Map: Drawn from OS Explorer OL 27 North York Moors eastern area.
Dogs: Legal.
Date walked: September 2007.
Road Route: Via the A171 Whitby to Scarborough road.
Car Parking: Ample and free in Ravenscar.
Lavatories: Opposite National Trust Centre in Ravenscar.
Refreshments: The Raven Hall Hotel and a seasonal café in Ravenscar.
Tourist & Public Transport Information: Whitby TIC 01723 383636. National Trust Ravenscar 01723 870423.
Terrain: Cliff top and hinterland.
Difficulty: 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.
Google Map
Please click on "Map" to see a cartographic map view of the route and "Hybrid" to see the combined map and Satellite. "Terrain" shows the contours of land over and around the route.
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. Click on "Open Lightbox" to see the Google Map in its own window.
The two hikers icon shows the start of the route. Click on the hikers to get the route direction - clockwise or anticlockwise.
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.
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Ravenscar was lively with visitors, dozens out for the sun and the sea. For history of the alum industry, the ‘town that never was’ and for the geology visit the National Trust Centre, for tea in season try the café, for style the Raven Hall Hotel.
Church Road was a blessing, quiet, a dead-end as regards the metalled surfacing which picks up a grass Mohican down the middle.
Prospect House Farm seemed aptly named, we were very much looking forward to a nice old green lane and then a cliff top return.
And the next mile was a charmer, with those clues to an old track, the small tight stone gateways and the path sunken with usage. We skirted mounds topped with gorse that fizzed with little birds, hawkbits flowered in dandelion yellow, tough larch showed against the pale grasses, it was nice, at a guess a route rarely used nowadays. The sea was cast with turquoise patches, the hedges shaped by the north wind which was having a days rest.
Unusually clear air allowed sight of Scarborough Castle and further south to the white cliffs of Flamborough Head and, with binoculars, its lighthouse.
We dawdled along, took ages over sandwiches, and sampled brambles with a new-found connoisseurship born of learning that there are 400 varieties out in the wild. Would it be pretentious to describe a berry as small with a quiet unassuming flavour and an aftertaste spark?
The dawdling paid of; day had slipped to gorgeous evening light and calm with the sea out yonder a luminous silken mirror of cloud reflections, the ships unhurried. This and more on the spectacular cliff top Cleveland Way return to Ravenscar.
Image Gallery
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Walks: Descriptions 
