Bordley

21st January 2025

  • 7.2 miles / 11.7 km
  • 296 m ascent
  • Easy
  • 8.7 Naismith miles

We try very hard when we design our walks: We need to find starting points with suitable parking, and we need to find walks that offer a wide variety of interests on the way round. We need to think about where we can stop for breaks, and we need to think about whether changing conditions might make the route impassible – ideally, with an alternative if that’s the case. Finally, we like to offer great views – because that after all is such a big part of why we go walking in this wonderful landscape.

What we can’t do unfortunately is turn off the fog. So, today’s walk does have brilliant views . . . it’s just that they were hidden by mist and so don’t show on the pictures. Follow the route on a better day and we promise you there’s a lot to see.

Step-by-Step

We start in Threshfield just outside Grassington: To find the starting point, take the B6265 from Skipton toward Kettlewell, and when you get to the Grassington turn, continue on the B6160 toward Kettlewell. Pass the garage and take the next left into Skirethorns Lane. Drive down to the bottom and the quarry entrance, where there is ample parking at the roadside.

If you are using Satnav to get to the start, then try Skirethorns lane, BD23 5NX as an address, but be aware that that postcode is slightly further down Skirethorns Lane than we need to go. If your device accepts what-3-word tags, then enter inches.trump.episodes whilst for paper map users, the OS grid reference is SD98166385.

We head out on Skirethorns Lane away from Threshfield and Grassington, passing the quarry entrance on our right as we go, noting unambiguous notices making it clear that there is no public access to the quarry site. Nothing particularly surprising there, but a quick search for Theshfield Quarry brings up a number of walking sites suggesting that the quarry site has been specifically redeveloped as an attraction as part as it’s post industrial remediation. The routes shown on those sites all take us through the entrance which now advises “no entry”, so clearly there is a story here:

The quarry was opened out in 1900 and had a 1.2km tramway which connected it with the station yard of the Grassington & Threshfield railway station. Production focussed on limestone, lime coming from five on-site lime kilns. The site was closed and cleared in 2000, and public access to the site was initially encouraged, but antisocial activity during the Covid lockdown raised concerns about health and safety, and access is no longer available.

There are still public footpaths around the east of the site, and one crossing it from Wood Lane (which we pass at the end of our walk). The long term plan for the quarry is currently being developed, so we might hope that access is re-instated in the future. In the interim the reluctant explorers website offers some good pictures.

Denied this interesting diversion then, we head up the continuation of Skirethorns Lane passing a Victorian post box set in the wall of what may well have once been a post office, and soon arrive at a green in front of the houses that constitute the hamlet of Skirethorns.  

There is some evidence of the area around Skirethorns being settled by palaeolithic man: skulls of reindeer, bison, and wolves were found in caves and barrows to the north of the hamlet in the 1890s, and there is evidence of a Viking settlement at Hubba-Cove Heights, which is just to the west of the hamlet. Skirethorns is not mentioned in the Domesday Book (although Threshfield is), and it is thought that the name of the hamlet derives from a combination of Old Norse (Skirr) and Old English (Thorn), meaning The Bright Thorns.

We soon arrive at a crossroads where we go left onto Grysedale Lane – there is no signage to indicate that though so follow the arrow to Grisedale Holiday Cottages, which we pass on our right after about 300m.

At this point we have good views to our left over to Grassington with the chimney which we visited on our Yarnbury Lead Mines Walk visible on a clear day.

We continue south until Grysedale Lane meets Moor Lane coming up from Threshfield. We go right here and continue on a track (no longer metalled) until we get to a gate – beyond that we see a number of paths through a strange landscape showing clear signs of mining in the past. Given the proximity to Yarnbury, we might assume that this was also an area of lead mining – but not so, although the two sites are nevertheless connected: Lead smelting at Yarnbury required a good supply of fuel, and this came from coal mines here at Threshfield, which operated until 1905.

