Dalehouse

The Pub Beside the Bridge

The Fox and Hounds sits at the bottom of a wooded valley, and its floor is a Union Jack carpet. Inside are two bars, an open fire and a woodstove, Dralon-covered stools, horse brasses and hunting prints. The building is a late-18th-century former farmhouse and cottage of coursed squared stone under a pantile roof, and the pub describes itself as free from televisions, juke boxes, fruit machines and bad language.

The kitchen cooks Whitby whole-tail scampi, slow-cooked venison with seasonal vegetables, braised pork with cider, crème fraîche and Dijon mustard, and shoulder of lamb with Yorkshire pudding. There is a shortcrust steak pie, chicken curry, liver with thick onion gravy, Cumberland sausage and macaroni cheese. Paul manages the bar, cask ale is on, and the painting on the pub's homepage is by a local artist, Derek Boyes. Tables sit out front, and a sun terrace at the rear looks over the old stone bridge.

Bridge, Mill and Becks

That bridge is worth crossing slowly. Dalehouse Bridge dates from 1745 and carries Staithes Beck; its parapets mark the old parish boundary, with inscriptions beginning "HEAR BEGINS" for Hinderwell and Easington, and an arch in the abutment once carried the mill race. Beside it stands the Old Mill, the former corn mill, now a combined house and cottage. Bridge, mill and pub form a small listed cluster at the heart of the hamlet.

Dalehouse is a hollow of sandstone-and-pantile cottages, farmland and woods. Staithes Beck meets Dales Beck in the centre, and the water marks the boundary between North Yorkshire and Redcar and Cleveland. Three quiet lanes climb inland toward the moors.

Ironstone and the Way to Staithes

Around 1875 a tramway was cut through the village to carry ironstone from Grinkle Mine down to the loading facility at Port Mulgrave. It closed in 1921, and woodland has since taken back most of the line; little of it shows in the streetscape now.

For shopping, Staithes is about fifteen minutes' walk away, with a Co-op, The Kessen Bowl and Betsy & Bo, which sells sweets, chocolates and deli produce. Staithes is the reason many people come: harbour lanes, a beach, and a volunteer-run museum with free entry that welcomes dogs and holds thousands of objects covering fishing, ironstone, alum, the lost railway and Captain Cook's apprenticeship here.

Clifftop Walks and Practical Arrivals

The walking starts at the door. A four-mile circular follows the Cleveland Way along the cliffs from Staithes to Port Mulgrave and returns through fields and woodland via Dalehouse. The pub's own loop leaves the Staithes car park and passes Walkers' Halt, Red House Farm and Beck Meetings, though it does ask you to cross the busy A174. The parish church, St Hilda's, is at Hinderwell rather than here; rebuilt in 1773 on a medieval site, it keeps the upper part of a Norman pillar piscina, an oak screen and an organ from Selby Abbey. Its churchyard well, Hildewella, gave the village its name.

Getting here means minor lanes below the A174. The nearest stations are Saltburn and Whitby, and Arriva's X4 between Middlesbrough and Whitby stops at Captain Cooks Close.

Evening in the Valley

In the evening the valley goes quiet, the beck keeps on under the 1745 bridge, and the terrace at the back of the pub is the best place to sit and hear it.