Yorkshire Walks

To-day we met a group of friends in the wolds village of Bishop Wilton at about 1.00pm. It was the 60th birthday of one of our group and he and his wife had invited all of us to a barbecue at their bungalow in Melbourne about 15km from Bishop Wilton. They were at home getting ready for our invasion and we were going to have a walk before heading for the barbecue at about 5 o'clock.

View from the Minster Way above Bishop Wilton

From the centre of the village we set off on the road towards Pocklington for about 350m to map ref. SE 799547. Here we turned left off the road onto the Minster Way footpath up onto the edge of the wolds. We followed the Minster Way through Great Givendale, past the old church and across Whitekeld Dale to map ref. SE 823533 just before Little Givendale farm.

The church at Great Givendale

Rich wolds farmland

At this point we left the Minster Way and took a path along the edge of a huge ripening wheat field to the road at map ref. SE 830533. At the road we turned left to follow the road for about 3km to map ref. SE 828560. This was a lot more road walking than we would normally do but it allowed us to do a pleasant route of the right length for to-days birthday plan.

We had a break before crossing Deep Dale

We had a break before crossing Deep Dale

We turned left off the road to follow a path across Deep Dale - a very steep decent and long climb out to the road at map ref. SE 812559. We crossed the road and followed the footpath for about 300m to the corner of a wood at map ref. SE 808558 where we turned left to follow the path round the head of a pretty valley before dropping down from the edge of the wolds back into Bishop Wilton. We got back at about 4.45pm just in time to drive to Melbourne for the birthday barbecue.

Left & above: Returning to Bishop Wilton from the edge of the wolds