Horsehouse
to
Carlton in Coverdale
25th March 2025
7.1 miles / 11.4 km
232 m ascent
Easy
8.2 Naismith miles
Horsehouse
Step by Step | OS Map | Downloads | Gallery | Fly through
How many Dales are there in the Yorkshire Dales? It sounds like it ought to be an easy question, but it’s not. There is ambiguity about the area covered – is it just the National Park, or the wider area? There is also ambiguity about what a Dale is – is it anywhere where the name ends in Dale or is it a reference to the typical river valley geography? And what do we do where one valley has more than one name along its length – does that count twice?
When we start to list them, some are top of all our lists; Ribblesdale, Wensleydale, and Swaledale for example. Others are rarely mentioned, and Coverdale falls into that category.
In order to find out whether Coverdale’s lack of recognition is simply because it’s dull, we went for a walk from Horsehouse to Carlton and back exploring Swineside Moor and the meadows along the side of the River Cover. What we found was a lovely unspoiled area that is much quieter than the better known dales. So, let’s keep it that way – don’t tell anyone about this under-explored gem.
Step-by-Step
We start from Horsehouse, a tiny village where parking is at a premium. We found a sufficient number of spaces in front of the church of St Botolph’s.
Options for routes to Horsehouse are via Kettlewell, using a spectacularly steep and tricky road, or via the A684 at West Witton, following signs for Melmerby, Carlton, then Horsehouse. If you are using Satnav to get there, then the address is Horsehouse, Leyburn DL8 4TS, or if your device accepts What-3- Words tags, then the exact location of the parking is lightbulb.magazine.dragon, which corresponds to the OS grid reference SE04738124.
If there is no parking available in Horsehouse, rather than creating inconvenience for locals by parking inappropriately, backtrack to Carlton, and park in the Memorial Hall on the main road – there is an honesty box to pay for parking, and as our route passes the Memorial Hall, it’s just a matter of reading the instructions in a slightly different order.
Before setting off, it’s worth taking a moment to enjoy the lovely church of St Botolph’s. The first chapel in the village dates back to 1530 and was served by the canons from the nearby Coverham Abbey. This arrangement ceased to work after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and at that point, St Botolph’s became a chapel of ease to Holy Trinity Church, Coverham. A chapel of ease is a church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently, generally due to travel distance. We have seen a number of small, isolated churches on our walks in the Dales that were built as chapels of ease.
In 1859 it was described as “ancient” but “small”. It was rebuilt in 1869, possibly incorporating some material from the original chapel, and apparently with no involvement from Lancaster architects Paley and Austin, making this two consecutive walks without seeing their work. Despite this architectural oversight, St Botolph’s was Grade II listed in 1988.
Right in front of St Botolph’s is a board introducing this lovely village to visitors, and here we find an explanation for the rather odd name: In a “what is says on the tin” kind of way, Horsehouse provided facilities for horses using the (then very important and busy) packhorse routes that crossed in the village. One route, linked London to Richmond, and crossed over into Wharfedale, using the road that still exists into Kettlewell over Park Rash. This was described at the time as . . . “As wild and as rugged a coaching trip as existed anywhere in the Kingdom”.
With hindsight this should perhaps have read the second most wild and rugged, because on the other important route into Nidderdale, three headless corpses were found in shallow graves at the roadside in 1728. It is thought that the victims were Scottish pedlars who were robbed, and the finger of suspicion once pointed at a local landlady and her daughter. Given that criminal justice standards at the time would have allowed conviction based on gender and possession of a wart, they were perhaps lucky to escape hanging.
To read more about Horsehouse, click . . .
We start out by strolling up the road past the Thwaite Arms and taking the lane to the side of the pub. We go left at the end of this to take a track toward the rear of the houses on the village street which once housed coal miners – more on this later, then just 20m along here go right to head downhill on a waymarked path into open fields. We keep to the left of the first field wall and then head slightly left toward a small barn in the field corner. To the right of this is a gate through the next wall, and the clear and obvious path continues down to the river Cover where we see a wooden bridge.
We cross the bridge and continue toward a stile over the wall to the left of the barn. There are two footpaths here – the one to the right continues along the riverbank toward Arkleside and might be worth exploring another day. Our walk today keeps left following signage for Swineside, and we now walk uphill crossing a series of becks. The path remains clear and visible along the way, but you might note that after heavy rain, the ground here can be a bit boggy so some improvisation to find a convenient route may be required.
After 500m of climbing we start to follow the contours of the hill and now is a good time to look back and enjoy views back to Horsehouse to the right of the valley, with Dead Mans Hill and Little Whernside to the left.
We are now approaching Swineside a tiny farming hamlet, and we take the stile to the right of the barn to pick up the road into the hamlet. We follow this round to the right, and then as it rises, it turns sharp left over a cattle grid. We walk the road for a while (1 km) to arrive at West Scrafton. This perfect Dales village is small in absolute terms but after Swineside feels like a metropolis – the population was estimated at 70 in 2013. West Scrafton has featured several times in the first iteration of the TV series All Creatures Great and Small, in the episodes “A New Chapter” and “Alarms & Excursions“. It is also where James Herriot, whose books were the inspiration for the series, holidayed with his wife, Joan.
