497 Kirkham Abbey Description and Information | Walks in the Howardian Hills

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497 Kirkham Abbey Description and Information

Written by the Wanderlust Team

Friday, 30 November 2007

this could be a caterpillar, training to be a butterfly

Distance: Six miles.

General Location: Between Malton and York in Howardian Hills.

Start: Kirkham.

Right of Way: Public.

Map: Drawn from OS Explorer 300 Howardian Hills & Malton, Yorkshire Wolds North.

Dogs: Legal.

Date walked: September 2006.

Road Route: Kirkham is signed from the A64.

Car Parking: At Kirkham Priory, £4 in season, free in winter (2006), or roadside north of Crambe.

Lavatories: None.

Refreshments: Pub - The Stone Trough Inn, and kiosk at Kirkham Priory.

Tourist & Public Transport Information: Malton TIC 01653 600048.

Terrain: Riverside and hill.

Points of interest: In 1310 the retirement package for the Prior of Kirkham Priory included ‘14 gallons of better ale weekly’ his companion got 7 gallons.

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.

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Kirkham lies in the gap between the Wolds and the Howardian Hills. It has the remains of a priory and overlooking the English Heritage car park are sculptures of George and the Dragon and David and Goliath. Tranquil figures fished under umbrellas on the slick green River Derwent. A train rattled by, we crossed the bridge, then the line, and climbed through the resinous scent of wet mixed woods.

The only climb, and it comes out to farmland, sloes and convolvulus trumpets and a back lane, in the season so anticipated by rural cyclists, of hedge cutting. The village of Crambe didn’t delay, but note there's roadside parking hereabouts, and we tracked out. A horizon church is at Whitwell-on-the-Hill. This is land with a bit of elevation, a hill with a view, out came the binoculars, is it a cooling tower? No York Minster, if misty. A viewbench would be nice - there's sight of Howsham Hall and Howsham Bridge and you’ll probably see the Transpennine Express.

We descended, down the ridge and furrow, over the line and along Riders Lane. It was ongoing quiet, but a bit disturbing in that the fields around some oaks have been cultivated to within a stride of their trunks, which is disrespectful to these ancient boundary markers.

Soon the sound of roaring water told that the weir was very near, the connecting footpath that cuts through a wood of coppiced hazel wasn’t signed, gated or stiled, but it wasn’t difficult because we took a line of least resistance. In there is a site of revelry, to judge by the beer cans and blackened campfire embers.

Howsham weir and mill are in the news, an eco-restoration project (http://www.rht.greenisp.org/HowshamMill.htm). A fisherman covered the pool below the wide falling water with a spinner and caught a pike.

Then there are three miles by the river, serene once out of earshot of the weir, the crunch of acorns and beechnuts, song from the trees. Reeds, rushes, water lilies, Himalayan balsam, bankside mammals sighted for a second, alder, willow and poplar, some with leaves on the change, branches overhanging to touch the water, mirrored in the rain dimpled river.

Another train clicked by, rooks chatted away, and an energetic pied woodpecker made short work of a dead ash tree, checking out its twenty foot trunk in as many climbing, pecking seconds. Howsham Hall is riverside, the other side, it’s a boarding school and probably incorporates building material from Kirkham Priory.

Serenity increased with the disappearance of barbed wire. The land stretched out with pastures mottled with rather plump Jacob’s type sheep. The curiosity is a private park golf course. Soil was smeared shiny by the plough. The water is wide, but not beyond pheasants.

Re-entry into Kirkham is quite spectacular, another weir and the ruins of the priory, the image slightly spoilt from this angle by the English Heritage stone shed and some distressed alders.

Image Gallery

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