At the road junction in the middle of Gillamoor stands a stone sundial on a plinth, made by John Russell and dated 27 August 1800. It was paid for by subscription, and its commissioners got their money's worth: the cube carries meridian dials facing east and west, vertical dials facing north and south, a horizontal dial on top, a table for the Equation of Time and a sphere marked with the solar hours.
Those two rows are most of the plan of the place. Gillamoor is two lines of limestone cottages along a broad main street on the southern edge of the North York Moors, about 150 metres up on the escarpment above the River Dove. Walk to the end by the church and the ground simply drops, falling around 300 feet towards Lowna Mill where Farndale becomes Douthwaite Dale. Beyond it rise the heather of Hutton and Blakey Ridges and the flat limestone hill called Shepherd's Nab.
This is the Surprise View, and there is a bench beside the church to take it in. The National Park lists it among the viewpoints suitable for visitors with limited mobility.
The Church of St Aidan sits right at the edge. A local stonemason, James Smith, built it in 1802, reusing stone from a redundant church at Bransdale, and two tablets on the outside record that he completed the chapel "with his own hands". It is squared limestone with a timber bellcote, a lead spire and a fish for a weathervane. Inside there is a west screen built around a balustrade dated 1682, a twisted-baluster communion rail from about 1700, a 19th-century tub font and a double-braced king-post roof.
For food and a bed, The Royal Oak is the principal option in the village. It is a family-owned 17th-century inn with twelve en-suite rooms, a fire in the bar and a designated corner where dogs are welcome. Head chef Salvo changes the menu with the seasons and cooks in-house: fish pie with salmon, smoked haddock and prawns; lamb-shoulder shepherd's pie; Radford's bangers and mash; beef-shin and red-wine ragù; a courgette, asparagus, lemon and ricotta risotto; lamb rump with pea purée and mint salsa verde; Korean fried chicken. The fish comes from Hodgson's of Hartlepool, the produce from Taylors of Pickering, and there are local cask ales on the bar.
Half a mile off, at Priest Garth Farm, Gillamoor Organics sells milk from a vending machine and eggs from a self-service shed. John and Eileen Gibson have farmed here since the early 1970s and now work it with their daughters Ruth and Rachel: fifty dairy cows, about 250 hens and more than 200 eggs a day. "Well, it's more of a shed," Ruth says of the shop. Two donkeys, Blossom and Beauty, come home to the farm to rest after a summer of work on Scarborough beach.
The walking starts at the churchyard. A seven-mile circular drops down past Gillamoor Mill, crosses the Dove, and comes back through Douthwaite Dale and Hagg Wood, passing a ten-slab stone bridge over one of Joseph Foord's gravity-fed watercourses, cut in the mid-1700s to carry water to Douthwaite Lodge and other farms and villages that had none. Getting to the start is easiest by car; public transport is very limited: Kirkbymoorside is two to three miles south, on the A170, the nearest station is at Malton some thirteen miles off, and the only public bus, service 174, runs on Mondays.
You could do worse than an evening on the bench by the church, watching the light go off the ridges above Farndale, the egg shed quiet down the road.