Bilsdale

11:44am Saturday 28th June 2008

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George Wilkinson enjoys a six-mile trek through Bilsdale from Chop Gate.

Chop Gate car park was half full; we’d been beaten to Bilsdale in the North York Moors.

But there is a lot of this long valley and our route didn’t look as if it was ever busy.

The colourful damp meadows seemed barely trampled, their sole inhabitant, a Shetland pony, was placid and haunch-deep in buttercups. Flies hatched on the gleaming River Seph.

Something of a first viewpoint gave a sight of the Wainstones and the sight and reverb of a pack of Harley Davidsons heading for a rally at Helmsley. We pulled away, and up, saw fields of grain (there’s not much cultivation in Bilsdale), admired a farmyard of dressed sandstone and puzzled at farmhouse keystones. An ancient harrow is retired in a quiet hedgerow.

Crossing the valley’s through road brought the flat, but not flat for long as up the eastern flank we went, paralleling a fairly new tree line because this middle chunk of Bilsdale is being transformed by tree planting, perhaps for the benefit of pheasants as there is the equipment. A curlew and a lapwing did distraction flights.

We reached Nab End that is a nose of the land that divides one valley from the next. The end was good for flowers with the purple of foxglove, the cream of bedstraw, and even an ex-woodland bluebell or two. Also it was rich in insects, beetles bronze and green.

That was the end of biodiversity for a while, because the valley we entered is Tripsdale, an SSSI and covered in pasture-destroying bracken, though with some trees.

On the OS map are marked ‘Tips (disused)’, these are garage-sized hummocks of grey shale spoil from 18th and 19th century jet mines. And near these are more disused tips that could be aged by the dozen old bottles and rusted tinwear, the iron bedstead and such. The nearest house is some distance.

The path was clear and brought us to Tripsdale Beck, we’d been anticipating a hot day footsoak and this was almost a requirement at the ford, if there’d been heavy rain we would have been stymied, take note. Here we found an ammonite.

Then came some hard work, a sunken track filled with damp and rushes but it took us up to views down Tripsdale.

Next, we took a path for half a mile along the top of the crags, in parts right along the top, there’s a vertical drop of 100 feet, so not for those of nervous disposition.

We came out at a shooters’ track which hairpins down to Tripsdale Beck and twists back up to the moor. After flatlining over the tops for a while you can see to Chop Gate a mile away down in the valley and home in. Back at the car park, ours was the only car. The walk had taken some time.

DIRECTIONS.

1. Bridge at end of car park and immediately left to path by stream (two stiles, two gates, narrow ditch, two step-streams, mostly waymarked).

2. Stile (waymark) and two o’clock uphill via telegraph pole (waymark), stile/fieldgate in corner (waymark), grass track by wall, stile/fieldgate (waymark), ladderstile to track.

3. Fieldgate into farmyard (waymark), left after stone barn, fieldgate (waymark), contour on grass track, fieldgate (waymark), stile/fieldgate (waymark), fieldgate and right (fingerpost).

4. Fieldgate by garden and left to track (fingerpost), left at tracks junction, cattlegrid/fieldgate, 25 yards, stile on right (waymark) and footbridge and one o’clock across field up to wooden fieldgate in stone wall.

5. Left downhill for 200 yards, fieldgate, 25 yards and right to ‘track’ downhill, footbridge/ford, track 200 yards, left at stone post uphill by old boundary, stile in trees, uphill by wall.

6. Ladderstile, cross road, stile (sign), uphill, stile/fieldgate (fingerpost).

7. Fieldgate and right to path along lower edge of conifer wood, stile, 11 o’clock for 50 yards to gateway, path near wall to your right 25 yards. At little barn left uphill by wall to your right 50 yards, step-stream and right so wall and mature wood to your right, by stream downhill, 100 yards.

8. Fieldgate (two waymarks), 11 o’clock uphill on sunken path then path straight through young trees, stile (waymark), cross field, left to path gently uphill round Nab End, pick up wall to your right, stile to path between wall and fence, stile, fieldgate, fieldgate near beck, 20 yards, scramble down bank, ford Tripsdale Beck.

9. Left by beck 200 yards, right uphill by rushy sunken path curving 100 yards to stone gateway, keep by sunken path uphill.

10. At flattish grassy area turn left to grassy track angling up hillside, rocks, sandy, step-stream, slab bridge, stony path.

11. Fork left to crag edge path, take care.

12. Left to main track downhill, bridge over Tripsdale Beck, uphill.

13. Right at T-junction, 100 yards, left 50 yards on path, fieldgate, downhill through field, fieldgate, field, fieldgate to walled track (waymark), fieldgate on right, left in yard, fieldgate by house, track downhill.

14. At second stile on right, either diagonally across field if path reinstated, or to road and right.

FACTFILE.

Distance: Six miles.

General location: North York Moors.

Start: Chop Gate.

Right of way: Public and open access.

Map: Drawn from OS Explorer OL26 North York Moors western.

Dogs: Illegal.

Date walked: June 2008.

Road route: Via Stokesley or Helmsley.

Car parking: Free car park signed.

Lavatories: Car park.

Refreshments: Buck Inn at Chop Gate. Sun Inn in Bilsdale.

Tourist and public transport information: Helmsley TIC 01439 770173. For up to date details on open access check www.openaccess.gov.uk Terrain: Valley and moor.

Points of interest: Sun Inn.

Difficulty: Not easy.

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