Coast to Coast - Battersby to Glaisdale (★★★★☆)

Today I am picking up my first section of the Coast to Coast National Trail, and I will slowly complete the rest of the sections over the coming years. 

But whilst this is a new trail to start ticking off - the area is very familiar, as my weekends for the past decade or so have generally been spent pottering about on the North Yorkshire Moors - with his only changing once I had the time to start heading further afield.

And so we start out with a journey I must have done about a hundred times - taking the very early train out to Battersby train station. Although the timings should also work if you take the later train out (which currently gets into Battersby at 10:48).

Once at the station, there is about an hours walk until we meet up with the route of both the Coast to Coast and the Cleveland Way, on a stretch where they share the same route between Ingleby Arncliffe and Bloworth Crossing. And as buses are not really a thing in this part of the world, this is one of the best options for access by public transport.

From Battersby train station itself there are two possible routes up to the Moors - one heading up Ingleby Inline (an old railway route up onto the Moors) mostly along footpaths, or a second which uses quiet back roads to reach Clay Bank - and it is the second option that I am using today.

One of the downsides of using the train for this route, is that there is quite a big climb to be done just to meet up with the trail (which sits up on the ridge) - but the views from this road are usually fairly good.

That said, they are not particularly good today - because today we have some low lying mist coming in from the sea - and that is blocking out everything and anything.

All the same, an hour later we make it up past the car park at Clay Bank - and then head on to the spot where the trail crosses this fairly busy road.

Here I immediate seem to be running into a problem - for up ahead of me a group of Coast to Coasters are heading back down the trail, with looks of deep concern on their faces. And here they warn me that we cannot continue on - for a group of cows are blocking the path.

Here I'm a bit surprised, because up ahead of us is a herd of Belted Galloway cows that look to be on their best behaviour - and so here I volunteer to head to the front, and provide an escort for my fellow walkers.

For now my confidence has done the trick - and the group are quite happy to follow me up the trail, but as we come up to a calf stood by the side of the trail (fearsomely) eating some grass, I can feel the tension in the air - as everyone behind me gets ready to run away.

That said, there is not much to get worried about - we have a calf on the left of the path having a good old munch on the grass, and the herd to the right, having a bit of a moo - more to encourage their farmer to bring them some food than anything else.

By this point only one of the group are still close behind me - the wife, in a group that consists of a husband, a wife and their adult son - but I'm soon able to restore a bit of confidence, by making a bit of a noise that makes the calf look up. And here, it has a look up, decides it wants to be with the herd as we walk past, and very slowly ambles across the path.

With this over, we can head on - and soon make our way past the herd, and on to the next field.

At this point I think I have done rather well - I have been confidence, I have done everything right, and there has been absolutely no drama - but as we pass out of the cow's field that I realise just how weak my influence over this group has been. And from the back of the group, I hear a cry of "we have made it through" - and now the husband comes through to the front of the group, with obvious relief on his face.

And now (with my escort duties over) I drop out the back of the group, and let them head on a bit - as I hear the wife explain that they are supposed to be strapping men, not cowards hiding at the back of a group, whilst she goes to the front to help deal with the scary cows.

This episode has provided some good entertainment to start the day with - but really I think people need to relax a bit around cows. If you just watch cows, you will easily see when they are chilled, and when they are anxious - and just by observing, you can make life seem a lot easier. 

And if you are calm enough, and polite enough - cows are quite a friendly bunch, and will usually come over and give you a soggy lick.

But with the fun over, and with my new friends now up ahead of me on the path, we can now head up to the top of this climb, where the views are usually rather good - but today we cannot see out all the far, for a heavy mist hangs over the hills.

But it is possible to see as far as the hills on the far side - and to just about see some fields in the flat lands below.

Probably too wet to sit down today

Looking out across the valley the road heads through

As we reach the top of this bit of the climb, we pass across an earthwork that can be seen more clearly on the map than in the landscape - and this dates back to the Middle Bronze Age - with the North Yorkshire Moors being notable for having a reasonable number of sites showing ancient human activity.

From here we are heading across Urra Moor - and will head past the highest point of the North Yorkshire Moors (at Round Hill) - but even after completing the steepest section of climb, there is still a decent amount of ascent left until we reach that spot.

