My Wolds Way Diary: North Ferriby to Brantingham

This Place, a column by Vicky Foster

Exploring Hull & East Yorkshire

Vicky Foster is walking The Wolds Way in stages. Here she picks up the trail between North Ferriby and Brantingham

It’s been a while since my first post about The Wolds Way, at the start of the year, when we set out on the January 2 to walk the first leg.

You might remember it was my New Year’s resolution to walk the whole thing, from Hessle to Filey, and that I said my progress will probably be slow. So, I make no apologies for the fact that there’s been a long gap between that post and this, or that I’ve only got two further short legs to report so far.

Already, writing up these walks between Ferriby and Welton, Welton and Brantingham, which we did back in January, I can feel the changing of the seasons.

It’s nice to remember the feel of the thick cold air, the dense muddiness of every mile we’ve so far covered, while I sit with the spring sun streaming in through the window, beginning to dry out and harden the land.

Writing this has made me want to get back out and see how the trees and undergrowth are changing, and what the next views will be in store for us. So, it may be that the next Wolds Way column will appear quicker than this one did, but then again, it might not.

It’s hard to say how things will work out, but that’s all part of the enjoyment.

‘AS STILL AS A POND’: A view of the Humber from Ferriby

Sunday, January 16: Ferriby to Welton

The morning has arrived bright and crisp, and we drive back to Ferriby, where we pick up the low tide route of the Way, at the bottom of Church Lane, at around 10.30am.

The sky is pastel blue and white. Birds chirrup in the trees and a duck quacks as the path takes us alongside The Reed Pond, which lives up to its name with long dark plants swaying at its edges.

There’s a fine mist hanging over the Humber, which, when we reach it, is almost as still as the pond, with only a faint breeze rippling its surface.

The path leads us down onto the shore, and there are markers explaining that you can’t take this route at high tide. I haven’t checked, but the water is a long way out, and we decide we’ll be OK.

It is definitely worth planning though, and if you can come at low tide, I’d highly recommend it, for the crunch of the pebbles, the way the light glows in the long rivulets carved in the wet mud. But be warned, it is very slippery with rocks covered in green moss and weed surrounded by deep sloppy mud that rose a couple of inches over our boots for a lot of the way.

It’s a noisy, squelchy walk, punctuated by the sucking sound created each time you lift your boots.

My eyes were focused mainly on my feet, planning my next step, or looking at the ground slightly ahead to see what was coming. But I checked myself and took the time to turn and look back, to see how the land curved behind us towards Hessle, along the route we’d walked last week.

‘A WHOOSHING, WHIRRING SOUND’: A heron in flight over the Humber

Just as we are beginning to think we might have to turn back, because the shore seems almost impassable, it curves suddenly inward; wet mud gives way to orange sand.

The rocky wall we’ve been walking beside is replaced by a soft earth cliff, and birds sing in a woodland along its top. We stop to take in the sudden shift and relief, and into this shock of softness and quiet, comes a whooshing, whirring sound. I look up to see a heron in flight, long neck and legs outstretched, soaring over the water and in towards the trees.

We watch it go and then follow its route, taking the metal steps up into the woodland where we find a marker, with the acorn emblem, pointing us back onto the High Tide Route of the Wolds Way.

We set off on the path that winds between trees, birdsong filling the air, my boots now decorated with sand which has stuck to the wet mud of the earlier shore, like sprinkles in ice-cream.

Houses are visible behind the trees as we move inland. We cross a royal-green railway bridge. Tiny bright buds of leaves cling tightly at the tips of bare branches. There is traffic noise beyond them, and on the ground dead brown leaves are woven through with ivy.

We emerge onto a tarmac footpath that runs alongside the A63. On the left is open land of russett grasses, and I realise this is a view I’ve often admired from the car, setting out towards the M62.

I hadn’t realised we were walking into this place. I will be surprised like this a lot on this walk, I realise.

‘WE’VE LEFT PEOPLE BEHIND US’: An isolated track on the route between Welton and Brantingham

Geography is not my strong point, and another advantage of becoming a walker is that it’s already giving me a better sense of how places that, as a driver, have always seemed somehow disconnected from each other, join together.

We cross the roundabout and enter onto another woodland path, this time gently sloping upwards towards Welton.

The incline increases steeply enough to have me breathing hard before it levels off again, revealing the golden stubble of crops that stud the fields on the right.

We enter the grounds of Melton scout camp, walking its chalk path, and are treated to the gorgeous view across open land to the river on left.

The huge white buildings of the Omya plant at the quarry rear up on the right and we pass a long line of solar panels before crossing a busy road and proceeding down the side of the plant, where signs declare ‘Blasting takes place here’.

