Austwick and the Norber Erratics

Recommended by

Walk directions

From the bridge, walk through the village. Bear right at the triangular green, following the signpost to Horton. Pass The Game Cock Inn and, just past a cottage called Hobbs Gate, turn left up Town Head Lane. Above the last of the houses, go left over a stone stile signed ‘Clapham’.

Walk up the field to another stile, and on to a ladder stile onto a lane. Turn right. Just before reaching a metalled road, turn left over a ladder stile and follow a track. As the track veers left, go straight on, following the stone wall to a stone stile by a gate.

Cross the stile and continue up beside the wall. Where this bends left by a very large boulder across the path, go right on a track to pass the right-hand edge of the scar. When you reach a signpost, go up left, signposted ‘Norber’.

Follow the path up onto the plateau to see the Norber Erratics. Return the same way, back to the signpost. Turn left, following the sign for ‘Crummack’. Follow the green path downhill then back up beside a wall by the scar to go over a stone stile on your right.

Descend to a gap by another stile and follow the path beneath a rocky outcrop. Continue downhill, with a wall on your left, to reach a gated stone stile onto a metalled lane. Cross the lane and go over another ladder stile opposite.

Turn left across the field. Go over two stone stiles, cross a farm track and go straight ahead on a slightly sunken grassy track over a rocky ridge to a stone stile. Continue to a gated stile, go left for a few paces and then turn right on a track. This soon leads to a ford and clapper bridge.

Cross over and follow the track between the walls for half a mile (800m) into Wharfe. Turn left at a T-junction in the hamlet, then follow the lane round to the right and go down to reach a metalled road. Turn right. After 100yds (91m), turn left at a bridleway sign to Feizor, down the road to Wood End Farm.

Turn right on a track beside the entrance to the farmyard. Follow it as it bends left and right, then bear right where another track joins from the left. Reaching a crossroads of tracks, take the middle of the three, towards a white-painted house. The track winds to reach the metalled lane into the village, a few paces from the bridge.

View all directions

Location

Nearest postcode:

Additional information

Terrain - Field and moorland paths, tracks, lanes, 8 stiles

Landscape - Farmland and limestone upland

Dog friendliness - Dogs should be on lead

Parking - Roadside parking near Austwick Bridge and in village

Toilets en route - None on route

Walks in North Yorkshire Dog-friendly walks in North Yorkshire

About the walk

There is nothing showy about Austwick village. A pleasant, grey-built village, it has several old cottages, many of them dated in the traditional Dales way by a decorative lintel above the main door, showing the initials of the couple who had it built, together with the year they moved in. They... mostly date from around the end of the 17th century. On the green in the centre is the restored market cross. The market itself was lost centuries ago to nearby Clapham. The walk takes you up Town Head Lane from the village, and across fields into Thwaite Lane. To your left is the ridge of limestone called Robin Proctor’s Scar, named after a local farmer whose horse was trained to bring him home after a long night spent in the local pub. One night, too drunk to tell, he mounted the wrong horse, and it plunged over the crag with the farmer on its back. The area below the scar was formerly a tarn, and is now home to a wide variety of marsh plants. Nappa Scar, which the walk passes after you have visited the Norber Erratics, is on the North Craven Fault line. The path goes along a ledge below a steep cliff. In the cliff wall you can see the different strata of rock, including mixed conglomerate and limestone. To geologists they are a place of pilgrimage, and even the non-specialist can tell that something odd is going on here. When you arrive on the plateau above Nappa Scar you find an extensive grass-covered area, with the remnants of a limestone pavement poking through the tufts. Strewn all over the pavement are grey boulders, some of them huge, perched on limestone plinths. These are the erratics. Blocks of ancient greywacke stone, they were carried here from Crummackdale, more than half a mile (800m) away, by the power of a glacier, and dumped when the ice retreated. Over the centuries the elements have worn down the limestone pavement on which they stand – except where the erratics protected it, resulting in their elevated position. After you cross Crummack Lane and walk though fields with a limestone ridge and ancient agricultural enclosures, you will reach Austwick Beck, where the water is crossed by an ancient clapper bridge – flat stones laid across the stream from bank to bank. This leads into a walled track to the hamlet of Wharfe. The route returns to Austwick along other walled lanes. These are the remains of old monastic ways that linked the granges, high on the fells, to the monasteries like Fountains Abbey which owned the vast sheep walks.

Been on this walk?

Send us photos or a comment about this route. Or recommend a route of your own.

Find out more

Walking in Safety

Read our tips to look after yourself and the environment when following this walk.

Learn more

Get an AA guide

Explore our range of ‘50 Walks in’ guides - they’re the ideal companion for a ramble.

Learn more

Been on this walk?

Send us photos or a comment about this route. Or recommend a route of your own.

Find out more

Walking in Safety

Read our tips to look after yourself and the environment when following this walk.

Learn more

Get an AA guide

Explore our range of ‘50 Walks in’ guides - they’re the ideal companion for a ramble.

Learn more

About the area

North Yorkshire, with its two National Parks and two designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, is England’s largest county and one of the most rural. This is prime walking country, from the heather-clad heights of the North York Moors to the limestone country that is so typical of the Yorkshire Dales – a place of contrasts and discoveries, of history and legend.