9.82 miles.
Explorer Map OL30, - Yorkshire Dales (Northern and Central Areas)
This walk has many attractions to it, and can be recommended
for just about any time of the year.
The route is quite easy to follow, and there are no particular diffulties
with it.
There may be one or two rather wet and muddy sections, and there is
some road walking which needs care. But otherwise, the route is very
straightforward.
For a Memory Map overlay of the walk described, please select the above
link.
(Overlay made with Version 5 of Memory
Map)
Start from the parking area just South of Wensley Bridge.
SE09093 89354.
Cross Wensley Bridge Northwards, and follow the road for a couple of
hundred yards.
Take the farm track on your left that leads to Bolton Hall, and after
a short distance take the footpath across the field that heads in a
North Westerly direction (The footpath is reached by a gate).
Continue along the marked footpath until you come to a minor road. Turn
left, and follow the road for a few hundred yards.
Take the farm track South (signposted as a footpath) to Bolton Hall.
Continue on the fram track across parkland to Lords Bridge.
Continue South from Lords Bridge, crossing the main A684, and down Bay
Bolton Avenue. Continue along the track to Bristow High Gill, and then
the field footpath to Top Barn (field wall on your right).
At Top Barn, cross the pasture in a South Easterly direction to Spigot
Lodge Plantation, then, keeping the plantation on your right, head to
the minor road (Hollins Lane).
Shortly after crossing the road, enter Millers Gill Plantation (using
a small stile) and head South Eastwards through the plantation. The
footpath is fairly indistinct here and you need to keep to a South Easterly
bearing.
Leaving the plantation, head South Eastwards for Middleham Low Moor.
The footpaths across the Moor are not marked as such, and it will help
to use your compass or Satellite Navigator to find an easterly track
across the common. The reason for this is not that you might get lost
otherwise, but that the Moor is used for exercising race horses. You
do NOT want to be getting in the way of these animals.
Continue East onto the road into Middleham, - CARE Traffic.
By Middleham's Market Cross, take the marked road to Middleham
Keys. Continue along the lane past the Keys, and past some racing
stables.
Here, a footpath is marked Northwards towards the river. Head North
Westwards across pastures until you reach a fram track just by the River
Ure.
Turn left along the farm track for a short distance, and then head North
across two fields to reach the River Ure. THis section of the footpath
has a very small sign indicating that it is a footpath.
Return to Wensley Bridge along the levee South of the River Ure.