Day 1. Scarborough – Robin Hoods Bay
I started from Scarborough, walking north along the coast path in glorious weather. Carrying full camping equipment, so of course was skimping on water to reduce weight. Great walking on a fairly level path, with only a few dips – better than the switchback South West Coast Path.
I had been dreaming of tea and cake as I approached Ravenscar, only to find the tea shop at the old station had stopped serving minutes before. I was remarkably restrained in my polite response, and then a bit later found a National Trust tea-room open and welcoming – I nearly hugged them. It never crossed my mind that I was carrying everything needed to make tea.
Ravenscar is extraordinary – in the late 1800s the area was portioned up into plots to sell as a resort, but the prospectus forgot to mention that it was at the top of a cliff, with no beach and persistent fogs. Essentially it was a con – they sold some plots, but only a few scattered buildings were put up. But the view north to Robin Hood’s Bay was magnificent, and I plodded on to my campsite.
I pitched my tent, found a kind couple in a camper van to charge my phone for me, and walked rather stiffly down to Robin Hood’s Bay for a very cold dip, and then a fine pint and crisps in the Bay Hotel, looking at the wonderful view, while families around me stuffed their faces with vast piles of fried food.
I went back to my cosy tent, made up a mess of noodles and BBQ remnants, and sat watching the stars come up, feeling very grateful that I had lugged some red wine all the way.
Day 2 Robin Hood’s Bay to Rosedale
A beautiful morning, and I finished my noodles for breakfast and packed quickly, as I had to get to Whitby for the midday train. Very satisfying to stick everything in a backpack and march off, leaving no sign of being there. I followed the old Scarborough-Whitby rail track for a while, but preferred to get on the proper coast path.
An exhilarating clifftop walk, complete with numerous seals bobbing up and down like they were in a hot-tub. But I had to keep moving, and it was satisfying to see Whitby lighthouse miles ahead as a small dot, and then an hour or so later be walking past it.
Whitby Abbey finally came close, and then I was past the Huntrodds memorial in St Mary’s Church, and down the steep steps to the town. I had been reading the original Dracula, but didn’t have time to really soak up the atmosphere, and in any case the place was heaving with tourists.
I got to the station by 11.45, just in time to grab the necessary from Greggs, and then took the train up the Esk Valley to Glaisdale. It looked an easy walk up onto the moor, but it was around a 1000ft vertical slog with my pack.
But then I came out on the most wonderful track along Glaisdale Rigg, part of the Coast-to-Coast path so there were other walkers. The path just went on and on across the moor, feet crunching on the gravel in a satisfying way.
And then it started to belt down with rain.
Fortunately I was on a road by then, and so could just plod along for miles, listening to a long podcast about the trial of Warren Hastings in the 1790s, which was surprisingly interesting. There was not much traffic, so I decided to stay on the road rather than venturing onto obscure paths again, and eventually came down an incredibly steep hill into Rosedale Abbey, only to find that the pub I was staying in was half-way up the incredibly steep hill on the other side of the valley.
They gave me a small room with a shower with a view of the car park, and as I was feeling bolder than usual, I politely asked whether they had something with a view and a bath (which I had been dreaming about on the long march). The young woman could not have been more helpful, and I ended up in a triple room with a beautiful view – I emptied a little bottle of unction into the bath, and threw myself in. Later on, I sat alone in the bar, feeling that I fully deserved the drinks and large plate of scampi, chips and mushy peas.
Day 3 Rosedale to Cropton
Started a day with a stiff climb up Chimney Bank, which is apparently the steepest road in England; 1-in-3 in places.
At the top there were some extraordinary remnants of Victorian mine workings – great furnaces where they used to treat the ironstone before taking it off on a high-level railway across the moor.
Then the path provided some of the finest walking imaginable, high across the moor in fine weather, with the heather just starting to fade its purple. I was on the pilgrims’ path to Lastingham, which was hidden in the next valley.
I felt a real pilgrim walking off the moor into Lastingham, which is famous (in pilgrim circles) as the burial-place of St Cedd in 664, who was an enthusiastic evangelist for the Celtic church, which had kept Christianity alive in the British Isles during the ‘dark ages’. He had retreated here after losing out to newly imported Roman church at the Synod of Whitby, where a primary argument was the date of Easter. A church was built over his shrine, and the Norman rebuild in 1078 featured an extraordinary crypt – although St Cedd’s remains were supposedly removed to Lichfield, the story remained that some of St Cedd was still there in Lastingham.
The entrance to the crypt was down a set of stone steps, right in the middle of the nave. I had read that the crypt was impressive, covering much of the floor area of the church, but gasped at the pure Norman architecture, unchanged since 1078. It is supposed to be unique in England in having a nave, apse and side aisles
Since the church is on quite a steep slope, there is natural light coming into the crypt, so the lighting was not much different from what it would have been 1,000 years ago. Thankfully I was the only person there, and so could spend time just sitting and soaking up the atmosphere in silence. I was reluctant to leave.
The view back up the steps into the main church.
The crypt also contains a variety of relics, including this wonderful piece that is supposed to date from St Cedd’s time, showing strong Norse-style influences.
A very sad window at Lastingham, featuring young Annie Ringer, whose family had a summer home in Lastingham – her father Sydney Ringer was a renowned physiologist and Fellow of the Royal Society. She choked to death at her 7th birthday party in 1875, apparently on a plum stone. The family supported the restoration of the church and installation of a set of windows, and her father is buried in the churchyard.
Afterwards, I had a welcome pint of shandy outside the Blacksmiths Arms, with an excellent view of the church. The village was warm and very peaceful, but I pressed on over fields and down quiet lanes to Cropton, rather desperate for a sleep. I had booked into a campsite behind a pub (only £8!), which was perfect – another evening spent on my own with good pub food, before just a short walk back to my little tent.
Day 4 Cropton to York
It was pouring down when I woke up, and I just wanted to get going rather than wait around for the breakfast that I had booked in the pub. Made myself a welcome cup of tea, and packed up a wet tent, leaving just a patch of pale dry grass. Then set off down some fine footpaths to Sinnington, where the bus to Pickering arrived right on time.
Found a local café and had one of their healthy Yorkshire breakfasts – black-pudding sausage roll, and mushy peas. Then the bus for York arrived on time, I waved my bus pass, and so feeling very smug I settled down to over an hour’s free journey on the top deck.
The glass in the Minster was impressive, but I loved this carving in the Chapter House.
There were not many visitors, unsurprising given the £20 entrance fee, so I could sit down undisturbed. I tried to look as if I was praying, but actually had a much-needed snooze.
Then off to the National Railway Museum, which is free! So many magnificent pieces of engineering, for example the streamlined 1930s Coronation class built for the London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) railway to run between London Euston and Glasgow on the West Coast line, in competition with LNER’s streamlined Mallard on the East Coast line.
I was also amazed to see this wonderful unrestored carriage – I thought it looked familiar, and when I read the label it turned out to be from the Lynton and Barnstaple railway, and had been used as a summer-house before it was rescued. I think I had seen it at Snapper, just outside Barnstaple.
But the best part of the museum are the Stores, which not many people find. A huge warehouse is full of every sort of railway ephemera – stained glass, station signs, chamberpots, stuffed chairs, models – all piled into cases with little labels attached. Like the wonderful Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, but without the shrunken heads.
And then I got the fast train back to London. As we went along at 125 mph between Grantham and Peterborough, I revelled in the fact that the steam-driven Mallard reached 126 mph on this same stretch in 1938 – 87 years ago.