Coast to Coast Path: The Vale of Mowbray

Tuesday 1st September 2026

This section of the Coast to Coast Path is the longest on the whole trail with Wainwright’s original schedule starting in the town of Richmond after a half-day from Reeth left time to explore the medieval castle and market place. The twenty-three miles to Ingleby Cross could be split, but the terrain is so tedious compared with the rest of the trail Wainwright thought it best to get it over with quickly and all in one day. The Yorkshire Dales lie to the west and the North York Moors are to the east while twenty miles of flat farmland lie in between, on the northern extension of the Vale of York, known locally as the Vale of Mowbray. The previous day I had continued walking from Richmond as far as Catterick Bridge to shorten the distance, but this would be of little help to me because of a diversion thanks to the national trail, so with a long distance ahead of me I set off early. Almost immediately I was walking beside the River Swale, making this its fourth day as my constant companion, but we would soon part company. Initially I was walking past gravel workings, now largely filled with water, so my progress was accompanied by the honking of geese and provided me with a scene that looked superficially wild, compared with the farmland that would dominate the rest of the day.

Soon the River Swale was left behind and after passing through the quiet, little village of Bolton-on-Swale I took a footpath that follows the stream, Bolton Beck, until it reaches a road. Wainwright had a lot of problems with the public footpaths on this section of the trail because the rights-of-way shown on maps were often impassable due to “barbed wire, dykes, too-friendly bovines and other obstacles”. Although he attempted to devise a route using public footpaths, he eventually had to resort to following quiet, country lanes for eight miles, but the second edition of the Coast to Coast Walk introduced an off-road route that is now the official route of the newly instated national trail and may have been the route that Wainwright had intended to use. However, there is still the option to follow Wainwright’s original route along the road and, given the off-road route through farmland is little better, it is tempting to take the shorter and quicker route along the roads. However, since I had started walking so early I had enough time to follow the national trail, so at Ellerton Hill I turned off the road onto a footpath and soon reached the busy B6271, which rather defies logic because Wainwright had deliberately chosen quiet country lanes whereas the modern route at this point includes a section beside a busy road. Fortunately there was a wide grass verge so I was able to keep safely away from the speeding cars until I reached the point where the field walking would begin beside many arable fields. 

This was all very tedious until, near Danby Hall, I entered an enclosed lane, which was lined with trees, and, to quote the latest Wainwright guidebook, was “very pleasant to walk along” and for me it was like a breath of fresh air. Soon after that I entered the village of Danby Wiske where I stopped on a handy bench near the White Swan Inn for a rest and something to eat. I was now back on Wainwright’s original route, which had kept to roads since Ellerton Hill so now I got a taste of what that felt like as I followed the road over the River Wiske and the railway line until I cut the corner on a footpath that took me to the busy A167 road at Oaktree Hill where Wainwright’s eight miles of continuous road walking finally came to an end. From this point Wainwright was more successful at following public footpaths so the modern Coast to Coast Path largely coincides with Wainwright’s original route, except where the right-of-way has been diverted away from farm buildings. A lovely enclosed track took me past White House Farm, while a new footpath took me on a wide diversion around Northfield House and an even wider diversion kept me away from Harlsey Grove. The hills of the North York Moors were now very close, but unfortunately the dull walking was by no means over. This section of the Coast to Coast Walk ends just after the village of Ingleby Arncliffe, but blocking access is the A19 dual carriageway, which even Wainwright, more than fifty years ago, described as a race track.

For all these years, Coast to Coast walkers have had to “scurry across at top speed” to get to the safety of Ingleby Arncliffe, but with the awarding of national trail status this had to stop. The obvious solution is to build a bridge, but no one wants to pay for that so, officially, the solution is a six mile diversion to a pre-existing bridge, after having already walked the longest section of the whole trail, making this now an enormous twenty nine mile stage. I could have risked my life by following generations of Coast to Coast walkers across the race track, but I had plenty of time so I turned north and followed the diversion along farmer’s tracks that brought me to a busy road, which I had to walk alongside until I reached the A19. Immediately after crossing the road, I made my way across three freshly ploughed fields that brought me to Parson’s Lane with more footpaths to follow until eventually I reached the grassy track of Fowgill Lane, which led me, finally, into Ingleby Arncliffe with the end of the stage not far off at Ingleby Cross. However, my accommodation was not in this village, and instead it was in Osmotherly at the top of the hill ahead of me, so after a long, gruelling day I entered the North York Moors National Park and began to climb. My ascent took me past Arncliffe Hall and into Arncliffe Wood where Wainwright was unable to follow the right-of-way due to forestry operations so his route just followed the forest roads, but now the right-of-way has been restored and I was able to follow this steeply up the hill. After spending all day walking across the flat Vale of Mowbray it was great to be climbing through woodland on an excellent footpath and this eventually led me out of the wood to amazing views back across the farmland that I had just crossed and soon I reached Osmotherly. This was an exhausting, long walk with very little to interest me, so I just spent the day focused on the music I was listening to and the ground at my feet, and it was only when surrounded by trees that I woke up from the tedium of the walk.