A pale grey, windy sky streamed south over the North York Moors. Well wrapped against foul weather, Jane and I followed a bowed but sprightly old lady up the lane to Aireyholme Farm.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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Cows lowed, a spade scraped on a stone floor and barn doors banged. Captain James Cook would have recognised the sounds that echoed round the buildings; it was here that the farm foreman’s son spent his boyhood in the 1740s, dreaming of the sea and faraway places.
Roseberry Topping was a whalehead of a hill above Aireyholme Farm back then. Now it takes the shape of a tsunami wave in a classical Japanese painting, a convex green back rising to tip suddenly over at the summit in a great vertical cliff face of rugged broken rock. It was a giant landslip in 1912 that sent the western half of the hill crashing and sliding into ruin.
A yellowhammer in the hedge broke out with a wheezy request for ’a-little-bit-of-bread-and-no…. cheese!’ We followed a zigzag path, well patched with stones, steeply up to the crest of Roseberry Topping and one of the best views in the north of England – the long escarpment of the Cleveland Hills pushing out their ship-prow profiles one behind the other into the great wide vale of the River Tees. A mess of chimneys lazily emitting coils of smoke showed where Teesside lay, still a heartbeat of industry in the north-east.
We followed the Cleveland Way down off the hill and up again to skirt the edge of sombre dark Great Ayton Moor, all the way south to where the thick sandstone needle of the Captain Cook monument rose on its ridge. ‘A man in nautical knowledge inferior to none, in zeal, prudence and energy superior to most,’ eulogised the inscription. ‘Long will the name of Capt. Cook stand out among the most celebrated and most admired benefactors of the human race.’
We drank to that in bottled water as we sheltered under the obelisk and watched the moors and hills smoking under a rolling sea of cloud.
Start & finish: Great Ayton Station, TS9 6HR (OS ref NZ 574108)
Getting there: Rail (thetrainline.co.uk) to Great Ayton
Road: Great Ayton is on A172 between Gainsborough and Stokesley. Follow High Street, then Station Road for 1 mile to station.
Walk (5½ miles, hard, OS Explorer OL26. NB: online map, more walks – www.christophersomerville.co.uk): From station, cross bridge; on up road. Left at White House Farm down lane (577110); in ⅓ mile, nearing Aireyholme Farm, left over stile (578115; ‘footpath’); over next stile; ahead with wood on left. Ignore stile on left; over stile in corner of field (576115); right on path towards, then up Roseberry Topping. From summit (579126) follow Cleveland Way/CW pitched path east, down and up to gate at edge of plantation (588127); right (blue, yellow arrows) on CW for 1¾ miles to Captain Cook monument (590101).
Face back the way you came up CW, and take next path to left, aiming to go between 2 prominent gateposts. Follow path (yellow arrows) down through Ayton Banks Wood; cross track near bottom (585104); continue down out of trees to angle of wall on right (584104). Right along sunken lane. In ½ mile, nearing Dikes Lane, left down stony track (578108; ‘Fir-Brook’); in 200 m, right through gate; cross field to farm track (576107); left to station.
Conditions: Steep climbs up to Roseberry Topping and Captain Cook monument. Steep descent through Ayton Banks Wood.
Lunch: Picnic
Accommodation: Chapters Hotel, Stokesley, N Yorks TS9 5AD (01642-711888; chaptershotel.co.uk) – welcoming place with good food.
Information: Gainsborough TIC (01287-633801); yorkshire.com
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk