22 July 2003
Glaisdale circuit
Esk Valley
North York Moors
Map: OS Explorer OL27 Map of North York Moors Eastern area at 1:25000

My neighbour, Jim, and I drove across Rosedale and out towards Glaisdale this morning to park at map ref. NZ 761016. It's a moorland road alongside Wintergill Plantation above Glaisdale. There are several places where you can park a couple of cars off the road. We set off at about 9.50am along the road to the corner of the plantation and turned left off the road on to a bridleway to drop down first across the moor and then into the plantation to the house at High Gill Beck. We came out onto the road at map ref. NZ 756029. We walked along the road to Low Gill Beck Farm where we turned left off the road on to a path across the valley. The path crosses Glaisdale Beck and climbs up through a farm yard to the road at map ref. NZ 753043. About 100m to the right there is a Quoits court with benches for the spectators and a lovely view up the valley. It's a very popular game in this area and in the Yorkshire dales with an active league competition. After looking at the quoits court we walked back along the road to map ref. NZ 752043 and took the bridleway up to join the track on Glaisdale Rigg which we followed into Glaisdale village. In the village we took the path from map ref. NZ 774056 down to the minor road which we followed alongside the river to Carr End where the minor road joined the main road through the village (Glaisdale is a very long strung out affair) At this road junction we crossed straight over the main road and took the track opposite which comes out at the railway viaduct over the Esk at map ref. NZ 784055. There is space to park a few cars under the viaduct and you could start/finish this route here if you wished. Sandwiched between the railway viaduct and a road bridge is a lovely old stone packhorse bridge. After a quick look at the packhorse bridge we returned to the path through the woods to Delves (map ref. NZ 793046) Most of the way the path is along an old paved packhorse route. At the road we turned right to climb the hill for 200m and then turned left off the road to follow a path down the side of a farm called The Delves, across the valley to a track at map ref. NZ 796044. At the track we turned right to follow the track for about 2km almost to Grange Head Farm. Just before the farm at map ref. NZ 792028 we turned left off the track to climb up to the moor top to join a path at map ref. NZ 794025. From the moor top there is a great view down the Esk valley to the sea. We followed this path along a well defined track for over 4km back to our starting point. The whole route had been about 16.5km and had taken us five and a half hours to walk including several stops for refreshments and to admire the views. We stopped in Hutton-le-Hole on the way back for our traditional tea and toasted teacake just to round off the day.

The head of Glaisdale from Glaisdale Rigg