Three Great Circular Walks for Winter

Start your journey at the Malham Tarn car park and take a right. Continue for around 100 metres then head through the gate to your left. You’ll see Tarn Moss on your right, a wet woodland amongst bog and marsh which is an important conservation area.

At the road junction turn right. Continue and you’ll pass the National Trust Estate buildings. Look out for the gate to your left signposted for the Pennine Way and follow it past Great Hill. When you reach the tarmac road, cross and go through the gate on your left onto the way-marked bridleway.

Continue over three wall crossings. At the fourth, look out for the little brown walker on a circular sign and continue along the bridleway to the next wall crossing, where you’ll pass through a gate.

Leave the bridleway and follow the way-marked post then go over the timber step stile in the fence and a step stone stile in the wall. Now you’ll head downhill across open pasture in a south easterly direction.

Take a moment to stop here and take in the view of Malham Tarn, the nature reserve and the beauty of the glacial lake, one of only eight upland alkaline lakes in Europe, before following the path to your left and through the gate. Turn right at the road and continue until you arrive back at your original starting point.

Beginning your walk at Saltergate car park on the North York Moors, you can take in the Hole of Horcum in all its glory. Created by a process called spring-sapping, with water from the hillside gradually eroding the rocks over thousands of years, it has become an enormous natural cauldron-shaped amphitheatre at 400 feet deep.

Locals refer to it as the Devil’s Punchbowl as legend has it that Wade the Giant scooped up a handful of earth to throw at his wife during an argument. Whether you believe the science or legend, it’s a magical sight.

Loop around the Hole of Horcum and head through a gate into Levisham Moor, where you can enjoy views of the Hole from above. Follow this pathway for around two miles. Head left at a signpost for the Hole of Horcum and look out for the Highland cattle.

At the signpost which marks the junction of the river and stream, turn left and stroll through the fields past an old farmstead surrounded by sheep and cattle.

Begin the ascent to the summit, turn right and and you’ll loop back to Saltergate car park for your final chance to take in the view.

As the most northerly of Yorkshire’s dales this can be bleak countryside, laid bare in places, but there is much beauty in the landscape here as you travel up and down dale.

Said to be named after Arkil, an 11th century Viking chieftain, Arkle Beck runs through the valley to join the Swale at Reeth. In 1656 the dale was bought by Dr John Bathurst, physician to Oliver Cromwell, and the Bathurst family did much to develop lead mining here. Both Swaledale and Arkengarthdale produced lead for the mining industry throughout the 17th and 18th centuries and they both carry the scars of abandoned spoil heaps and old shafts which add character to, rather than disfigure, the landscape.

This walk starts at one of Living North’s favourite pubs, The Charles Bathurst Inn. It’s just under eight miles and it does take you up and down dale, through numerous gates and over a beck or two.

Past the pub, (don’t worry, the walk is circular and it will still be there on your return!), go right, over a stile and head downhill, over a bridge and follow the track round Scar Ho to Scar House, an imposing residence and now a shooting lodge, once owned by Sir Thomas Sopwith, renowned for the Sopwith Camel plane. His wife, who disapproved of the larger house Eskeleth Hall which sat higher up than Scar House, had the hall pulled down.

Once here, head uphill to the gate onto a small lane. By the next farmhouse, go through the two gates and then follow the wall to the right and then to the left, carry on to the road ahead and then you need to turn right. Turn right again at the signpost and carry on for a mile along the track until you get to a junction, where you need to bear left and follow the track as it heads into a narrow valley pockmarked by spoil tips from the Windegg Mine and Scarr, and where, in some places, the different layers forming the Yoredale series of rocks can clearly be seen.