Cold Kirby on the North York Moors was raw when GEORGE WILKINSON visited, but he warmed up as he walked by one of the last shooting parties of the season.

COLD KIRBY was raw, ‘thin’ someone said. A convoy of 4x4s and quad bikes, packed with gamekeepers and pheasant beaters, rumbled down the village dead-end road.

We trundled off to Low Field Lane that was high enough at 700 feet to be chilly but straight and clean enough for a warming stride, heading east on the Cleveland Way towards Rievaulx Abbey and towards muffled shotgun fire.

The Cleveland Way was opened in 1969 and that year Bill Cowley described the next bit as “steep and very over-grown, almost impassable at the top” and suggested that walkers “force a way through somehow”.

Said side gully landed us, without fuss, in Flassen Dale, a dramatic valley. Here a shooting party was parked, shooting done, the pheasants in piles, the quick spaniels searching out the dead and dying, in the last days of the season.

We had though, by chance, a peaceful sandwich, on a bridge. Surface water is rare in these limestone valleys. The stream was spring-fresh crystal and a trout leapt from a pond.

The climb out, up the steep wooded valley side, was a pleasant surprise, gently angled, and sunken with use and age.

On the tops, on the flat fields, the chill crept back. And here, for two hundred yards, the footpath has been destroyed by sheep.

There seemed no excuse and we were cross. At the next gate there was pinned a Farm Assured Land notice, showing a smiling farmer. Perhaps he is assured of his subsidy.

I looked up Farmed Assured, it is connected with the Red Tractor scheme and one of its rules is that “public access to livestock should be kept to a minimum for biosecurity reasons”. Well, we left this field with more muck on our boots than makes such sense.

The village of Old Byland seemed to glow enticingly across a little valley. We had a cup of tea on a bench on the village green, the dozen stone houses gathered around, pretty but not peaceful, with the shotguns loud and a hundred jackdaws wheeling and proclaiming, or complaining.

Then High Leir Lane started with what I guess was a dry-stone-walled folly. It continued straight, level and open for a mile, with long hints of Rievaulx and then sight of Cold Kirby, nearer. A wind turbine span at a farm named Wethercote, where the traffic was a single LandRover.

Back at Cold Kirby, I have to report, to be fair, that moles have blatantly abused the footpath, with a precise concentration of new hills, just where it cuts between back gardens. Moreover, a golden pheasant weathervane hung, ready to topple from a roof on to a silver Porsche.


Directions

When in doubt look at the map. Check your position at each point. Keep straight on unless otherwise directed. (wm=waymark, fp=fingerpost).

1. Down village road, fork right to road at triangular village green (bench/noticeboard) and immediately grass path on left (fp Cleveland Way), down and up grassy dip. Left to good track (fp).

2. Stile/gate, grass track, sunken track downhill into woods, stile/gate.

3. Left to track in valley bottom (fp). Ignore a track on left.

4. On bend, track on left for ten yards, stile on left into field, 50 yards, gated footbridge and left to path diagonally uphill in woods. Note, do not take nearby footbridge nearer ponds.

5. At track, fork right 100 yards uphill to gate at top, field-edge path by hedge to your right, gate, muddy field-edge path, gate, cross grass and track, gate (wm) into woods and path left downhill.

6. Along valley bottom for 50 yards (old post) and right to path diagonally uphill.

7. Right to road, ignore first left, up through Old Byland, left (Hawnby 5¾), right-hand bend, uphill, left-hand bend and pass stone ‘cone’ to your left. One mile.

8. Gate/pair of fieldgates on left (bridleway sign), track across valley by wall then fence/trees, gates, right to road, ten yards, gate (sign) on left, fieldgate, track curves left via fingerpost uphill to gate (wm), grass track uphill, gate, white gate, through yard by house, right to road in village.


Fact file

Distance: Five miles.

Car parking: Roadside at Cold Kirby.

Right of way: Public.

Date walked: January 2014.

Tourist information: North York Moors Visitor Centre 01845 597426.

Refreshments: Visitor Centre and Hambleton Inn.

Map: OS Explorer OL26 North York Moors western area.

Terrain: Plateau and valley.

Difficulty: Moderate.

Please observe the Country Code and park sensibly. While every effort is made to provide accurate information, walkers set out at their own risk.