1
Leaving the village hall car park turn right passing the tea room to the junction. Turn right crossing Hawnby Bridge and walk 200m uphill on a narrow road to the first road junction to your right signed Daleside. Turn right and follow this road downhill for 150m to cross the stream and then continue, initially uphill, on the stone track for 550m to where the track splits to go to Sunny Bank Farm. Take the left hand fork, ie not to Sunny Bank Farm, and in 200m at the gate and Private Notice turn left to follow the bridleway downhill. Go through the farm gate on your right and now follow the fence and stream downhill to the gate in the field corner. Continue now steeply downhill to the gate and stream at the bottom of the valley. Over the stream, turn right and follow the stream on your right along the valley bottom to a grass track and farm gate. After the gate bear diagonally right to follow the stream, still on your right, gently uphill past a boarded up farm house on the other side of the stream to reach a gate and stile into a wood. (SE 5302 8878)
(A) Hawnby is a small crossroads village and civil parish in Rye Dale in the North York Moors National Park. The village is mentioned twice in the Domesday Book After the Norman invasion, the lands passed to the King and were granted to Robert Malet. The village sits at the junction of several small roads at the head of two valleys, close to the B1257 road between Oswaldkirk and Stokesley. The 1851 UK Census recorded the population as 326. The 2001 UK Census records the population as 223, of which all of the 127 aged over sixteen years were in employment. There were 94 dwellings, of which 65 were detached.The 2011 Census showed a reduced population of 217.There is an Anglican church dedicated to All Saints in the village, built in the 12th century. It stands on the banks of the River Rye.There is also a Weslyan Chapel founded in 1770, following a visit from John Wesley and rebuilt in 1814. Both church and chapel are Grade II Listed Buildings.
2
Continue forward on the track in the wood for 150m and at the finger post turn right to go down the steps in the bank, bending right and round the pool on your left. Follow the path uphill for about 50m to find a forestry track going diagonally to your left. Take this forestry track which soon becomes a forestry road and follow forward for 1300m to where it drops into a more open valley and the track turns back on itself. Continue forward up the open area to find another forestry track going uphill for 450m and to a gate onto open moorland. Continue forward on the same, now grass track, for 150m and at the junction of several wide grass tracks turn left (SE 5121 8945). Follow this grass track over the moorland for 400m, eventually reaching a wall/fence/gate corner and the junction of four paths. Turn right in front of the gate, still on the moorland and follow the wall on your left for 700m to gate onto the end of a road and a crossing trail, ie Cleveland Way and the Paradise Trail. (SE 5046 8900)
3
Through the gate, turn right and follow the obvious path with the moorland fence/hedge to your right for 1500m to a gate back onto the moorland. Continue forward on grass moorland track with a stone wall on your left for 2000m, ignoring a bridleway to your left and a well used crossing stone track to your left and right. Just before a protruding section of an old stone wall in a shallow valley, (SE 4902 9188) turn right onto a grassy bridleway path gently climbing out of the shallow valley and continue forward for 500m going past a stone wall to your left and on to a bridleway gate to your left front. Through gate follow path bearing right very steeply downhill to valley bottom (locally known as 'Hidden Valley'). Continue forward on obvious path,(crossing stream at SE 4973 9169) for 350m and then bear left to follow obvious path gently uphill and just to the right of the wood ahead. Follow wood on your right for 300m, bearing right at junction, to find gate into wood. (SE 5035 9150)
4
Now follow obvious track/path through Thorodale Wood for 2000 metres, generally downhill and keeping forward at various forestry track junctions. Where the track turns hard right downhill, (SE 5194 9086) Leave it and continue straight ahead towards a copse of trees and gate into a field. Continue forward through the field with hedge/fence on your right for 400m to reach gate onto farm drive. Bear left up farm drive for 100m and then bear right to take track between farm buildings and onwards for another 250m slightly downhill to where track bends left. At bend turn right entering a field over a stile next to a gate and follow hedge on your left for 150m to reach gate and track into wood. Follow track downhill in wood for 350m to ford and footbridge over stream. Immediately over footbridge, turn left through farm gate and cross another footbridge. Now follow stream on your right to gate and along path to a large, ornate wooden bridge. (SE 5319 9091)
5
Over bridge continue on obvious path uphill for 200m to where path turns right and there is a farm gate to your left into a field. Turn left to go through gate and then right to follow fence on your right uphill for 150m. Go through farm gate in fence on your right and turn left up bank and cross field to gate in far fence to the left of the farm. Though gate turn right and follow grassy track for 250m, bearing left where grassy track splits, to find stile into wood to your front. Follow path in wood, then field perimeter and then wood again for 1000m, past gate on right out of wood, to stile out of right hand side of wood. In field follow fence on your left for 50m to stile in this fence. Turn left over stile and follow path through copse to another field, Bear diagonally right across to far corner of field and gate onto access track. Follow access track to minor road and cross it to take road steeply downhill with the ‘Inn at Hawnby’ to your right. Follow road for 450m downhill to T junction and turn right to the small shop and tea room and village hall parking. (SE 5431 8936)
