coate Moor.  A gentle climb along an icy path led us to Captain Cook's Monument.

Kildale Hall from our coffee stop

We leave the tarmac to follow the Cleveland Way

Towards Captain Cook's Monument

Crossing Coate Moor towards the monument

Memorial plaque on Monument

Looking back to Captain Cook's Monument

After admiring the monument and reading its inscription we continued across Easby Moor between two stone gate posts before reaching a clearly marked path downhill to our left.

Our path was very slippery with hard ice which turned to mud as we reached the steep descent from the moor.  I fell over only once!

Approaching the descent from Easby Moor

A slippery descent

Nearly down...

Roseberry from our path

The path levelled out and we walked through the snow and mud alongside Nanny Howe to our right, which is where Au'd Nanny held midnight orgies at the legendary Devil's Court.  We reached the tidy cottages and the White House at Gribdale Gate and crossed the lane to carry on uphill towards Aireyholme Farm, where Captain Cook's father was bailiff in 1736 and where his family took up residence.  

 

Alongside Nanny Howe

Tidy cottages at Gribdale

Aireyholme Farm, once the home of Captain Cook's family

Duckpond at Aireyholme Farm

 We spotted a new information sign at Aireyholme Farm.

We read the sign with interest and then continued along the track which brought us to tiny Airy Holme Cottage where we turned sharp left to cross fields to approach Cliff Rigg Quarry from the opposite side to last week, when we walked round the flanks of Roseberry Topping.

 

We followed the path straight downhill below the quarry, crossed the railway line once more and followed a muddy path alongside Cleveland Lodge, which eventually led us back into Great Ayton.

Clive commiserates with cattle wintering in the barn

A muddy and icy descent to the railway at Easby

We cross the line near the old station house

A muddy path alongside Cleveland Lodge

To our surprise the path emerged on the High Street, opposite the Royal Oak Public House and as we felt that our exertions deserved a reward we popped in for a pint of Deuchars India Pale Ale.

Newton-under-Roseberry to

Old Nunthorpe

7 miles                      Cold, with bright sunshine and frozen snow

Snow yesterday and frozen roads this morning persuaded us not to stray too far today so we decided do a walk from Newton-under-Roseberry.   We parked in the lay-by just beyond Newton and chatted to a couple of photographers who had been there since 7am to catch the sunrise over Roseberry Topping.  I was filled with gear-envy for their DSLRs and tripods.

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

Roseberry from our car park

The King's Head, Newton-under-Roseberry

We walked back along the road through the village and past the King's Head pub. Tom Scott Burns informs us that the King's Head dates back to 1796 and was run by an old woman known as 'Old Gag Mally Wright'  who started a fair in the village and was a 'handy body' who acted as midwife and also laid out the dead. Locals said she 'tied up t' jaws of t' dying afore tha wur deead'.  The fair developed into a kind of disorderly annual orgy attended by the lowest classes and in 1901 the Vicar of Newton, the Rev. Tugman, successfully petitioned for it to be suppressed. 

We turned into the lane to Roseberry Topping, usually impassable with mud and water but today frozen so that we progressed without even getting dirty boots and soon reached the lower slopes of the 'Teesside mini-Matterhorn'.

Roseberry Lane

We approach the wood below the Toppping

Start of the climb

TSB recounts the story of a Northumbrian princess who had been warned by an astrologer that her son Oswy would be drowned on a certain day.  To avoid this she took the child to the summit of Roseberry Topping where he would surely be safe from that fate. While she slept the child wandered off and fell down a well situated on the north eastern slope of Roseberry, fulfilling the prophecy, which led the princess to kill herself.  Mother and child were buried together and 'Os by his mother lay' and so the village of Osmotherly gained its name.   The name Roseberry has puzzled many historians.  In 1119 it was Outhenesbergh, Osenburgh in 1424 and Roseberye in 1657.  The hill was mined for iron ore between 1880 and 1926 and in 1912 the mining caused a landslip that gave the hill its distinctive shape.   We carefully climbed the hill's icy steps and then turned west to walk down to the folly built on its western slope.

Approaching Wilson's Folly

Wilson's Shooting Hut, shown as Summer House on TSB's map

We walked down from the hut to Newton Wood where we descended through trees to reach Quarry Lane, which if we turned left would take us to Cliff Rigg Quarry where whinstone was mined until the last century.  We turned right, however, and walked down to turn right again into the Ayton to Guisborough Road.  We had to walk along this busy road for about a quarter of a mile until we could turn left into a lane alongside some buildings used by the Cleveland Mountain Rescue.  

