Eaglescliffe to Croft-on-Tees
Walked by Sally and Richard, Friday 17th July 2015
Approximately 17 miles (9 hours of walking), almost all on 'JordanWalks' version of Teesdale Way (note that the official route is at least 18 miles).
Click here for all our photos from this walk.
I frequently start my description of a day's walk by waxing lyrical about the walk, or saying how much better it was than expected, so I should redress the balance by saying that today wasn't great. The countryside was very pretty and the weather was almost perfect for walking. The problem was me; I had slept very badly and felt light-headed and lacking in energy for much of the day - thankfully I was almost fully recovered by the time we got to Croft, but the combination of my lack of energy and a path that was very overgrown in places led to very slow progress. Fortunately we were able to take a short cut and, most unusually, we also had reason to be grateful for a fair stretch of road walking towards the end which enabled us to make up lost time.
The Clairville Hotel was nothing special but perfectly OK. It was close to the busy A135, so there was some traffic noise, but I don't think it was that which had kept me awake in the night. We had a good breakfast and left the hotel at 8.45am. It had been raining so we donned waterproofs before leaving, but the rain had just about stopped and the weather was fine and dry for the rest of the day, though occasionally overcast and quite windy. We bought provisions for lunch at the little Co-op (NZ423141) and easily found the route of the Teesdale Way alongside the golf course back down to the river.
We turned right by the river and followed it on a large meander round to the bridge between Eaglescliffe (or is it Egglescliffe at this point? - see discussion in yesterday's entry) and Yarm. We were puzzled by an attractive modern building on the opposite side of the river, and later discovered that this is part of Yarm School, including their dining room! The road bridge at Yarm here has an attractive railway viaduct just behind it; a goods train went over the viaduct just as we arrived, but unfortunately no trains subsequently passed by in order to be photographed.
We emerged onto the A67 by the Bell Inn, crossed the road and continued along the river bank towards Aislaby, with (perhaps) a warning of things to come in the form of a notice from earlier in the year that work was in progress to replace the board walks at Aislaby following flood damage, but that the route was passable for those with appropriate footwear. The walk to Aislaby was OK, and here there was a new Teesdale Way sign, indicating 6 miles to Middleton One Row, with no exit routes from the path for 3 miles.
It was that next 3 miles that caused the problems. Initially there was a new board walk, but soon we were onto uneven ground with old, broken and sloping boardwalks. We then reached a point at which the way ahead was completely overgrown; we noticed that other walkers had taken a path slightly further from the river, alongside the arable fields to our right, so we did likewise. I'm not sure whether that's the official route at this stage; in certainly is later - the edge of the river was not far away, and overgrown fishing stations and regular life belts reminded us that the river was there, even when we couldn't see it for undergrowth. The problem was that the crops have been planted right up to the field edge, so finding a route through remained hard work.
Eventually, after passing around the edges of several fields of wheat and barley, we realised that there was a bank to our left, presumably with the footpath on it. We climbed up the bank only to find that the path was still completely overgrown, so we slithered back down and continued along the field edge. At last we reached a way out of the arable fields into an attractive and relatively straightforward section of walking through woodland. Phew.
We came across a path leading up from the woodland, but we weren't sure whether this was the route that we wanted. This was the moment that Richard discovered that his OS Locate App needs an internet signal - which we didn't have - in order to work. Well, we're guessing that this was the problem, all that really mattered was the fact that the App, which had worked perfectly at home and so had lead us to leave our GPS handset at home, failed completely the first time we needed it in anger. We had to use old fashioned technology - Richard's legs. Richard climbed up the path and used his map reading skills to fix our location. This was not the official route, but it was a good way up to a road and to a location we could see on the map, so after stopping for lunch we used it!
We turned left, past some barky dogs and Newsham House. It was attractive walking; we'd climbed a reasonable amount and there were good views to the North York Moors to the south east. The road became a track and then a footpath which descended through a field of sheep. We reached another road on a corner near Low Middleton Farm. The route of the Teesdale Way turns left here, past an interesting looking dovecote and back down to the river, but we decided to stay on the road, for ease of walking. We made good time to Middleton One Row and stopped at the Devonport Hotel for a drink of J2O (a flavour I hadn't had before - raspberry, apple and rose).
Middleton One Row is so-called because it only has one row of houses, the other side of the road is a grassy bank sloping down to the river. We returned to the river bank and followed a most attractive wooded section. We emerged by the Church at Low Dinsdale, then made a decision to take a short cut due west to Neasham. In fact, after taking this route, we discovered that the guidebook mentions it as a possibility, with the only reason given for taking the more circuitous official route to the South, or the even more circuitous official alternative, being a wish to follow the route of the Tees as faithfully as possible, including a sortie onto the Sockburn meander. Tough. Our route was fine and we were catching up.
Neasham used to suffer badly from flooding, but they have recently improved the flood defences, and the Teesdale Way follows a new bank between the houses and the river. We then continued along the road to Hurworth-on-Tees, a pretty village with lots of rather desirable properties.
Towards the western end of Hurworth we turned left onto Blind Lane, and followed the road towards the river. We turned off onto a footpath which eventually brought us past a cricket pitch and close to a large building with lots of cars parked and manicured lawns. But what was it? It turned out that this was Rockcliffe Hall, where we could have stayed for the mere price of between £200 and £300 per night.
We reached the railway (the East Coast Main line) and turned right alongside it. We emerged onto the road we had been following earlier, and followed it past a pub, then across the bridge and into Yorkshire. There was a pretty church on our right hand side with the Croft Hotel straight in front of us.
We registered at the hotel, but the first room we were given was on the front of the hotel overlooking the road, and I really needed a good night's sleep, so we asked to move. The second room we were given was rather warm and there was some noise from an extractor fan, but this didn't disturb us at all in the night. In the evening we had a lovely meal in the hotel's smart bar area.
