Today we had planned to visit the North York Moors famous for its rugged, windswept hill-tops, its deep, verdant valleys, Its friendly, little hidden villages, its numerous, wandering sheep and Heartbeat the long-running Yorkshire Television program about the life of a village bobby in the 1960's. Well, after today's travels I can say it has all of those things in spades.
We started off roughly following a suggested route we found in a guide book, The village of Egton provided the first glimpse of the landscape. The moors are immediately adjacent to Whitby, so we were only 6 or so kms from our B&B, but already it felt like we were a world away. Down the bottom of the hill that Egton sits on is Egton Bridge by the River Esk. Apparently its famous for its gooseberry jam but we didn't see any. It was a tad too early for scones, jam and cream anyway. Back up the hill we went and took the road to Glaisdale.
We were intrigued by the name of a village called Fryup so we took a detour to see it. Not much to see but on the way we passed through Great Fryup Dale. It's so hard to describe what a dale looks like, but I'll try. It's a massive, largely treeless valley that sweeps down from the high moor, across a green valley floor dotted with small farms, stone fences, little woods, winding lanes and tiny hamlets. It then sweeps up the other side to the high moor there. The tops of the moors look like they might be the roof of the world. The Citroen bravely climbed a sharp, steep lane near the entrance to the dale from where we had a superb almost 360 degree view of the dale. It was a magnificent sight to behold.
Onwards to the village of Danby. We stopped at the North East Moors information centre for coffee and cake. The cake was good, the coffee not so although it suited Kerry. For me, all it needed was some coffee in it and it would have been fine. Nit much action in Danby so we looked for and found a by-way to take. We traveled along a county lane to the hamlet of Westerdale just to see what was there.
BTW, the distances between villages is so small – 1 mile here, 2.25 miles there. Its a big journey if it's 4 miles to the next village. These are miles, not kilometres so that can be deceptive but, nevertheless, they are tiny distances. Which actually makes you day disappear more quickly than you think. “Oh, it's just 2.25 miles, let's check it out”. “Only 3 miles! Let's go then”. Before you know it all those little miles have added up to a lot of time. We did about 100kms today. It took 12 hours!
From Westerdale we took a small lane up the side of the dale to the ridge of the moor and the main road. Approaching the top one could really begin to feel that sense of wilderness. There's something special about being in a place where the whole world is at your feet. There is nothing that you can see near or to the distant horizon that is above you.
We traveled along the Blakey Ridge road for about five miles stopping many times for photographs or just to feel the cool, stiff breeze on your skin and take a moment or two to let the view sink in. We then took a detour back down the side of the dale to the village of Church Houses. Once again, because of its unusual name. Of course, there was a pub down there and a lot of construction work. It beats me how these little places survive.
It's worth mentioning at this point that all of the descents from the moor to the valley floor below are short and steep. Roads or lanes that wind gently down a hill-sides are just not found in these parts. It just straight down and straight back up the other side. I couldn't tell you how many descents and ascents were in places as steep as 33%. That coupled with the narrow, hedge-lined lanes, blind corners and undulation pavement makes for fun driving in a small, manual car.
We continued down the valley towards the village of Hutton-le-Hole. Along this very quiet road we passed countless sheep grazing on the road and spotted countless pheasants popping in and out of the thicket. We even tried to get photos of them in flight by stopping the car and creeping up to them, the other with camera at the ready. We got a couple of shots off but the pheasants won the day. Hutton-le-Hole is a nice secluded little village with a museum, a pub and a dozen of so residents. The sun was shining so we stopped for a drink to watch the sheep grazing on the village common. Distance-wise, Hutton-le-hole was about half on our route and it was already 3:00pm.
We scooted on past the big town of Pickering and took a detour to the village of Levisham. This village is one of the stops on the North York Moors Railways, a route from Whitby to Pickering which has been totally restored to reflect travel in the 1950's. We were keen to take the 1.5hr journey (in each direction) the next day but after a lengthy consultation with the Station Master we agreed it would be very difficult to do the journey and make our car drop-off tines at Gatwick, 5-6 hours away depending on traffic. Oh well, we'll do it next time!
Finally we reached the village of Goathland, the one known as Aidensfield in Heartbeat. We had heard mixed reports and opinions about it but for us it provided plenty. We shopped in the Aidensfield General Store for a magnet and a tea-towel. We took a photo of the police car, a 1965 Ford Anglia,, outside the Aidensfield Post Office, we looked inside the Aidensfield church (St.Mary's, on the site of a chapel built in 1179AD. The original altar stone is still there), the Aidensfield Garage, The doctor's surgery, The Aidensfield Station (which has also doubled as Hogwarts Station) and of course the Aidensfield Arms hotel. Like in Hutton-le-Hole and in the TV series the sheep graze freely on the village common.
The village wasn't as busy as I thought it might be but it is certainly bigger than I expected. I know the townsfolk are probably sick to death of tourists visiting because of the TV series. But they still trade heavily from it, some more heavily than others, so a co-ordinated approach to marketing the town and managing the tourists expectations and their enjoyment of their visit would go a long way towards helping the town even more.
We went for a long walk in search of Claude Greengrass's farm. The directions for this 3.5km walk were shockingly ambiguous and unclear. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the walk down country lanes, across green fields and by dense forests. At one stage we flushed out two deers from the place they were grazing in long grass. They fled at a great rate, leapt the wire fence and disappeared to safety in the dark wood. It was great to see. We saw Greengrass's farm from a distance so we must have missed a turn somewhere. Back into town we walked, got the car, drove out there, got a photo and headed for the station. I must say old Claude kept the place in better nick than it is now. The station looked very nice in period dress but we only stayed for 10 minutes to get some photos.
We had left the Aidensfield Arms for last for tactical reasons. The public bar was quiet, “Gina” served us some drinks and we waited for the dinner service to begin. I had a lovely steak and kidney pie with potatoes, peas, corn and carrots. Kerry had roast silverside and yorkshire pudding with similar vegies. Servings were a plateful and very tasty. The meal over, we bade farewell to the ghosts of Heartbeat, all standing around the bar, and headed for Whitby. Dusk was rapidly descending upon the moors. It made for yet another incredible view of this magical landscape. We were home in 20 minutes.
Very interesting commentary again - I can picture the scenery. I suspect that the impending return to Oz is becoming more front-of-mind because some of the recent photos of Greg don't show him quite as relaxed and with that devil-may-care look. Enjoy your last few days OS (or OT for me!) - they will still be fun.
ReplyDeleteLovely pictures. It's so green! M xx
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