Fridaythorpe

A local woman volunteered that she’d heard that the weather was clear in the valleys and so we strode off for them, into the mist of the central Wolds, and about half-way along the long distance Wolds Way.

Soon we were looking into a dry valley, and the sun lit a flank. A perfect ramp of grass took us down and then my navigator overheated in Brubber Dale due to her new down jacket. Which reminds – earlier we’d chewed the fat with a bacon-sandwich-chewing local journalist in Fridaythorpe’s Seaview Café where they sell sheepskins. The place is a treat – warm, busy and cheerful whatever outside.

A side valley with a dozen ash trees faded us up to the tops again where Gills Farm is the first of the only two on route, both super. And then another, long ergonomic ramp led us down into Thixen Dale.

Next to this slope is a scalloped-out mirror of chalk quarry face, good for a sandwich stop. Bradeham Well warrants inspection. It looks like a dew pond but with pondweed and duckweed and is, with the pond at Fridaythorpe, the only surface water on today’s eight miles. This will be a clean, dry walk however much it rains.

Or so we assumed, then a mile further along, through the sculpted beauty and the quiet, when we’d passed the side valleys of Fordham, Worm and Pluckham Dales and snaked along Bradeham Dale, we entered Wayrham Dale. Here, unusually, there’s a length of valley packed with conifers where the air was tangibly cold and clammy and there is a lookout hide like a grey telephone box.

Also in Wayrham Dale, and again this is unusual damage, a quarter mile of the pristine smooth flatness of the valley floor was churned with vehicle tracks, the only significant mud.

At the halfway mark, this walk crosses the busy A166, once a Roman road. The other side is a picnic plot where someone had tried to burn a plastic bench.

Our back lane was signed off as a ‘Scenic Drive’ and there were only three cars on the two miles of it.

Along it are numerous gateway markers of 1960s concrete moulded into figurative or bell shapes; the spell cast by their classical inscriptions is broken when you get to one named ‘Waterman’, the reservoir cover is nearby. The light fell with magic, the sun behind and the moon ahead, blues and reds for miles along the drives and tracks over the prairie flat top of Huggate Wold.

Wold House Farm is fabulous and, as the day turned slowly to night, Holm Dale chilled to silver.

Fact file

Distance: Eight miles.

General location: The Yorkshire Wolds.

Start: Fridaythorpe.

Right of way: Public.

Dogs: Legal.

Date walked: November 2009.

Road Route: From York A166.

Car parking: Roadside in Fridaythorpe.

Lavatories: None.

Refreshments: Seaview Café and Farmers Arms at Fridaythorpe.

Tourist and public transport information: Beverley TIC 01482 867430.

Map: Drawn from OS Explorer 294 Yorkshire Wolds central.

Terrain: Valleys and tops.

Difficulty: Very good going.

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 on Back Street, pass village green, left to Thixendale road, (sign).

2 Track on left before large feed mill (Wolds Way fingerpost Thixendale 3¾) 100 yards, cross mill road to track (fingerpost).

3 Large metal snickelgate on right (signs), grass track curving down hillside. Right at valley bottom, 200 yards.

4 Snickelgate on left (fingerpost Wolds Way) to side valley, uphill past ash trees, snickelgate (Wolds Way fingerpost), track ahead, then curves left then right (waymark posts). Pass farm to your left, field margin (waymark post), gap by fieldgate.

5 Cross road, track (Wolds Way fingerpost), stile by fieldgate (signs) to track curving down into Thixen Dale and along valley bottom via four-way fingerpost (yellow waymark, leave Wolds Way).

6 Where a valley curves left, go straight on through stile/fieldgate by horse jump (ignore only yellow waymark), continue along valley bottom. Fieldgate in wire fence (no sign) and immediately pass pond/well to your right.

7 Fieldgate (waymark post) and between woods. Into open space (waymark on old gatepost), 100 yards, left to track between woods with hide on hillside to right, fieldgate to track uphill out of valley, 100 yards across grass.

8 Cross main road to path behind trees to picnic tables. Left to road, first right (Huggate 3, Scenic Drive), cross road (sign Huggate).

9 Metalled drive on left to Wold House Farm (fingerpost/sign).

10 Into farmyard and left across concrete, right at barn (waymark) track out. Ignore a right, (waymark post).

11Stile by fieldgate, across top of valley on grass by fence, gate (fingerpost Wolds Way) to track, join lane. Right at main road.