This is evident in the chalk dust that has lain down over the sparse grass and weeds. We move along - another uphill path with views that break in through the thin line of trees. Land rolls down to meet the now-distant river where we walked an hour earlier.

It makes me stop and pause - the pink sky, towering turbines, distant hills and water. A gaggle of geese rest in a field, pecking the ground.

‘CLEAR CHALK STREAM AND PRETTY CHURCH’: Welton

Soon after this we arrive in the beautiful little village of Welton, with its clear chalk stream and pretty church. The smell of bacon sandwiches wafts out of the Memorial Hall, where the Lucky Duck café seems to be doing a roaring trade.

People tuck in at the picnic benches in the garden outside or wander away with takeaway coffee cups. We join them, find our car, pull off and pack away our muddy footwear, and head home to get warmed up.

North Ferriby to Welton: 3.5 miles

Sunday, January 23: Welton to Brantingham

The following Sunday we return to Welton, which is again bustling with people wrapped up warm as they walk their dogs or leave the little church.

I exchange a few words with a woman in a yellow coat I met last week, and then we pick our way past a pond and take a mud track, where pine trees thicken to our left and steep hills rise away on our right.

It’s busy here too – walkers in pairs or big groups, small children in walking boots, adults in bobble hats and Barbour jackets.

The hillside is dotted with gorse bushes, the first I’ve seen since we started; their short thorny branches and yellow flowers providing a contrast to the trees and bushes that have so far made up the majority of the plant life on the walk.

‘A PATCHWORK OF FIELDS ROLLING DOWN TOWARDS THE WIDE BROWN RIVER’: A vantage point on the approach to Brantingham

Their coconut scent reaches us in snatches. The virtually silent traffic noise is very distant now – and by the time we’ve made our first steep muddy climb, it’s almost disappeared entirely.

The tweeting and chirrupping of birds takes its place, and the squelch of our boots in the thick, clinging mud.

Everything is muted browns and orange - the straight bare trunks of trees, the carpet of fallen leaves, the stone of a round-topped mausoleum that appears among them.

We emerge onto a concrete path where ploughed fields climb away to our left for a short while before we turn again, onto a path that levels off for a while between fields, where rich dark green leaves grow close to the ground.

Soon, the view opens out and brown fields rise away far into the distance. For the first time today, I notice the sky - a blank white space above us.

There’s a lake here, half hidden behind trees, revealing itself in small dark snatches, and a church beyond it. The smell of wood smoke drifts from a large white house. We have left people behind us, and decide this would be a good spot to eat our lunch.

WAYPOINT: The ten-mile marker

Bellies full, we set off again, the path sloping gently downwards. The contrast in the kinds of landscape and scenery you experience on the Way is already becoming evident; we’re now walking through an open vista of undulating grass fields, turned earth, wind turbines turning like the echoes of trees in the distance.

We emerge onto road for a short distance, climbing a steady incline, before turning back onto a mud track which weaves between a high hedge and a line of trees, still gradually climbing.

Gunshots boom in the distance, the sound muffled in the dense afternoon air.

It feels like mist or rain could fall anytime, and I’m glad we’re only a mile away from Brantingham now.

We’ve passed fewer and fewer people as we move further away from Welton, and the mood of the walk has changed from sociable to contemplative. You can’t help but be affected by the changing feel of the places and how populated they are.

A marker appears bearing the now familiar acorn, which tells us we’ve completed ten miles of the Way so far, and the remaining distance to Filey is 69 miles. It feels like a big moment, and a bench is provided so you can stop and enjoy it.

‘BLURRED BY THE HALF-MISTY LIGHT’: The church in Brantingham

We sit down and finish our flask of coffee before setting off again. Brantingham Wold Grange’s tree-lined drive makes us pause a while, reflecting on the grandeur, wondering who owns it, how it came to be built here, in this isolated setting.

When we move on, we find ourselves soon walking on a tarmac road. Its name is Spout Hill, and it’s a place I know well.

I’ve been coming here to park up and enjoy one of its woodland walks for about ten years now, and as we progress, we pass the entrance to our usual walking spot. We don’t turn in though, because it’s not part of the Way.

Instead, we head on, to where a gate across a field reveals just how far we’ve climbed - the view is a patchwork of fields rolling down towards the wide brown river.

A right turn brings us onto a steep mud path where a huddle of houses and farms sit in a valley away to the left. A long line of pylons stamp away into the falling fog across the flat land beyond.

Ahead rises hillside, blurred by the feathery branches of trees and the muted, half-misty light. The pretty little church sits low, away to the right, and beside it, our car waits.

In a few minutes we are once again pulling off our muddy boots and heading home.

Welton to Brantingham: 4.2 miles. Wolds Way walked so far: 10.8 miles