498 Ampleforth Description and Information | Walks in the Howardian Hills

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498 Ampleforth Description and Information

Written by the Wanderlust Team

Friday, 30 November 2007

College collage

Distance: Five miles.

General Location: Howardian Hills.

Start: Ampleforth village.

Right of Way: Public and permissive.

Map: Drawn from OS Explorer OL 300 Howardian Hills and Malton. NB this map shows the whole route, but with out of date footpaths (2006). OL 26 is accurate but only covers part of the walk.

Date walked: September 2006.

Road Route: Various from York.

Car Parking: Roadside.

Lavatories: None.

Refreshments: Pubs at Ampleforth - The White Horse inn and The White Swan.

Tourist & Public Transport Information: Helmsley TIC 01439 770173.

Terrain: Valley.

Points of interest: Public Schools collect £100 million a year in tax relief because they are classified as charities.

Difficulty: Moderate/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.

Googlemap

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Ampleforth has a Millennium Breathing Space with benches and a pond but it’s at the beginning of this little walk, so we moved on by. The next attraction was a playground field and my navigator had a couple of goes on the most enticing ride. Then we got on with the job, which was pleasant. The landscape, the valley, was streaked by low sun shadows, there was no rush and we ambled along a track and down, a thrush sang from a sloe hedge, a pond was covered in the oval leaves of floating pondweed and we’d reached the wide flat bottom of the valley. There were reminders that this was the Howardian Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The next mile is along the valley by Holbeck, a small clear stream. It’s lined with good trees - ash, oak willow and notably silver maple which have silver white undersides to their five pointed leaves and might soon turn a spectacular autumn colour. There is a block of biomass willows that have shot up since my last visit here in the spring, not my favourite eco-energy.

We crossed the beck and skirted the slopes. A hillside above the route looks rough as if there has been land slippage at some time. Up there is a sculpture by, I’m sure, Antony Gormley who studied here at Ampleforth College. Like most of his other work, most famously the Angel of the North, it’s a replica of his body, but this time life size, head raised to the sky, or considering where we are, to the heavens. He is minus angel wings but has a prominent Adam’s apple. The casting is of smooth iron that has acquired an interesting patina of rust, but polished by hide around the torso, clearly the cattle rub up against him.

By now there's a landscape with rugby posts. Then terraces of tennis courts. We slowed down, puzzled by the waymarks, under the gaze of a hundred windows, irradiated by faith. I have been here before, decades ago, playing cricket. But it was interesting to hang around because amongst the variety of buildings there are some modern ones, flat roofs and all, and it’s worth noting that the Catholic Church has shown more enthusiasm for the international style than most.

Then the rain came down. With the village a mile away we asked a school master or similar which was the way out, he said nonchalantly ‘you can go anywhere’, but then looked worried when I said was journalist and hurried away. So we walked back on Back Lane and St Hilda's Walk thinking this is nice and quiet and that because it had highway signs it was a public road. Apparently this is not the case.

Image Gallery

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