Walk 456 Thornton Rust
Distance: Six and a half miles.
General Location: The Yorkshire Dales.
Start: Thornton Rust.
Right of Way: Public and permissive.
Map: Drawn from OS Explorer OL30 Yorkshire Dales northern and central areas.
Date walked: Friday 28 October 2005.
Road Route: From Leyburn, A684, at far end of Aysgarth left to Thornton Rust, signed.
Car Parking: Free car park signed.
Lavatories: Composting type at National Parks Centre at Aysgarth Falls.
Refreshments: Aysgarth inns, pubs and cafes including The Palmer Flat Hotel, The George & Dragon and at National Park car park.
Tourist & Public Transport Information: Aysgarth Falls National Park Centre 01969 663424.
Terrain: Valleys and tops.
Points of interest: In Leyburn, The Walking Shop.
Difficulty: Moderate in good weather.
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.
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.
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Thornton Rust is a nice little line of a village deep in the Dales, its car park the only thing with streaks of the scrapyard, but that with a pretty beck running through it.
We walked out in the rain and after a pasture or two got a pleasant surprise, the Kennel Field, fixed up as a millennium project with lime kiln, barn and a little mash house where they once stirred up the food for the Wensleydale Harriers, as for hares.
We lolloped on, taking the grass at a nice angle, one well waymarked squeezer after another, gave a nod to the shorn Wensleydale and the woollier black faced sheep, but mostly on this head up easy climb the pleasure was the landscape, broad miles of Wensleydale, cloud dappled and serene. Eyecatching, but never serene, the military cube of Castle Bolton glowed golden at a distance. Addlebrough, high and flat was sometimes behind. Check out the circle of the henge.
Tight patterned pasture expanded to rougher grasslands, a spring fed watercress. Today there are ten-minute mini valleys, each with one, two or three step, rock to rock becks. These were low enough not to be a problem and the clouds were high enough to free the compass hand.
It’s a triangular route, taking in the raised ground at the join of two valleys, each side has distinctive qualities. The second corner point had us chewing a sandwich and looking down into Bishopdale. After that you get a good view of this medium sized valley, paralleling it for miles on a stone track, it has a classic shape, the pattern of fields and then above them a steepness to a level horizon. This track, called Haw Lane, has contrasting dry stone walls each side, to the south neat, with angled capstones and two levels of through stones, to the north, fairly crude and fallen in places. A wheatear perched on these, ready to take off for Africa.
After a while, after the headwind, there was triangle corner number three, a place where the rain came down in stair rods, we touched on heather, and a rainbow arced across the sky.
The descent was pleasant. It starts with an undulation across a small valley, has emptiness and subtle colour and more becks to cross, one with a new, well secured wooden bridge.
Addlebrough loomed large to the left; Wensleydale showed again, it seemed to have been in sunshine all afternoon, unlike us. You don’t see Thornton Rust until almost upon it when a pasture or two brings you sharply down, but hopefully elated.
Image Gallery
Please click your mouse on any of the images to open the image lightbox.
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