Walk 577 Tockwith
Distance: Five miles.
General Location: Near York.
Start: Tockwith.
Right of Way: Public.
Map: Drawn from OS Explorer 298.
Dogs: Legal.
Date walked: May 2008.
Road Route: Via Long Marston.
Car Parking: Roadside in Tockwith.
Lavatories: None.
Refreshments: The Spotted Ox and the Boot and Shoe.
Tourist & Public Transport Information: Wetherby TIC 01937 582151.
Terrain: Floodplain.
Points of interest: Pipe Hall, Tockwith. Tockwith and District Show 2 August 2008.
Difficulty: Quite 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.
Please click the image below to go to the walking route sketch map and detailed directions, or scroll down to a Google Map of the route, the route description, and an image gallery. Plus you can bookmark this page on your favourite social bookmarking site, and comment on the walk. We hope you enjoy the walk.
Googlemap
Click on "Satellite" to see our route superimposed on the satellite photograph of the land. Use the tools to zoom in or out and or the "hand" to move across the map. The icon of two hikers is at the start of the route and when clicked shows its direction. The route line is approximate. To follow our directions please use our sketch maps (link above).
Google Earth is even more dynamic but if you don't already have it you will need to download it first.
Click on "Open Lightbox" to see the Google Map in its own window.
If you can't see the walk outline on the Google Map/Satellite/Earth please refresh the screen
Tockwith's swallows flitted between the lines of town style old red brick that make the linear village. Cromwell this and Marston that reminded of the history. We idled off along a track, a yellowhammer posed, fluffy clouds gave five minutes sun then a few hundred yards of shade, in denial of the forecast hail. The area is easy on the eye with the local style of hedge high and with a ditch, the first of thorn and fruit. Beyond, the fields were slashed yellow with rape flowers, further, the slivers of moors and dales.
There's a shortage of visible church spires on the floodplain. The centre of York is eight miles due east. But there is a farm and a half, announced by a powerful sign of a bull and a letter F framed in one concrete drainpipe nestled on another to beam the message down the track. The farm has a rookery and a very swish cattle shed, it's for sale, including nearby Skewkirk Hall, yours for a few million.
And then there was the River Nidd, gentle in a bend. A few miles down river it joins the Ouse. Sleepy it isn't always, witness the meandering erosion of the steep banks, the flood debris lines, the willows felled to speed the flow and the structurally useless balsam sprayed.
Then after a mile or so it got hotter and sleepier, an owl flew stretches of the river in languid style but still it stirred the rooks. Big black bumblebees circulated and swans hid.
There are a few houses, of the hall and mansion sort, but the most interesting building is the mill with its tier of balconies. Near here, for centuries, was a pedestrian bridge but it was removed forty years ago and there's been a row about it since. A replacement has long been constructed; installation is still in the offing.
Often, walking a river, certainly one as good as this, it's eyes to the water all the time. But we looked the other way almost as much, over lovely little fields squeezed in the curve, looked after under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, one especially pretty of dandelions and tussocked grass, another damp with different colours. There's talk of otters, voles and barbell.
We left the river by a path under oaks and by hedge of thorn and rose. A ditch was full of lords and ladies and the narrow pastures old. Now the spire of Tockwith's church was off at an angle but we came in at the middle at the old malt kiln, and then, adjacent, at the Spotted Ox, supped a sunshine orange juice.
As a postscript, driving back on the minor road between Tockwith and Long Marston is the tall obelisk in celebration of the Battle of Marston Moor when in 1644 Cromwell beat Prince Rupert.
Image Gallery
Please click your mouse on any of the images to open the image lightbox.
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