Discovering Little Fryup dale.

15/10/2017.

I fancied the Lake district this weekend but what with all the rain they have had up there I decided against it. The North York moors looked like the best shot for decent weather. I always check the weather, don't know why? there's nothing I can do about it, I suppose it's just what the English do, we all love the weather,don't we?..It looked good, nice and sunny with temps in the low 20s. I was looking forward to the nice drive over the moors from Hutton le hole to Castleton..What a joke, viability was down to about 50 yards as we crawled along at 25 miles an hour. Good job that the lines in the middle of the road had been freshly painted...We eventually made it down to Eskdale and to the starting point for todays walk, The Moors centre at Danby lodge. What's with all the people I said as we pulled into the car park...Dozens of miserable looking people jumping around on the spot, doing stretches, There was some sort of running event on...Serious people those runners, never seen one crack a smile..i had hoped to have a look around the visitors centre but with all these people around we just wanted to get started...get away from it.

Todays walk was going to take us up into Little Fryup dale, a place I have never walked before. I like the name Fryup, it is said to derive from the old English Fring.hop. Fring was an Anglo Saxon goddess and Hop denotes a small valley. We never saw Fring today in fact we only saw one other person during the whole walk, which is just how I like it.

We hadn't been walking long before we came to Duck bridge. This sturdy,high arched bridge is a fine example of a 14th century Packhorse bridge. It was originally known as Danby castle bridge until it was repaired in 1715 by a George Duck hence its present name..Apparently it remained open to traffic until 1993. I doubt many of todays cars would be small enough to pass over it.

Just up the lane from the bridge we came to another 14th century gem, the remains of Danby castle sitting on a spur overlooking the Esk valley. It was built for local lord of Danby, Lord Latimer as a sign of his great wealth. It is also well known that Catherine Parr once lived her, Henry VIIIs sixth and last wife. Today the castle is open to visiting groups by appointment only. It is also a venue for weddings.

Such a quite valley, with just a handful of farms along it's entire length. I was enjoying the walk although I kept looking up to the high ground wishing I was up there. We could see a few people moving at speed along the ridge, probably miserable runners I thought...The cows in the valley looked happy munching away at the lush green fields, they made me happy they hardly bothered looking up as we passed by.

We picked up a lane which we were to follow up the valley toward Fairy cross plain, and the hills at the head of the valley. Fairy cross plain is another strange name, I have read that Fairies are said to live by a stream up there somewhere. The small round hill on the left in my picture is marked on the map as Round hill, centuries ago it was known as fairy hill...I find these old tales of folklore really interesting...What's wrong with believing in fairies?

A little further on and we spotted a molecatcher's Gibbet. I counted 98 moles hanging on barbed wire fences.Once a common sight but something you don't see much of these days, part of farming life. The molecatcher will hang his catches up to show the landowner that he is doing his job. This chap has certainly been busy. Over the years I have seen other examples of this behaviour I have seen Rats hanging or more commonly Rooks and Crows.

At last we made it up to higher ground on the slopes of Heads..It was here we stopped to eat, sitting looking out over the emerald green fields in the valley. The views from up there were the highlight of the walk for me. I enjoy all walking but it's always best to get onto the hills rather than looking up at them.

We traversed along the top of Danby crags before dropping down and doubling back on ourselves to pass though Crag wood.. Some lovely autumn colours on display as we passed through the woods...A bit muddy in places though [which pleased the dog].

Back down in the valley we came to the River Esk where we decided to clean the dog off [which pleased the dog]..All that was left now was to follow the quiet lane back to the start...I looked back to the dale often...it had been a good walk with some outstanding views, roll on the next one.