Boltby

Beck, bridge and escarpment

Gurtoff Beck runs the length of Boltby and slips under a humped stone bridge in the middle of the village, its low segmental arch and iron-banded parapet set on sloping causeways. The bridge is 18th-century and Grade II listed, and it once stood beside a yard that the road now covers. Around it the cottages sit close together and face the single main street, built of sandstone under slate and pantile roofs, with grassy verges and natural-stone walls between them. Look for the small things as you walk it: stone spring features, mosaics, sliding-sash windows in the Yorkshire pattern, and the scars where buildings have been lost.

The village lies below the western escarpment of the North York Moors, and the approaches are half the point. Arthur Mee, writing in 1941, put it this way: "Its glory is its approach from Felixkirk, the lovely ride giving us magnificent views of the Vale of York."

A hall, then lunch in Felixkirk

Boltby itself has no pub now, and no shop. There were two pubs once, and a population of 295 in 1851 that fell by nearly a hundred within ten years. At the centre, the village hall occupies the old school, built in 1860 for thirty pupils. Walkers and cyclists can make a hot drink and eat a packed lunch there. It has a kitchen, a toilet and a few parking spaces, welcomes dogs under its rules, and hosts occasional pop-up cafés.

For a meal, drive to Felixkirk, where the Carpenters Arms is a bistro country inn with a bar, restaurant and rooms. Its kitchen uses seasonal produce from its garden at nearby Mount St John. Dogs are welcome in the bar and a designated dining area.

Forest paths and bridleways

Walking is a major reason to visit. From Sneck Yate car park a five-mile circular follows part of the Cleveland Way, drops past Low Paradise Farm into the village, then works through Gurtof Wood, around Whindygill Ridge and Gallow Hill, and back by Steeple Cross and Hambleton Road; allow two to three hours. Boltby Forest covers some 632 hectares of open-access land, planted largely with Sitka spruce over what was moorland and rough pasture. The Cleveland Way holds the escarpment top, and below it lies Lake Gormire, the only natural lake in the National Park.

Riders have their own way in. Boltby Trekking & Trail Riding Centre works out of a farm in the village, where Sheila Ashby takes beginners and experienced riders over bridleways, forest and moor, from thirty-minute mini-rides for children to treks of an hour or two.

Deep history and the road in

The history is older than the cottages let on. In Domesday the place was Boltebi, five households in Yarlestre hundred, one ploughland and six acres of meadow, worth a pound in 1066 and still a pound twenty years later. The de Boltby family held land here from the twelfth century; Odo de Boltby gave some of it to Rievaulx Abbey in the 1130s. Their moated manor house has gone, though its earthworks survive in a field about a mile south. Holy Trinity, the church, began as a chapel in 1409, was rebuilt in the mid-19th century, and remains a daughter church to Felixkirk, with parish registers running back to about 1600.

Boltby lies about five or six road miles from Thirsk, the nearest rail station and home to the World of James Herriot museum on Kirkgate. The A170 crosses the ridge at Sutton Bank, where the view over the Vales of York and Mowbray is the one Herriot called the finest in England. With no public bus beyond school services, visitors arrive by car, taxi, bicycle or on foot.

Kettle by the beck

By late afternoon, the descent from the moor brings you back to Gurtoff Beck, where the narrow village street settles into the sound of running water.