Once through the gate, we take the broad path to the right, heading west. The moor here is used for grouse shooting so the tracks are used by quads – which has the advantage that the routes we need are always clear. There are however a couple of places where there is a fork, with our route on the left and other lesser used paths to the right – if in doubt use the clearer more worn track and refer to our GPX trace.

We follow this track for 1.2 km eventually arriving at a gate in a drystone wall with a fingerpost where we follow the sign for the bridleway to Malham Moor Lane.

This takes us up a track next to the drystone wall for the next 300 until we ford a small beck and then go through a gate. The lane then heads uphill between walls with those on the left carrying dark red lichen. Our next landmark is a gate in that left hand wall – just 400m after we cross the beck.

This takes us into a field which we need to cross, aiming for a second gate opposite and slightly to the right. The route through the grass should be clear, but be aware that when it is wet, this area is rather boggy, and so some variation from the marked path may be required to find a safe footing.

Once through the second gate, the path continues in much the same direction, crossing two becks before it drops down to a gate. We go through and then head toward a large boulder prominent near a corner where two drystone walls meet. From here we look left and downhill to find a gate in the drystone wall at the bottom of the field.

From here we have a great view over the valley and Bordley Hall (a farm) toward Malham. The peak we see opposite is The Weets at 414m, and just beyond that, though not in view is Janet’s Foss.

Once we get down to the gate, we see a marker post and pick up the route for Bordley, just 2/3 mile away.

The path to Bordley is simple and requires no navigational skill – just follow the track through gates until you arrive at the farmyard at Bordley. Once we arrive there, we find another fingerpost and take the route to the right (signed Malham Moor Lane again) climbing up past a recently renovated house on our left, and then just a few metres further, once we arrive at the end of the drystone wall, we head right and begin our return journey.

 

We now have a drystone wall to our right, and a steep embankment with limestone scars to our left. We follow the wall for 400m which brings us to the far corner of the enclosure. We go left here, passing a standing stone to arrive at a stile over the end wall.

We now have a steep section of climbing – we gain about 60m over the next 200m aiming for a water storage tank which soon comes into view. After this the route is more level, but interrupted by a series of stiles, each of which sits at the end of very long thin fields, making it feel like we are climbing a stile every 10 metres.

We are heading east now and continue to do so until we arrive at a dilapidated barn with a stile to the right of it. The stile takes us over into a green lane with a second stile almost opposite, and then down to a farm at Height Laithe. It is worth noting here that the green lane to the right runs over High Moss to the lane with the red lichen on the walls that we used earlier – this creates a clear opportunity to create shorter versions of this walk.

We head down to the farm at Height Laithe and cross the farmyard to take a path from the metal gate uphill heading south. After a short climb we find a gate in the wall to our left and head through this back onto flatter ground.

We now have a 300m section of the walk where we contour around the hillside heading toward a derelict farm building noted on the OS map as Height House. In the mist that we encountered, there is a clear “wuthering heights” feel to this isolated location.

 

We now look to the corner of the field beyond the farmhouse and see a gate where we enter an area with some woodland, and a great deal of bracken. Walking in the winter meant that the bracken had died back, but please be aware that in the summer, the bracken is shoulder high in places, and navigation is based on looking to see where the ground has been trodden before.

Our route for the next 300m or so runs through the bracken at the base of Cow Close Wood – with Rowley Beck over to our right.

Our path soon departs from the woodland and gets much closer to the beck – and we follow it downstream for a while now to arrive at a stepping stone over the stream and into a caravan park. At this point we note a board indicating that the area through which we have just walked is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

From here we follow a clear and well maintained path through the edge of the caravan park, heading for the farm buildings from which the site is managed. From there we continue down the access road to the site which soon meets Wood Lane where we go right.

After just 50m we note a fingerpost on the left showing us one of the public footpaths to the quarry – we are not using that route today, but if you did wish to find out how much of the quarry site is still visible and accessible, that’s an opportunity.

We press on down Wood Lane until we get to a crossroads, and this should feel familiar – we were here at the start of the walk. To get back to the cars then, we go left and retrace our route past the green at Skirethorns and past the post-box, to arrive at the cars.

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