Wetwang (From York Press)

Wetwang

9:30am Saturday 27th February 2010 in

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Wetwang, well that’s a name for a ridge village in the dry Wolds. There is a pond and a couple of inns and there is academic and other discussion as to what a wang is or rather, what a wang was. However, in short, the name Wetwang is thought to be stern Norse for a “Field of Justice”.

Wetwang has a “long history” writes the High Wolds Heritage Group and the star of the past, found in the village, must be the high ranking female charioteer of the Parisi tribe and her “sleek” machine.

We left the brick houses and took to the valley that was drained by a mist of that little seasonal colour. One sycamore serviced a hundred birds, a winter mix of starling, greenfinch and fieldfare. Station Farm reminds of the extinct Malton to Driffield line. Of detail in the smooth bare land there were a dozen beehives, small triangular woods, a pond packed with bulrush and barns painted red.

We moved up unerringly from Low Bitings to High Bitings then our track came up a hundred yards short at a field where it, a bridleway, was unreinstated after being ploughed away for an autumn sown crop. This is not a “Field of Justice”, would have annoyed the charioteer, would bring a mountain bike to a grinding halt and loaded our boots with particularly adhesive chalky soil. The aforementioned High Wolds Heritage Group write that tracks are “possibly the oldest marks made on the landscape by hunters and nomadic families”. The one we had reached, named Green Lane, is such. It connects prehistoric earthworks and sites of settlements and has had its status reinforced by sharp slender spike of Sir Tatton Sykes’s Monument that stands proud on the eastern end.

Compared with the monument, mere way marking is insignificant, but here is good. Green Lane which is a green lane, that is an unmetalled highway, is signed up by the authorities, with bridleway fingerposts. If such a lane were in other parts of Yorkshire it probably wouldn’t be signed up, and only found on the latest maps.

Green Lane provides good views, notably Wetwang, linear and parallel over a fold of land with the village’s Manor House commanding a side road. I love the hedging of dense and impenetrable bramble.

After this a length of the long distance Chalkland Way runs between Short Blealands and Long Blealands back into Wetwang. Irritatingly part of this had been cultivated, yes it had been reinstated in a fashion by running a tractor across, but still we picked up clag. Most of this cleaned off on ridge and furrow pasture but when I got home I scraped my boots and made a ball of the material that has dried to the weight, size, shape and consistency of a snooker ball. You can’t moan about the Wetwang fish and chip shop, lauded by all; delicious I can tell you, and a favourite of David Hockney. Just watch the ducks.

Fact file

Distance: Five miles.

General Location: Yorkshire Wolds.

Start: Wetwang.

Right of Way: Public.

Dogs: Legal.

Date walked: February 2010.

Road Route: From York via A166.

Car Parking: Roadside in Wetwang.

Lavatories: None.

Refreshments: The Victoria and the Black Swan inns and Harpers fish and chips.

Tourist and public transport information: Beverley TIC 01482 391672.

Map: Overlaps OS 300 Howardian Hills and 294 Yorkshire Wolds central.

Terrain: Farmland.

Difficulty: Quite easy.

Please observe the Country Code and park sensibly. While every effort is made to provide accurate information, walkers set out at their own risk.

Directions

When in doubt look at the map. Check your position at each point.

Keep straight on unless otherwise directed.

1. From pond, Station Hill road (signed Sledmere), 150 yards, path on right (fingerpost), by garden, through play area.

2. Left after play area (waymark), 200 yards, right at field corner (waymark post).

3. At junction left to grass track (waymark post), over crossroads (waymark post) and 100 yards.

4. Right at junction near farm to metalled drive.

5. Before farm, path on left(waymark post) and 50 yards, right at corner (waymark) and 200 yards, left (waymark post) to track uphill.

6. Track stops, cross last field (was not reinstated) to double fieldgates.

7. Left to track. Cross road (bridleway fingerpost), track.

8. Left to main road verge, old stile in hedge gap on left (fingerpost), diagonally up across field. Stile/fieldgate (waymark) and ten o’clock on grass track in pasture to small gate by tin sheds, fieldgate.

9. Right to road, left to main road.