Yorkshire Walks

Starting out along the lane where we had parked

This is where it crosses one of the typical Wolds dry valleys called Cottam Well Dale. At the gate where the footpath along this valley joins the lane there is a grass verge wide enough to park off the road without obstructing the gate. We met two other friends here and the four of us began walking a few minutes before 10.00am.

After weeks of unsettled weather the forecast for today proclaimed that a high pressure area had arrived giving us settled warm sunny weather for the next five days at least. My neighbour, Jim, and I drove through Sledmere on the Yorkshire Wolds, to map ref. SE972634 on a narrow lane.

Beginning to climb up towards Cottam

Following the path towards Cottam

To begin with the path crosses the head of a small valley where there are some trees and pasture land but after that the path is between the huge arable fields so typical of the Yorkshire Wolds.

We walked along the lane for about 600m to map ref. SE974628. Here we turned left off the lane to follow a path climbing steadily up the hillside to gain around 100m in height over the next 2.5km.

Crossing the head of Lambert Dale

Autumn ploughing in progress

Looking back along the path, it is in direct line to Sir Tatton Sykes's Monument which is at map ref. SE957618.

Here after the harvest ploughing was already underway ready to sow the next crop, probably winter sown cereals.

Looking back to Sir Tatton Sykes's Monument

Concrete runway and access roads at Cottam ww2 airfield

As an airfield it was a dismal failure because the wind here at an altitude of 150m was gusty, unpredictable and very turbulent and the airfield, built at the start of the war, was never put into operational use. Instead the site was used as a bomb and munitions store.

We continued along our path to map ref. SE997639 where we turned left to follow a track to Cottam. This track took us across the concrete runway of Cottam airfield, a relic of world war 2.

Concrete runway and access roads at Cottam WW2 airfield

Path to the ruined church at Cottam

There is some information about the church and the airfield on the Yorkshire Wolds Guide We stopped on the grassy bank by the church for a break with a pleasant view across the fields.

From the runway we followed the path around Cottam House and the site of the abandoned medieval village of Cottam (just a series of mounds in a field now), to a brick church at map ref. SE993649. This is Holy Trinity Church built in 1890, and used until the 1930's, but is now in ruins.

Path to the ruined church at Cottam

What is this WW2 relic?

Here at map ref. SE984662 we turned left off the farm access road to follow a path down the edge of the field to the top of Philip's Slack.

After our break we followed a track through the fields past Cottam Grange for about 600m beyond Cottam Grange.

Heading towards Cottam Grange

Stile at the top of Philip's Slack

Heading along the bottom of Philip's Slack

It descends around 70m in a distance of no more than 100m - so quite steep then. We crossed the stile in the bottom of the valley and turned left to walk along the valley bottom.

At the end of the field there is a fence along the top of a very steep sided little valley known as Philip's Slack. We climbed the stile and carefully descended the path straight down the valley side.

The descent into Philip's Slack

The path led us into Cottam Well Dale

Anchor blocks in Cottam Well Dale

Anchor blocks in Cottam Well Dale

Each block had a steel column with many bolt holes cast into it. We speculated about their function and on the basis of no information whatever we had the idea that the blocks were some kind of anchorage possibly for barrage balloon defences to the bomb store/munitions dump on Cottam airfield. This idea satisfied us and we completed the last couple of hundred metres back to the cars on the lane. The whole walk had been about 10km and it had taken us a little over three hours to walk including our stop at the ruined church at Cottam. On the way home Jim and I stopped in Malton market square for a coffee and bacon roll to round off a very pleasant day out.

After about 1.5km we came to a junction with a valley called Cottam Well Dale which comes down directly from Cottam. We turned to follow Cottam Well Dale and at once saw a group of four large concrete blocks cast into the ground with a steel column embedded in the centre (map ref. SE978645). The concrete was clearly of WW2 vintage but there was no indication of their purpose in this remote valley bottom. We continued along the valley for over a kilometer and couple of hundred meters before we reached the car at the lane we came across more of the large concrete blocks. There were four on one side of the valley (map ref. SE972637) and two blocks on the on the opposite side of the valley (map ref. SE973635).

Anchor blocks in Cottam Well Dale

Returning to the cars at the end of our walk