Tabular Hills Walk

OVERVIEW

 

The Tabular Hills run from east-to-west along the southern boundary of the North Yorkshire Moors - and runs between Helmsley (in the west) and Scalby (near Scarborough, in the east).

The trail is a bit of a poorer cousin to the more exciting Cleveland Way - but the opportunity to get a more complete view of the North Yorkshire Moors if often enough to get people to take on this walk.

And with the Cleveland Way, Tabular Hills Walk, Yorkshire Wolds Way connecting up - the three offer up the chance to explore the rocky sections of the North Yorkshire Moors, the softer more agricultural limestone and clay sections of the North Yorkshire Moors, along with the chalky uplands of the Yorkshire Wolds.

If you add to this the Coast to Coast, and then the connecting walks that run across the Yorkshire Dales and on throughout Britain - you can build up quite an interesting view of this part of the world.

But at the same time the Tabular Hills Walk is a bit less exciting than other walks - and a lot of it is done on fairly hard paths - so you do need to have confidence in the solidity of your feet.

Getting on and off the trail can be hard, but I think with my approach I managed to get it down to three stages - without imposing too much difficult on myself in terms of planning or walking.

PRACTICALITIES

There is more than one way of getting to Helmsley. If you are able to get to York by 9:46 you can take the 31X out from York to Kirkbymoorside (the bus times may have changed) - else your best bet is to take a later bus and stay over in Helmsley, or to take the more regular buses to Pickering - and then use that to get to Hemsley in the morning.

I walked from Helmsley round to Pickering - but it does need the mid-summer length of day, as I started, and finsihed, walking fairly late in the day.

It is very easy to stay over in both Helmsley and Pickering, with lots of lovely pubs - and I sandwiched in an easy middle day - making use of the fact that the fairly regular 840 bus between York and Whitby stops at Lockton, near Levisham.

This bus also stops at the Hole of Horcum - and so it would have been possible to start/end a walk there as well fairly easily.

Getting the bus instead to the Hole of Horcrum would have increased the middle day by 2.1 miles - but reduced the final day to Scarborough by 4.5 miles.

Once in Scarborough it is a fairly cheap town for accommodation, so the sensible thing is probably to stay over and not have to worry about onward travel. From Scarborough you can get the train.

USEFUL LINKS

LDWA Page: Tabular Hills Walk - LDWA Long Distance Paths

STAGES

Hemsley to Cawthorne (★★★☆☆) 

I took the bus out to Helmsley in the morning, and started walking around midday. From Helmsley you head north through woods, and then turn east to head across the fields - before you switch over to mostly walking on roads until you reach Fadmoor and Gillamoor.

After here the general walking conditions improve - and next you pass through Hutton-le-Hole and on to Appleton-le-Moors - with a nice section following between Appleton-le-Moors and Cropton. After Cropton it is all road walking round to Cawthorne. From here I cut down on a footpath and road to Pickering.

This section totaled 25.2 miles of walking (of which 20.1 were on the Tabular Hills Way) with almost two and a half thousand feet of ascent.

Cawthorne to Levisham (★★★☆☆) 

Coming soon...

Levisham to Scarborough

Planned to walk in 2027...