Looking back at Roseberry from Newton Wood

Descending through Newton Wood

Quarry Lane

We walked along this lane which runs parallel to the old rail bed to Langbaurgh Quarry until we found a pile of rocks which we thought would be a good spot to stop for coffee and scones.  We sat enjoying our coffee in the sunshine and were kept company by a bold robin who had obvious designs on our scones.  We were putty in his claws and before moving off we crumbled a biscuit on a rock for his lunch, then set off across the old workings of Nunthorpe Quarries where signs warned us of mine shafts and unstable ground.

Alongside Langbaurgh Quarries

We sat here for our coffee....

... with a robin who fancied scones

Through Nunthorpe Quarries

These quarries, Cliff Rigg, Langbaurgh and Nunthorpe, are all set on a ridge of whinstone that runs down to Quarry Hill Farm, and are all now disused.  We emerged from the trees that surround the old Nunthorpe Quarry to find ourselves walking briefly among the out-buildings of The Whinstone View Hotel, before crossing a stell by a small bridge into fields, where our track followed the field line.  This could only be told by looking for yellow way-marks as this part of our route appeared unwalked.  Eventually we walked alongside the imposing Quarry Hill Farm building where we were interested to see a couple of very old tractors in a field, apparently abandoned to the elements.  They were Case tractors, one a three wheeler and the other with steel wheels, both looked like museum pieces.  For more about Case Tractors click here
  

We emerge at the side of the Whinstone View Hotel

... and cross the stell into fields

Nunthorpe Stell is full to the bank tops

Our path is along field edges

Quarry Hill Farm

We spot these in a field at the farm

The first 'three wheeler' tractor I've seen

An old Case tractor

Leaving the tractors we crossed the A179 and walked over a field through some stables, to Old Nunthorpe.  The original name of the village was Torp which was amended to Nunthorpe in the early 12th century in honour of a Cistercian Nunnery.  In 1231 the nunnery moved to Baysdale.  The road through the village was glassy with ice and we remarked to a local who was getting into his car that it didn't appear to have been gritted.  "Oh yes it was gritted this morning", he told us, "but they just use grit, not salt nowadays. It's cheaper that way. They expect the traffic to push the grit into the ice but we don't get much traffic here."  We wondered if he was right?  

We walked past the old Hall, now a residential home, and turned into a footpath alongside Hall Farm which led us across a field to recross the A179. We then crossed fields to join a farm track to Morton Carr Farm. 

Horses at The Old Stables

Black Ice

Nunthorpe Hall

Weather-vane at Hall Farm

Sheep at Hall Farm

Entrance on the A179

TSB reports that Carr is a Norse word for a marshy piece of land, and these lowland meadows which are drained by numerous stells are certainly marshy.  We passed by Morton Carr Farm and turned right at its outbuildings and walked across fields towards Eastfield Farm.

Across the fields is St Mary's Church

The footpath follows the frozen wheel tracks

Morton Carr Farm

Cattle wintering in barns at Morton Carr Farm

We negotiate a flooded gate

Our path passed the front of Eastfields Farm and we were amused to see a pair of gargoyles on the roof.   We went across more fields until we reached the Middlesbrough to Whitby line where our path, which ran under a stone bridge holding the line, was flooded but frozen. Perhaps we would be able to cross the ice.  It was not to be, as we approached a Land Rover bumped along the path and with a crash burst through the ice under the bridge.  The farmer got out and chatted with us about the state of the path and what he had done to aid drainage at this point.  He got back in and drove off and we were left to devise a means of crossing to the other side of the bridge without getting our feet wet, although I can't really discuss the method we used here.  As we walked away the Whitby train provided a photo opportunity for me.

Eastfields Farm

Gargoyle at Eastfields Farm

A good path towards Roseberry...

... end in a flood and a big diversion for us.

Thanks for breaking the ice!

The Whitby train passes as we walk away

Walking over several more fields brought us to stepping stones over Main Stell and the outskirts of Newton-under-Roseberry.  We walked through the green and to our left was St Oswald's Church, unfortunately locked today.  This ancient church has an Anglo-Saxon carved stone set in the tower of the church showing a dragon and some sort of quadruped.  Tom Scott Burns says that this stone was actually described in an eleventh century book called 'Bestiaries'. It's interesting to think of what the carver must have looked like and what this area would have been like at that time.

The houses of Newton appear in the distance

Stepping stones at a narrow point of Main Stell

St Oswald's Church

Saxon carved stone set in the church tower

A few more steps took us to the Guisborough to Great Ayton road and we turned left to walk back to our car, enjoying a last look at Roseberry Topping in the afternoon sun.