Looking back towards the hills that sit on the northern end of the North York Moors

Eventually though we do get up, and pass Round Hill - and it is a very short diversion before we turn off, and stand on the very highest point of the Moors (and from here this only adds a few meters of additional ascent).

As we start to cut away from the ridge, we are now in proper moorland - and in some ways the mist is appropriate - because the Moors are most notable for their occasional beauty (on a bright summers day), but also for their murky character (for much of the rest of the year).

From here it's not too long before we arrive at Bloworth Crossing - where we have a crossroads of footpaths.

And this spot is interesting for a number of reasons - the first is for Rudland Rigg (the turning to the right), which is an old drovers road that used to connect the vales at Stokesley and Pickering - and the second is due to the old railway lines that used to run across this stretch of moorland.

The path along Rudland Rigg

The onward route of the Coast to Coast

The route we followed to this crossing was suspiciously straight - and this is because that too was part of the railway - and more specifically part of a stretch of railway that went up from Battersby train station (down in the valley below), up Ingleby Incline, and then on along here to Bloworth Crossing.

An old photo of a train at Bloworth Crossing

If we turn left at these crossroads, we could keep following the Cleveland Way - but by continuing straight on, we continue to follow the old route of the railway as it heads across to Rosedale Mines (more on that later).

For now though, there is a bit of a benefit to walking this old railway route - as we have a nice flat stretch of path - as we make our way out across Farndale Moor - with some views down through the mist down into Farndale below.

Looking down into Farndale

This stretch of path can be very beautiful in on a sunny day - but it can also be bleak and cold during the winter half of the year.

But today it is an enjoyable route round along this old stretch of railway track - with the views steadily improving as we continue to make our way round towards Blakey Inn.

At around half way towards the inn, we come across the turn off for the Esk Valley Walk (I will add a writeup for this one later in the year) - and from here we are also walking with the onward section of the Esk Valley Walk - as we continue on towards the inn.

View out to the source of the Esk (which will run on to Whitby)

And it is in this second half of the walk towards the inn that we get the best of the views out towards Farndale.

View down into Farndale

And from further round on the trail

As more of the mist clears it becomes clear that what we are looking at is not a typical view of a dale in the North Yorkshire Moors - and over decades of walking in this area, I don't think I have ever seen it so yellow, and seen views with so little green. 

And clearly this area has been affected by the extremely dry summer we have been having. 

Eventually we draw level with the Blakey Inn - which will feel very familiar to those of you who know of the Tan Hill Inn, and here the path cuts up from the old railway and heads directly past this inn - before meeting up with the road on the far side.

Heading up towards the inn

The valley on the far side

Here I have my doubts about the route which we are about to take.

I have walked a fair bit in this area before - and am quite a big fan of the railway path that sits in the valley below - and so from here I would be following the purple route in the map below, not the blue route of the Coast to Coast (not drawn precisely as I did it using my finger).

In purple a potentially better route

Since I know I'm doing this writeup, I am loyally sticking to the official route - and I'm also hoping there was a reason to justify using this route, instead of that very good alternative (in purple).

As it is the views out across the valley are reasonably good as we head out along the edge of the road - but despite a later section on a newly upgraded section of footpath, there is a lot of road walking here - albeit with the second stretch being on a quieter road.

And by the time I make my way round, I am one thousand percent convinced that they should have altered the route here when they made it a National Trail - for the purple route is a bazillion times better.

And here I would suggest that you consider this alternate route (if you aren't a stickler for the rules of walking a National Trail, and just want to enjoy the walk as much as possible).

But all the same we make it round the head of the valley - and to a very quiet road on the far side.

View from the head of the valley (again not as green as it usually is)

By the time we make it round, we can move on from my dispute of the route - and reflect a bit more on the old railway route that used to run below - for here we stand above the old iron mines of Rosedale.

Extracting the iron

The railways when they were operational

And for those interested, I have done a walk that started in Glaisdale, followed the route we are now about to take (in reverse from Glaisdale), before dropping down onto the railways - and heading to Battersby (down Ingleby Incline), via Rosedale Abbey village. And that writeup can be found here. 

But our onward route turns it's back on these old mines - and we briefly follow a very quiet road to just shy of Botton Cross (a medieval stone cross that used to sit on the old road across Danby High Moor) - and turn right onto the opposing route along that old route - heading towards Glaisdale Rigg.

