A-Walking: Middleham to East Witton

We set off at about 11.00 am in a southerly direction from Middleham {SE 128 878}. There were eleven of us in the group: PB, KF, CH, JJ, JP, SR, MS, GT, JY, PY and Rob. JJ led the walk.


On leaving Middleham, we passed the castle on our right as we headed south to Cover Banks {SE 127 867}. Here we swung right onto a westerly bearing to follow the River Cover (see picture below) to our crossing point at Hullo Bridge {SE 118 865}.


Continuing in a southerley direction we reached the minor road at Braithwaite Hall where we turned right. We left this at {SE 114 859} to follow a path on our left which took us to Caldbergh {SE 094 850}. We had a little difficulty finding the bridge over Caldbergh Gill, so, we decided to do a 'conventional A-walk' crossing. Then, as often happens, after we had crossed the stream, we looked back only to see clearly the bridge that we previously could not find!

We continued on our SW bearing up Coverdale, walking on a route that (more or less) followed the River Cover (on our right) to reach the delightful village of West Scrafton {SE 074 836} where we had lunch. Some of us had very comfortable seats ...


while others had to 'rough it' ...


The hard work started after our lunch stop when we had to climb up onto West Scrafton Moor {SE 078 811}. As we reached the top, there were patches of snow on the ground and we had to contend with strong 'head-on' winds and a heavy hail-stone storm. We were now heading roughly south and continued in this direction until we reached Steel House Gill {SE 093 797} where we picked up a good track to the east.

We turned onto this track (which followed the course of the River Burn) and stayed on it until we reached High House Farm {SE 121 806}. From here we took the road to Colsterdale and onwards to {SE 144 814} where we picked up a path on our left. This led us to our second good climb of the day. It took us up onto Agra Moor {SE 137 827}. As we climbed, we passed between Slipstone Crags (to the east) and Brown Beck Crags (to the west).

Continuing in a northerly direction, we had a short gentle climb onto the eastern edge of Witton Fell. Once this climb was over, we had a good down-hill run ('metaphorically speaking') into East Witton {SE 145 860}. As we made our descent, it was snowing quite heavily.

When we arrived at the village, some of us managed to get into the local pub for some quick refreshments before boarding our faithful coach for the trip back to Middlesbrough.

Martin-S took some photos during the expedition. He has emailed me some copies of these. Click on the button below to see them.



Click on the button below in order to see the GPS tracklog of where we went and the height profile of our walk.



Many thanks to Jill for a tremendous walk and a wonderful day. We all enjoyed our expedition and had some really great fun.

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