A soft half-light day, muted and cool, lay over the Yorkshire Wolds.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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We left the Wolds Inn at Huggate with chaffinch noise in our ears and David Hockney’s tree tunnels and swooping fields in our mind’s eye. Jane had returned from Hockney’s 2012 Royal Academy exhibition of landscape paintings fired with enthusiasm for exploring the folded East Yorkshire countryside, where in the early 1950s the Bradford boy had spent his summer helping out a local farmer with the harvest and learning to drink beer in Huggate’s village pub.
The long shallow hills of the Yorkshire Wolds dip and rise around Huggate in successive waves; a clichéd image, perhaps, but nothing better expresses the sense of frozen movement, the smooth roll and majestic length of these ridges of chalky ground. Our heads might have been filled with Hockney’s golden seas of corn, scarlet shadows and bright white farmhouses, but today all colours lay leached and subdued, soft greys and blues washing the sky, wheatfields and woods. A red tractor with white wheels moved shockingly bright against the shrouded landscape.
Up on the backs of the Wolds the impression is of walking in land that’s almost flat. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the sea appear ahead. Then suddenly we were on the brink of Pasturedale, a hidden valley opening at our feet, a snaking crack in the earth. A steep chalky track brought us down the dale side into the valley, and we headed up the flat bottomed Frendal Dale and Tun Dale in a golden spatter of dandelions with the dark sides rising sharply to rims clear cut against the sky three hundred feet overhead.
At the top of Tun Dale we emerged onto the roof of the Wolds again. Great yellow rape and green wheat fields ran away to isolated farms and thick dark shelter belts of trees on the horizon. Down once more into the depths, into Horse Dale whose Access Land status gave us leave to wander the cleft among cowslips, speedwell patches and just-flowering bedstraws. Sparrowhawks were hunting the slopes, drifting and swinging across the wind blowing south down the dale, then finding a rigid stance a hundred feet in the air to hang and scan the ground.
At the head of the dale we joined the Yorkshire Wolds Way and followed it back towards Huggate’s church spire down an avenue of cherries frothing with pink and white blossom, brilliantly lit in a burst of sunshine come through at last.
Start: Wolds Inn, Huggate, East Yorks, YO42 1YH (OS ref SE 882550)
Getting there: Huggate is signed from A166 York-Driffield road
Walk (10 miles, easy, OS Explorer 294. NB: online map, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk). From Wolds Inn, right; first right (‘Village only’). Descend beyond houses; left on Yorkshire Wolds Way/YWW (881557). Follow YWW for 3 miles via York Lane (867558), Pocklington Lane (866548) and Jessop’s Plantation (854543) to cross road at foot of Pasture Dale (850546). Follow Chalkland Way for 3 miles via Frendale Dale and Tun Dale, Waterman Hole (856569) and West Lands (866566) to go through gate at foot of Horse Dale (867561). Slant left up far side; follow east rim of Horse Dale (Access Land) for 1 mile, passing opposite diamond-shaped wood on far slope. Look for prominent tree on east rim; just beyond it; right through gate (883570); follow YWW back to Huggate.
Lunch: Picnic
Accommodation: Wolds Inn, Huggate (01377-288217; woldsinn.co.uk) – cheerful and welcoming; many David Hockney associations (just ask!).
Information: Beverley TIC (01482-391672, visithullandeastyorkshire.com);
yorkshire.com visitengland.com www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk