453 Dallowgill Description and Information | Walks in Nidderdale

Wanderlust Home

Walks: Descriptions

453 Dallowgill Description and Information

Written by the Wanderlust Team

Friday, 30 November 2007

In need of slight restoration

Distance: Five miles.

General location: Eastern edge of the Yorkshire Dales, near Ripon.

Start: Tom Corner, Dallowgill. Please see Map & Directions for Grid Reference.

Right of way: Public rights of way and CROW access land. Check for Open Access Restrictions on www.countrysideaccess.gov.uk.

Map: Drawn from OS Explorer 298 Nidderale.

Date walked: Friday October 7, 2005.

Road route: From Ripon to Kirkby Malzeard, through village, just outside speed limit zone, right turn to road signed `Dallowgill 3½'.

Car parking: Free car park at Tom Corner signed.

Lavatories: None.

Refreshments: Pubs, shop and Roselea Tearoom at Kirkby Malzeard.

Tourist & public transport information: Ripon TIC 01765 604625.

Terrain: Mostly moorland.

Points of interest: Last July [2005] Simon Bostock, the President of the Moorland Association, hosted an AONB Field Trip on Dallowgill Moor. The theme was `Walking, shooting and Wildlife: how will the CROW access affect biodiversity?'

Difficulty: Moderate in clear 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.

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.

If you can’t see the walk on the Google Map, please refresh.

Open lightbox

Tom Corner, the place, the car park, boasts a mosaic of a Roman soldier. There's also an info board that was clear about the birds, the moors and the prohibition of dogs, but slightly inaccurate with the `You Are Here' label.

No matter, because a new fingerpost points down Potter Lane, a sunken track, wall and gorse each side with foxgloves ready to overwinter in the algae green rocks. Less pleasant are the dead rabbits, agri-plastic debris both fresh and well weathered, `gates' that did not fasten and indeed one fence/ gate that was so ancient that the trunk of an oak had grown round the bars. Then the lane took a decrepit bridge where once was a ford and we had crossed Dallowgill the valley.

Then we found abandoned roofless houses and a tight pattern of drystone wall remnants. I have read it wasn't until the late 19th century that people from Dallowgill travelled to the villages and the last shop here which sold sweets and tobacco closed in the 1940s.

That shop was at Grey Green Farm. The `grey green' seemed appropriate for the day, the landscape had that hue with fine mist.

We hit the heather and soon were targeting a lone white painted building less than a mile away on Dallowgill Moor. The public footpath was unsigned and had vanished, but we avoided The Bogs and the standing water and approximately followed the line on the OS map.

There are two rooms, one white, one not, one with sprigs of heather in vases, one with cobwebs, it's the Kettlestang Shooting House, a portion for the `guns' the other for the beaters. This moor has long been famous for grouse shooting kings etc and on a wall is a gilded list of names headed `The First Table of Benefactors' which includes some MPs and bishops amongst the aristocrats. Sir Robert Peel gave £500.

We had our sandwiches and then went right to roaming to a nearby Trig Point that was prettily coated by yellow lichen.

On a nice day up here you would get glimpses of Nidderdale, on a dire day you would need your OS map and compass.

Ours was middling weather, clear enough to see the ruler-straight drystone wall that guided us the next mile and bright enough to pick a meandering line avoiding the thickest heather and the boggy bits. So inevitably we intersected with a green lane track and on this we accelerated back, picking up a beck, a ravine and finally Dallowgill's pastures, quite pleased with our exploration.

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/453Dallowgill}

Comments

Add New

RSS