WALK 1 COMMONDALE to DANBY via Ainthorpe (5 miles)

Catch the 1030 hours Middlesbrough to Whitby train, alight at Commondale and leave the platform. Once through the gate from the platform turn right and follow the boundary fence until it becomes a stone wall. A few yards along that stone wall you will see a crossing over the railway.

Cross the stiles and follow a path at 12 o’clock from the far stile to a footbridge over a stream. Once over the footbridge go in a direction at 11 o’clock from the footbridge sharply uphill where you encounter a stile over a dry-stone wall.

Negotiate the stile and immediately over it go up the side of the field keeping to your left past one wooden gate to a gate and stile at the top of the field. Bear left over the stile to another gate at the corner of some buildings and once through you will see a wall stile at the top of the yard. Turn left over the stile and carry on in that direction through two fields until you come to a farm track past some farm buildings.

Continue along the farm track until it turns sharp left, then 40 yards further on turns right. Where the track turns right go straight across the field to a gate with stile next to it in a stone wall.

Go over the stile and carry straight on to the stile at the other end of the field and having crossed that take a direction at 1 o’clock towards some farm buildings and a gate. Go through  the gate and walk alongside a high stone wall on your right to a gate. Turn left through the gate and follow a farm track downhill between stone walls to gateposts where the track runs out.

Go in the same general direction bearing left then right but keeping to the contours of the land until you reach another gate. The path now bears right and goes uphill and then at the top bears left and goes downhill for 30 yards. There on your right is a stile into what looks like  overgrowth but do not despair go forth and in 20 yards you will be rewarded with a farm track on which you should turn left.

Follow this farm track downhill which goes through farm buildings and on to fields but always downhill until it levels out. Immediately it levels it turns left into another field and once in that field turn right and follow the edge of the field until you see a wooden footbridge over a stream.

Once over this go through the field in an 11 o’clock direction where you will come upon a stile on your right. Cross that and keep to your left until you reach another stile and once over that turn immediately right to follow the edge of the field uphill to the last stile before the pub. At 10 o’clock from there follow the side of a wooden fence until you reach a metalled road. Once on the road turn left and follow the road for about a quarter of a mile where you will be rewarded by one of the best pints of Camerons Ruby Red in the country in the Eskdale Inn.

Having enjoyed a well earned pint, if you can bear to leave the pub, retrace your steps until you are standing at the foot of a steep hill with the Moorlands Hotel at the top. Climb the hill and turn right past the Moorlands where near the top of the road  you will come upon a sign on your left to Blakey.

Take that direction and go down a steep track over a cattle grid past some up market cottages on your left. In the distance you will see a hill with a mast upon it, the general direction is to the right of the hill. At the bottom of this track are some more cottages directly in front and the direction is to the left and next to some barns to a stile next to a gate.

Once over the stile go straight across the field to another gate and stile and on the other side turn left along the side of the field to yet another gate and stile.

Go over and left along the side of fields twice until you come to a sign showing left to footpath and straight on for bridleway.

Take the bridleway at 1 o’clock direction through a gate, which leads over a culvert and on to another gate warning to keep out. Turn right and keep to the side of a wooden fence round a field where you will come to a small gate. Go through the gate and bear left up a field to another similar gate. Through that and bear left sharply upwards then level then again sharply up to a metalled road.

On the road turn right and follow it to a gate over the road where you turn left off the road along side a stone wall. You go uphill keeping the boundary wall on your right along the top and down the other side where you come to another metalled road. Along the road to your right a short way you cross a cattle grid and over that you see a gate on your left. Through the gate turn right and keeping right you come to stile over the wall.

Cross the stile and in the field turn left and follow the side of the field to the end. At the end turn right and carry on across the field where you will find a stile over the stone wall Keeping the boundary on your left continue in this field past the owners house and you will come upon another stile similar to the last one on to a metalled road.

Turn left along the road which bears right then left and at the latter bend go through a gate on your right to a stile over a wire fence. You now go over four fields with stiles in between until you come to a stile over a fence on to a metalled road.

You turn right along this road for 20 yards when you turn right up a bridleway at the end of which eureka is the Fox and Hounds Ainthorpe for a well-earned pint.

Having enjoyed your rest you leave the pub and turn right following the metalled road to a junction opposite the fire station where you again turn right downhill all the way, over a bridge over the river Esk  and on to the station which is on your left seen from the bridge over the railway.