Passing Trough House

And meeting the locals (at the bench by that house)

As we continue on we are heading past small dips in the ground, and these were formerly shallow coal pits.

From here we walk across to Glaisdale Moor - and our path runs along the top of Great Fryup Dale (breakfast not included) - as we work our way round towards Glaisdale Rigg.

Great Fryup Dale

From further round

Glaidale Rigg is again a site where iron was mined - and whilst we are now in peaceful countryside, two blast furnaces used to sit just outside Glaisdale between 1857 and 1864 (when they were dismantled).

And soon we find ourselves turning off our track onto a very quiet road - with this now formally being part of Glaisdale Rigg.

But today we look at at a very uncharacteristic landscape - and with this in mind I can show two sets of photos - one from two years ago (slightly later in August), and a second from our walk today.

Reaching the road - two years ago

Reaching the road - today

The heather - two years ago

The heather - today

Glaisdale Rigg - two years ago

The Rigg today - not quite the same spot hence why the track changes colour

Towards Glaisdale - two years ago

Towards Glaisdale - today (also not quite the same spot)

The change in weather has certainly taken the shine off the images from today - but all the same, the heather is not as bold or bright, despite my being here earlier in the year than I had been two years ago.

And here these moors - which are already drier than peatland really should be - are getting exceptionally dry in this particular year. And you do start to wonder how much longer this area can support the heather - with grass increasingly starting to take over on these moors.

In itself this is a bit of a problem - because across Britain, peatland stores (at the lower end of estimates) 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon.

And to put this into perspective, if Henry VIII had celebrated his coronation by somehow building a 1GW coal power plant - that coal power plant would not yet have emitted as much carbon as is stored in peat across Britain.

That said, the North Yorkshire Moors is no longer a particularly rich source of peat - and in many ways this shouldn't be a huge surprise given how much drier it is than say the North Pennines. And indeed it only stores as much carbon as Henry's coal plant would have emitted in a single year.

The Peatlands of northern England

The problem you have with peatland (aside from people digging it up to burn or put on their flower beds) is that exposure to oxygen causes it to break down - and so draining land, planting trees, and not keeping land wet causes the peat to break down - and the carbon to escape into the air.

There remains only one spot on the North Yorkshire Moors where carbon is still being sequestered into the soil - an unusual spot called May Moss (which remarkably is owned by Forestry England), that has been re-wilded. 

And so what we see today is the future for the rest of that peatland if we don't start taking it's management seriously - and this is not about whether grouse should or shouldn't be hunted on the moors - this is about whether we want to see five hundred years of coal plant emissions released into the air.

But moving on from such matter, we soon start to come to the end of our walk across this dry landscape - and start dropping down off Glaisdale Rigg into Glaisdale itself.

Now dropping down into Glaisdale

Once in the village we turn to the right - and then meet up with the Esk Valley Walk, as we head round to the train station.

Here I have arrived ahead of schedule - and whilst I could continue on to either Egton Bridge or Grosmont, I instead opt for the more creative option of hopping on an earlier train, that takes me out to Whitby (the same train I had planned to use to go home on, via it's return journey).

At Whitby I leave the train behind, head off to get some fish and chips - and then swap over onto an extremely busy bus (I get on the second of two double decker buses heading off to Middlesbrough, both of which are filling every seat).

But despite this diversion off to get some dinner, the bus here is actually quicker than the train - and so despite the stop for food, I still end up arriving in Middlesbrough ahead of the train - and I'm half tempted to head over just to mess with the heads of everyone getting on that train (who had passed me earlier in the day).

But as it is, I wait for my onward train, and then head home.

Total Distance: 21.0 miles (17.9 miles on the Coast to Coast)

Total Ascent: 1,952 feet (1,391 feet on the Coast to Coast)

Enjoyment Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ★ / 5

Click for an overlapping walk along the Cleveland Way from Kildale to Swainby.

Click for a crossing walk along the Esk Valley Walk from Commondale to Whitby.

Click for a very similar walk along Rosedale Railway from Glaisdale to Battersby.

Disclaimer: This writeup provides a narrative of what to expect rather than a route guide to follow. The route is covered by the 93 and 94 OS Landranger maps - while there is also a Coast to Coast guidebook which includes OS mapping (links redirect to Amazon). The route is in general well way-marked.