GEORGE WILKINSON visits the White Horse.

Kilburn’s Forresters Arms had an interesting visitor, a Dutch mobile architect, his office a corrugated 1967 Citroen van once used as a nuclear fallout monitor.

We had but an eye for the weather; a ‘slow moving deluge’ quoted my navigator, but the White Horse on the hillside was shining in the sun, if a bit scabby around the shoulder.

A stream trickled past the village’s gardens and then by three farms of various character and patches of suspicious dampness. Most of this first mile was threaded by a ribbon of purple flowering policeman’s helmet or Himalayan balsam, an antisocial plant much hated by riparians, popular with the bumblebees though.

A dragonfly darted, a turbine turned slowly and gliders were unleashed into the energised air.

Wildon Hill is bare, exposed, so it felt; its 300 feet provide the best views of the White Horse. But we were distracted because, south, the other way, towards York, the sky was a dark lump and generating thunder. I offered to take my navigator’s trekking pole-cum-lightning conductor but she said she would feel guilty if I were burnt in a flash, and then sped over the hill. A buzzard wasn’t bothered.

Tranquillity was restored at quiet Carlton Husthwaite where the nicest in old brick is opposite a rather dramatic cottage that was once James Herriot’s. A halfway pub is handy, a church if needs be, and oak furniture is made close to the style of Mousey Thompson of Kilburn.

A certain sturdiness and rodent agility was required for our alley-like exit from the village, round the back of the big houses. Then we reached the fields. And then more fields or now prairie. A wide drift of pink flowering redshank defied the herbicide and competed with the wheat.

It was a mid-harvest Sunday, a combine harvester moved. This path has been improved by NYCC Countryside Volunteers but there remain some rickety stiles perversely favoured by nettle, thorn and bramble.

We moved slowly up the day’s second and last small climb of Snape Hill. Summer lightning flashed. The slow moving deluge just brushed us on the summit but the White Horse improved against a dark sky.

 

Directions

When in doubt look at the map. Check your position at each point. Keep straight on unless otherwise directed.

1 Left from car park and through village.

2 At double gates/stile on right in brambles (two-way fingerpost/ waymark), into field and immediately left, pass farm, fieldgate (waymark), pass below banked area-wet, 100 yards, stile (waymark), 100 yards, large ‘pipe’ bridge on left (waymark) over stream and immediately right, stile/fieldgate, cross drive, stile/fieldgate and by right-hand boundary and stream.

3 At field corner, fieldgate on right (waymark) and immediately left, fieldgate (waymark), track.

4 Fieldgate (waymark) into farmyard, 50 yards, right between buildings (waymark) and immediately left and pass cattle shed. Up grassy bank and fieldgate to grassy track ahead (waymark). Becomes stone track.

5 Gate and right to road uphill. Track/drive on left (fingerpost Carlton Husthwaite 1mile). From yard in front of house, head across field one o’clock uphill (waymark), fieldgate to hedged track (waymark), then open again, uphill, fieldgate (waymark), downhill by hedge to your right, fieldgate (waymark). Footbridge in corner (waymark), uphill across field (reinstated through crop), pick up hedge to your left (waymark), path between hedge and fence, follow road round into Carlton Husthwaite.

6 Right to road through village. First road on right (sign Coxwold). Path on right by side of garden of 1 Croft Close (sign), overgrown, turns right then left. Over low wall with broken stile and right, stile in hedge, 11 o’clock for 50 yards, stile, 50 yards, stile, stile, two yards, stile by new door.

7 Usage route here misses out next small field ahead and instead turns diagonally left 100 yards to fieldgate, cross next field for 100 yards then left by hedge to your right. Stile in corner (waymark far side). Proper route crosses field via poles but reinstated route through crop was one o’clock across field to end of remains of boundary, about 300 yards away. Right 50 yards to old oak tree.

8 Left at tree, path was reinstated through crop, head for right-hand boundary of narrow wood about 300 yards away. Through hedge gap (fingerpost), right to road, 100 yards, track on left (fingerpost, Skew Green).

9 Right at house, over bridge (waymark), 25 yards, gate (waymark), grassed area 150 yards, gate (two waymarks), straight on then fork left uphill about 150 yards before next boundary, path through crop was reinstated, left uphill (white waymarked post) by boundary trees to your right. Through gap at corner, uphill by hedge to your left, right at corner, white waymarked post.

Into next field at corner (painted waymarked post), uphill, white posts, 200 yards, right at corner (white waymarked post). At field corner, new snickelgate (waymark), left to follow boundary of wood, track, crest hill, track starts to descend.

10 At tracks junction on corner, left downhill on track (no sign), double gates into wood, 25 yards, narrow path on right into trees (no sign), 100 yards, stile (waymark) out of wood, 10 o’clock across field, right by hedge, two stiles/fieldgates in corner, 11 o’clock across field to rejoin outward route.

 

Fact file

Distance: Six miles.

General location: Near Thirsk.

Start: Kilburn.

Right of way: Public.

Dogs: Legal.

Date walked: August 2012.

Road route: Various.

Car Parking: Car park and roadside in Kilburn.

Lavatories: None.

Refreshments: The Forresters Arms, the T Café at Mouseman Visitor Centre, Kilburn. The Carlton Inn, Carlton Husthwaite.

Tourist and public transport information: Thirsk TIC 01845 522755.

Map: Drawn from OS Explorer 299.

Terrain: Low hills.

Difficulty: Moderate.

Please observe the Country Code and park sensibly.

While every effort is made to provide accurate information, walkers set out at their own risk.

View a map of the Kilburn country walk>>