Newton-under-Roseberry to
Old Nunthorpe
7.5 miles Fine and dry
Tom Scott Burns suggests parking at Newton-under-Roseberry but in the last couple of years free parking has ceased in the village. Instead we decided to begin the walk at Nunthorpe, where there is ample free parking and which would make Roseberry Topping our half way point.
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| Today's walk from The Walker's Guide to the Cleveland Hills |
It's over 5 years since I last did this gentle walk which I reckoned would be a good one to try out my foot, still convalescing from a plantar faciitis injury.
We parked at St Mary's church, not shown in the map above and situated where the church would occupy the top right on the lane leading to Morton Carr Farm. We set off along Church Lane to join the official route.
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| Roseberry Topping from the start of our walk |
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| St Mary's Church, Nunthorpe |
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| Carole sets off down Church Lane |
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| Wild roses |
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| Morton Carr Farm |
TSB reports that Carr is a Norse word for a marshy piece of land, and these lowland meadows, 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.
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| Crossing Main Stell |
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| The Middlesbrough to Whitby line crosses the bridge |
Walking over several more fields brought us to the outskirts of Newton-under-Roseberry. To our left was St Oswald's Church, unfortunately locked today, as it always seems to be when we call by. 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.
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| St Oswald's Church |
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Anglo Saxon carving
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Leaving the church we crossed Newton green which brought us to the Guisborough to Great Ayton road opposite the Kings Head Inn. In his walker's guide 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'.
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| Crossing Newton Green |
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| The King's Head, Newton-under-Roseberry |
We turned in to Roseberry Lane and walked towards the distinctive shape of Roseberry Topping. There are quite a few local legends concerning the hill. 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, so 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.
Roseberry is believed to have been held in special regard by the Vikings who settled here and gave the area many of its place names. They gave Roseberry Topping its present name: first attested in 1119 as Othenesberg, (Othenes (personal name) rock, or Odin's rock). The name changed successively to Othensberg, Ohenseberg, Ounsberry and Ouesberry before finally settling on Roseberry, this means that Roseberry Topping is one of only a handful of known pagan names in England, being named after the Norse God Odin.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseberry_Topping
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. Paths are being upgraded at the moment so we followed the diversion signs west to walk up to the folly built on its western slope.
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| Roseberry Lane |
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| We follow the signs |
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| Up through the woods |
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| Moor Gate |
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| The Shooting Box aka Wilson's Folly |
We walked back down from the Shooting Box to Newton Wood where we paused on a convnient bench to enjoy coffee and scones.
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| Coffee? |
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| Scones al fresco |
Refreshed we walked through Newton Wood 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 the lane to reach the Ayton to Guisborough road where we turned right again. We had to walk along this busy road for about a quarter of a mile until we turned left into a lane alongside the Cleveland Mountain Rescue buildings.
