Yorkshire Walks

A crinkly edged bracket fungus

We set walking west from the car park on a track through the woods for about 2km to a road at map ref. SE896871, near Givendale Head Farm.

I met my brother-in-law this morning at about 10.00 am at a little car park (map ref. SE914868) at Cocksmoor Hall about 3 miles north of Snainton.

Setting out along the track towards Givendale Head farm

New road being built to a gas exploration site

They seemed to be putting in a good quality tarmac access road to the exploration site where the drilling rig was already working.

There was a good deal of activity and machinery in the fields by the track and we asked one of the workmen what it was all about. He told us they were carrying out gas exploration.

Marker for the "Blue Man" walk

Entering the forest from Ebberston Low Moor

The start of this path seems to have been diverted from the route shown on my map, but the gate is plain to see about 250m beyond the farm drive that the path used to go down. We followed the path across the fields to map ref. SE908900 where the path enters the forest.

We walked northwards along the road past Givendale Head Farm. The road soon became a stone forest access road and we continued along it for over 2km to map ref. SE899896. Here we turned right off the forest road through a pedestrian gate on to a path across the fields.

Path down to White Beck from Ebberston Low Moor

Climbing up from White beck

Here the path turned sharp right off a grassy track to climb steeply up the valley side to a forest road at the top of the slope. at map ref. SE913902.

We continued into the forest down a very pleasant path to cross a small stream called White Beck, in the bottom of a narrow valley and along the stream to map ref. SE912901.

More autumn fungus

A rock rose enjoying the limey conditions at the
side of the limestone track, but how did it get here?

Turning off a forest road on to a little used path

Anyway after a couple of false starts we managed it. From there we took the path across Troutsdale Moor to the road at Troutsdale Lodge, map ref. SE923892.

We made our way through the forest to map ref. SE914894. I found this part of the route quite difficult to navigate. I couldn't match the junctions in the paths and tracks on the map to what I was seeing on the ground.

Patch of open heath in the forest

Descending into Troutsdale

At the chapel we turned right off the road to follow a path down to Troutsdale Beck at map ref. SE927889.

We turned left to walk down the road to a ruined brick chapel on the right of the road.

A ruined chapel in Troutsdale

A coral fungus called "clavulina coralloides"
growing under the conifer forest

Here we broke through the tall bracken undergrowth on to a wide track near its junction with a couple of other tracks.

We followed the path across the beck and up the hillside through the forest to map ref. SE928884.

Pointing out the bridleway coming up through the
bracken and scrub from Troutsdale to join a track

Footbridge over Troutsdale Beck

Climbing up from Troutsdale

From there we followed a track around the edge of the forest back to our starting point at the car park. The whole route had been just over 13 km and had taken us about four and a half hours to walk including our lunch stop.

We crossed this junction to continued up the hillside to a road at map ref. SE928879 at the edge of the Wykeham Forest Tree Nursery where there are literally 100,000's of tree seedlings growing in a vast field.

100,000's of tree seedlings at the Wykeham Forest tree nursery