Walks 55 what’son Walks Around Crakehall Walk Information Distance: 4 km (2.5 miles) Time: Allow 1–2 hours Map: OS Explorer 302 – always take a map with you. Start/Parking: Crakehall village green Refreshments: Pub and shop at Crakehall. Terrain: Field paths, grassy/woodland tracks, roadside path. Flat, easy walking all the way. How to get there: Crakehall lies along the A684 just to the north west of Bedale. Caution: There are cows in the fields around Crakehall. Take care crossing the railway line (Wensleydale Railway) – stop, look and listen. During this hot spell of weather, carry extra water with you and cover exposed skin with continue on across the next crop and then another stile just beyond clothing and sun cream to protect field alongside the hedge on your that leads out onto a field. Walk yourself from the strong sunshine. left for 75 metres then, where the straight on across the field hedge bends slightly left (telegraph alongside the hedge on your right Points of interest pole) turn right along a grassy for 200 metres then cross the stile The cricket pitch track (if you reach the road then in front of you in a short section of RAKEHALL is a delightful you have gone too far). fence/hedge that juts out into the village with a huge village field that takes you onto the right- Cgreen, complete with cricket Follow this grassy track straight hand side of the hedge. Follow the was formed in 1990 with the aim of Church (before the garage) along a pitch and a well-proportioned re-establishing the link to Garsdale lane (Dead End sign) and follow 2on (you soon join a hedge on narrow path straight on alongside three-storey hall; it is the Head and resume passenger this to reach the end of the village your left) then, at the end of the the hedge on your left across this quintessential English village. services along the remaining track- green on your left, where you bear field, follow the tree-shaded path large crop field then, about 75 Crakehall is actually made up of bed between Northallerton and right along the lane passing straight on for 200 metres to metres before you reach the fence two villages, Little and Great Redmire; this happened ten years between the Old Barn and Hall emerge out onto a field, with across your path at the end of the Crakehall, which is separated by ago this month with regular Farm Cottage. The lane soon woodland on your right. Follow the field, cross the stile through the Crakehall Beck. passenger services between becomes a gravel track that quick- grassy track straight on alongside hedge to your left. After the stile, Leeming Bar and Redmire. ly leads to a gate on the edge of the woodland on your right (field to turn right to reach another stile From the village green, a path Crakehall. Do not head through your left) for 250 metres to reach over a fence then head straight on heads out across crop fields of Along the A684 just beyond the this gate but turn left immediately the Wensleydale Railway. Cross the to reach the gate on the edge of barley, wheat and corn to join an railway bridge is the White Cross, a before it along the enclosed path railway with care (stop, look, listen) Crakehall, where you re-trace your old bridleway that takes you across medieval stone cross that is also along the edge of the field to soon and continue straight on along the steps back along the gravel lane the Wensleydale Railway. This known as the Plague Cross. Some reach a kissing-gate that leads out grassy track for a further 300 back into Crakehall. railway was built in the 1870s to people believe this stone was where onto the field, where you bear metres to reach the A684 road. connect the East Coast mainline at people left money in vinegar filled slightly right across the corner of Mark Reid Northallerton with the Settle and holes in exchange for goods during the field to quickly reach a gate in Turn right along the roadside Author of The Inn Way series Carlisle Railway at Garsdale Head. the Black Death, whilst others a hedge. After the gate, bear right 3pavement and follow this for 600 innway.co.uk This railway provided a vital link believe it marked the site of Bedale across the field to reach a gate in metres to reach the road-bridge across the heart of England for cattle market in medieval times. the far right-hand corner, after across the Wensleydale Railway. Continue straight on along the Yorkshire Dales Outdoors Festival almost a century, but passengers which follow the wide path September 13-15, Wensleydale services were withdrawn during straight on along the edge of the roadside path for 200 metres, The walk passing the White Cross on your the 1950s and freight in 1964, field (hedge on your left) across Try your hand at drystone although the tracks were kept From the road junction in the two crop fields to emerge onto a left (on the other side of the road), then cross the stile over the hedge walling, head out on a philosophy between Northallerton and 1 middle of Crakehall village smaller field at the end of the sec- walk or go orienteering. Redmire to service nearby quarries green, follow the A684 towards ond crop field. Carry straight on to your right, marked by a signpost (where the path curves away from and military ranges. The Bedale, Northallerton then turn across this smaller field to reach a yorkshiredalesoutdoorsfestival.com Wensleydale Railway Association left immediately after St Gregory’s kissing-gate in a hedge, after which the road slightly). Cross the stile Countrydiary Birdwatch can never walk past a rusty sheet of tail they have an alarming but effective IGHTJARS are one of the most both male and female nightjars being corrugated iron in the countryside, last line of defence, shedding their tail difficult species to find, being strictly ringed, weighed and released. Other N nightjars have been showing well at their I without succumbing to the and gliding away, leaving their assailant nocturnal and not giving their temptation to take a look at what’s holding the still-writhing appendage. For characteristic churring song or wing- Durham stronghold, Hamsterley Forest, and underneath. It’s a compulsion that dates this reason slow-worms should never be clapping display flights until the light has around Guisborough back to childhood, when the rusty iron picked up by the tail. They do regenerate almost gone. But they are there for anyone It’s seldom a rarity, even a bridled tern, sheet on the edge of my grandmother’s a new one but it’s short and stumpy and willing to put in time in typical forest-edge merits inclusion here for a third week. But allotment, almost always had slow- never matches the slender elegance of habitat and be prepared for mosquitoes and that bird has really been keeping folk on the worms, pictured, and lizards basking the original. other biting horrors. hop, delighting some but frustrating many underneath on sunny days. If you crept Slow-worms are completely harmless and The other evening when it was warm and others in its coastal wanderings. Late last up quietly and lifted the corrugated sheet anyone who has them in their garden can still, almost a Mediterranean-style night, I week it vanished and was later reported quickly you could usually get a good look count themselves fortunate, because they was with a group of friends staking out a flying south at Flamborough Head. at one of these lovely reptiles before it eat a lot of small slugs. A light shower of corner of Slaley Forest with Derwent Everyone assumed that was that. But from slithered away. rain which brings out the slugs will also Reservoir glimmering in the distance. From the weekend it reappeared at the Farnes Like all reptiles slow-worms need to raise bring these reptilian predators out into just after ten o’clock at night, four or five having, presumably, passed un-noticed up their bodies to working temperature after the open. They’ll nightjars were churring in the young the coasts of Yorkshire, Cleveland, Durham a cold night and basking under a sheet of sometimes take up plantations with individuals occasionally and most of Northumberland. sun-warmed corrugated iron is the residence in old-fashioned showing against the lighter sky. Other seabirds have also been found with perfect solution, sheltering them from open compost heaps, where there It was all tremendously atmospheric with a storm petrels, always present in summer but predators while they heat up. They is always plenty of food for them, but supporting cast of tawny owls, barking roe very difficult to see from land, close inshore need to remain under cover the modern black plastic compost bins deer, waders, red grouse and the inevitable at Blackhall Rocks and Whitburn. The latter because they are eaten by birds of are unlikely to attract sheep calling from the darkened fells. What locality also produced an impressive day prey and by some of our larger them because made it even more special was a team of total of 468 Manx shearwaters. Also mammals, so they tend to be shy access is so ringers from Whitburn licensed to trap impressive was 69 black-tailed godwits at creatures that are most active at restricted. nightjars. Their luck was in and so was ours Saltholme. dusk.