17 January 2004
Clay Bank to Lord Stone's Cafe
Bilsdale, North York Moors
Map:OS Explorer OL26 Map of North York Moors Western area at 1:25000

This morning we drove up Bilsdale to the car park at Clay Bank overlooking Teesside and Roseberry Topping to the sea. There had been a dusting of snow overnight and the sky still looked quite threatening. The weather forecast claimed it would stay fine until late in the afternoon. We set off to climb over Hasty Bank to the Wainstones. We had a special mission today. I received an e-mail via this web site asking if I could identify a rock with an inscription carved by my corespondents great grandfather in the late 18 hundreds. We thought that the Sphinx rock in the Wainstones was a likely candidate. We had a good look round for almost half an hour and found many inscriptions, some dating from the right period, but not the right one. It was getting pretty cold so we set off again over Cold Moor round the back (south side) of Cringle Moor, through the woods to rejoin the Cleveland Way a few hundred metres above Lord Stones Cafe. At the cafe we stopped for some lunch I had a huge hot pork roll which I had been dreaming about for the last few kilometer. After lunch we returned over Cringle Moor and then along the forest track round the front (north side) of Cold Moor and Hasty Bank back to our starting point. The whole route was about 11 kilometer. and took us about 5 hours including our search for the inscription and a good meal in the warmth of Lord Stones Cafe.