To read more about West Scrafton, try their excellent village website:
Scrafton was mentioned in the Domesday Book, and the name is thought to derive from the Old English, from scræf and tūn, meaning “settlement at the hollow”. As early as 1286 Scrafton had been divided into East Scrafton and West Scrafton. East Scrafton was the smaller of the two, and is now a hamlet in the neighbouring civil parish of Caldbergh with East Scrafton. In the 19th century a small coal mine, the West Scrafton Colliery, was worked on the moorland 1 ½ miles (2.4 km) south of the village. Miners once lived in West Scrafton, as well as the miners’ cottages in Horsehouse. The pit was abandoned in 1914.
On the road into West Scrafton keep an eye open for the collection of Bee-boles in the garden of one of the houses to the left of the road. Clearance of the site some years ago revealed twelve bee-boles set in the south-facing wall which were of sufficient historical interest to warrant their being listed. The bee-boles, thought to date to the 19th century, are recesses built into the dry-stone wall and each would have held a bee-hive. A nearby ancient apple tree may well have played a part in supporting the hives.
As we stroll into West Scrafton, we need to keep left in the centre of the hamlet and take the path along the side of Cullen Gill until we see a way marker next to a bench where we are offered a choice of routes. We take the route signed for Carlton ¾, which finds a path between gardens than right into open countryside.
We then bear left to follow the fence line downhill, heading back toward the river Cover. We soon see a wooden footbridge over the river and cross the field diagonally to get to it. This is Caygill Bridge.
Once across, the path continues to a second smaller footbridge, crossing Goodman’s Gill, and then climbs the bank ahead – this is quite steep in places but soon levels out. We follow the gill upstream for about 100m and then divert right over flatter fields toward Carlton. The approach into Carlton is via an old green lane marked on maps as Quaker Lane, and as this enters the village we head left.
Almost immediately we pass the Memorial Hall, an alternate parking place for this walk, and beyond that see the Local pub, the Forester’s Arms, now owned by the community – an increasing common way of keeping village pubs alive.
Carlton was mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086), with a count of 12 households, under the name ‘Carleton’. It is though that this derives from Carl meaning free peasant and ton meaning a village – so Carlton was the village of the free peasant. Today, it is the largest village in Coverdale.
We were not able to enjoy a pint at the Forester’s – it is not open during weekday lunchtimes, so we took lunch in a rather lovely public garden just next to the pub. This sits right in front of a large mound which at first sight looks like nothing more than a hillside. In fact, it is the remaining Motte of the Motte and Bailey Carlton Castle. The Motte is about 33m in diameter and 4m high constructed from the earth of the ditch that surrounds it. It may have been built in the 12th century to protect Middleham Castle while it was under construction.
To read more about Carlton, click . . .
The second half of the walk takes us back to Horsehouse along meadows adjacent to the river Cover – we start out by heading up the main road for 100m, then taking the footpath signposted for Flats Hill. This takes us over a series of stiles crossing numerous extremely narrow fields. The path is clear throughout and soon arrives at a minor road. We go left at the road, and then almost immediately see another fingerpost (on the left) taking us back into fields and downhill toward the river.
We head generally south for the next 400m until our path again arrives at a minor road, and again we go left. This time we stay on the road a little longer – just 75m until we see a footpath sign on the right; this takes us onto an ancient green lane known as Turnbeck Lane.
We follow this for the next 800m, crossing a beck with a wooden footbridge and then working our way ever closer to the river Cover as we progress. We eventually arrive at a point where Turnbeck Lane goes hard right – and up to the minor road we drove in on. We could stay on Turnbeck Lane and then go left at the road, but more convenient is the onward path through one more field and then onto the lane – where we still go left. We are now at Gammersgill named from Old Norse Gamall, a males name, and skali ‘hut’, so ‘hut of a man named Gamel’.
On the way through Gammersgill keep your eyes peeled for film stars: In 2022, the National Park Authority commissioned a film called farming through the seasons as a way of supporting hill farmers to make their voices heard during a period of time that the government is calling an ‘agricultural transition’ for England. In it, locals Stephen Bostock and nephew Dave Fullerton share the hardships and joys of their working life at Hall Farm in Gammersgill. A bit like Clarkson’s farm, but with farmers.
Click here to see the film.
As the road bears left in Gammersgill, look for a footpath sign at the left hand verge, and follow it into fields. Notice the curious folly in the woodland adjacent. The path forks here. The option to the left heads down to stepping stones across the river and a route to Swineside, but we keep right and over a stile then behind the farm to take a gentle path South. This also arrives at the river which we follow for the next 800m.
Eventually, things start to look familiar, and we realise that we are at the footbridge that we crossed right at the start of the walk – and we can see Horsehouse just ahead and to our right.
The final part of the route is a reversal of the outbound journey, and we soon arrive back at St Botolph’s.
Bentham Footpath Group walks are categorised according to distance and elevation change. This is just below the 12km threshold for a moderate walk.
