A cut above the rest

Distance: Six miles.

General Location: Near Scarborough.

Start: Scalby.

Right of Way: Public.

Map: Drawn from OS Explorer OL27 North York Moors eastern area.

Dogs: Legal.

Date walked: Sunday 19 March 2006.

Road Route: A171 north out of Scarborough, ‘Scalby village’ signed.

Car Parking: Roadside.

Lavatories: None.

Refreshments: Pubs - Everley, north of Mowthorpe Bridge, Nags Head and Plough Inn at Scalby, and café.

Tourist & Public Transport Information: Scarborough TIC 01723 373333.

Terrain: Valley and valley side.

Difficulty: Moderate.

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

Please click on "Map" to see a cartographic map view of the route and "Hybrid" to see the combined map and Satellite. Please use the zoom tools or drag the slider to move in close or to zoom out (or use mousewheel zoom). Use the pan tools to move the map vertically and horizontally or place your mouse over the map and it changes to a hand; click your mouse to "grab" the map to manually scroll the map in any direction. The two hikers icon shows the start of the route and clicking on it will show the route starting direction.

Please note that the outline route is a guide only and on full or near full zoom cannot be guaranteed to follow every twist and turn of the route described.

Scalby is a village that is nowadays attached to Scarborough as its northern point, a mile from the town centre, the same from the sea and with interesting countryside inland. George Wilkinson still didn’t much feel like walking, though this route wouldn’t have taxed him much.

Within minutes I had joined the other walkers and the dog walkers on the banks of the Scalby Cut. This is a five-mile trench that was made in 1804 to take surplus water from the River Derwent and put it out to sea rather than having it flow many miles back inland and through Malton in its ice-age perversity. A trench, be it two hundred years old, is a rather unfair description, it’s nice to walk along on the footpaths that run on the regular high grassy banks each side. If you have a walking partner and should you have had a row you could take the separate in sight and shouting distance paths. But surely the landscape would mitigate any angst as the cut is set in a nice valley, open mostly, wooded on higher ground.

There wasn’t much water from the Derwent but it looked clear, there are a few small weirs and to remind of the flooding potential a series of level posts that march up the banks.

It was a warm, quick couple of miles along the Cut to Mowthorp Bridge where there's a farm. As soon as I started to climb I caught the wind off the sea. And also caught up with about fifty walkers out with Hull Country Holidays Association, and I got chatting to one who told me that The Ramblers were going to start checking the paths on every square of the maps for England and Wales. And yes they are, the 180,000 one kilometre squares are going to be checked by the 140,000 members of the Ramblers Association and others. Somewhere near Scarborough there is reputed to be the emptiest kilometre map square in England, but it’s not here, there are lots of paths, notably in the adjacent Forge Valley and Raincliffe woods, which will soon be bursting with spring.

As for this route, I continued climbing, a total of 400 feet, some on green sunken path, some through woods of beech and larch and on the tops I trod a bit of dead-end back lane. There are super views to the sea that was by now four miles away, Scarborough Castle stands out. There was snow on northern fields and inland the moors. There is a tower, a mystery to me, perhaps a sighting tower for drainage works?

Then I came down Scalby Nab, found another green sunken path and rejoined the throngs of horse riders, runners, cyclist and walkers out in the Sunday sunshine.

Image Gallery

Please click on the word "Pictures" to toggle the thumbnails on and off. Hover your mouse over the image to see the forward and back arrows to view the gallery. 

{smoothgallery folder=images/stories/472Scalby}

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.

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