Moorsholm walk

Moorsholm is a linear village. We started at one end by the Toad Hall Arms. Nearby is a very good series of six connected stone troughs recessed from the pavement into stone wall. Sheep grazed a garden. The church is sombre. There's a history of Cleveland potash mining.

We turned off down a track named Cow Close Lane, a mile of colourful farms, a descent, and rising anticipation.

Here was Cow Close Wood, nature reserve, semi-natural ancient woodland, a Cleveland treasure tended by the Woodland Trust, with ash, birch, oak, holly, hazel, thorn and beech.

A red sight warned: Guisborough Gun Club danger when red flag flying'. It was muffled quiet in the woods, there was the sound of rain but it was not raining, the mist was condensing on the trees and dripping. Fallen trunks sprouted multicolour fungi, honeysuckle wound thick and everything was draped and strung with spiders' webs. Male ferns arched bright, a beck tinkled below.

Recently £12,000 of public money has gone into the paths here, miles neatly shored up, made less slippy but still very twisty.

This path, a permissive one, joins a resurfaced bridleway and continues down to the beck. The white gills of fungi warned: "poisonous".

We climbed out to Freeholders' Close Lane, half a mile of bridleway, on to the Langbaurgh Loop which has recently been cleared of veg mechanically and with Asulux herbicide.

We passed two farms, couldn't see for the weather past the next hedge, and had a blast of walk-rage at a gate where the fastener was wrapped in rusty barbed wire that you might not notice.

We crossed pasture, rough grassland and reached the hamlet of Gerrick that's in part a ruined farmstead including a superb barn and a house of herringbone-dressed sandstone that's still got its roof, just. It has a good view too. And we were just getting one: the pudding-basin profile of Freebrough Hill, which is so regular that, as a child, I assumed it to be manmade. It's bigger than Silbury Hill.

Then we could see Moorsholm a mile or more away and in-between the woods again.

This is a figure-of-eight walk, but with two close together waist sections. The second time, we crossed over a large flat area of pasture that is surrounded like an island by the woods. And then down again, fording becks that were dry on the day, followed by a steep climb to a ridge where a strip had been mown through the bracken. Even so, the tracks' had been less mellow than we imagined.

But we'd had the mists/sea fret and witnessed astonishing fruitfulness - sloes, damson, apple, thorn in these lovely, looked-after woods. We also saw a deer and a pheasant.

There had been a lot of map, compass and GPS on this walk, but eventually we arrived on flat pasture looking towards Moorsholm, the pub marking one end of the village, the church the middle.

We couldn't accelerate to the finish but the cultivated footpath might be reinstated by the time you tread.

Directions

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

1. South through village. Tarmac track on left (bridleway sign). Into woods.

2. Pass Warning sign/flag on right by gate, 50 yards, gates to field, five yards, stile on right (Woodland Trust sign). Path with steps.

3. Right to track downhill.

4. Stile to footbridge, path uphill. Ignore a right.

5. Left at wood edge to hedged path (waymark), corner.

6. At far end of woods to left, small hedge gap on right (waymark, stone posts), cross field, gate, fieldgate to drive to corner then straight on to path (waymark), gate, trees, gate to field (waymark), gate to track and pass farm, fieldgate to moor-edge path by fence.

7. Fieldgate on right into last field (waymark) and by grown-out hedgerow, gate to path to wood, footbridge, gate, pass farmhouse and straight on to track uphill. Ignore a right turn then 25 yards.

8. Stile/fieldgate (no sign) and one o'clock across field via telegraph pole then down to gate into wood, stepstream, uphill then by hedge to left for 100 yards, 11 o'clock for 50 yards to fieldgate then head for barns (fieldgates).

9. Left in yard. Right to track at junction with road, pass ruins, fieldgate to track (waymark), 150 yards.

10. Gates on right (waymark) and by hedge to right. Gates (waymark) and 10 o'clock down to gates and straight on to gate into wood, 50 yards, path down, gate (waymark), footbridge and path up and right, through trees, 100 yards, gate (waymark).

11. Rejoin outward route at gate with flagpost, right to track, 50 yards, gates into field, track, quarter mile. Gate to woodland path/track (waymark).

12. At footbridge left to path (waymark and sign), 50 yards, treetrunk', gateposts and stepstream. Path angles uphill via waymarked posts, cross stream (was dry), ignore minor path on left on bank before next stream. Path emerges on ridge (waymark) and cut path uphill to low step-over fence, avoiding overgrown right of way to right, 50 yards.

13. Waymarked stile, path by fence to left, fieldgate (waymark), fieldgate (waymark and bath), 50 yards, at fieldgate on left turn right across field, stile (waymark). Path across field. Left to road.

Fact file

Distance: Seven miles.

Time: Three hours.

General location: Cleveland.

Start: Moorsholm.

Right of way: Public and permissive.

Map: Drawn from OS Explorer OL26 North York Moors western area.

Date walked: Saturday, September 16, 2006.

Road route: Moorsholm is signed of the A171 Guisborough to Whitby road.

Car parking: Roadside at Moorsholm.

Lavatories: None.

Refreshments: Inn at Moorsholm.

Tourist and public transport information: Saltburn TIC 01287 622422.

Terrain: Woods, valleys and pasture.

Points of interest: Woodland Trust website www.wt-woods.org.uk.

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.

Map of the walk>>