Ingleborough

Keasden Church Circular

Easy

4.4 miles | 7.0 km | 143 m Ascent | 5.1 Naismith miles | Kate Rowe
Being able to take a walk on a balmy summer evening is one of life’s treats, and its one that the Bentham Footpath Group try to enjoy a few times each year.
The weather is beyond our control of course, as our August 2023 evening walk from the same starting location showed. This time we were lucky and got good light with excellent views.
The later starting time means that a shorter walk is appropriate, so this walk falls well into our easy category. Easy does not mean dull though -there’s plenty to see with hay meadows in full flower and some great views across the valley to Ingleborough.

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Chapel-le-Dale, Scales Moor and Oddies Lane

Easy

7.4 miles | 11.9 km | 206 m Ascent | 8.4 Naismith miles | Mary Taylor
Living in Bentham gives us easy access to the Yorkshire Three Peaks, and many BFG walks have featured them as their main attraction. This walk however takes a route between two of them without climbing either. Does that mean we miss out on points of interest? Not at all – the best views of the peaks are often not from the top.
We start at Chapel-le-Dale, using the car park for the lovely St Leonard’s Church, and then head up toward Ellerbeck, passing the interesting Statue of a Warrior by Charles I’Anson. From there we head left onto Scales Moor – in effect the southern slopes of Whernside, seeing some of the best limestone pavement anywhere. Once at Twisleton Scar End, we take a path down to Twisleton Hall, and then on to Oddies Lane – a metalled road, built over the route of a Roman Road, which sees very little traffic. This takes us back to Chapel-le-Dale, with great views of Ingleborough along the way.

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Levens and Heversham

Easy

6.0 miles | 9.6 km | 205 m Ascent | 7.0 Naismith miles | Don Cartledge
A quick glance at our website shows that Levens is a firm favourite of the Bentham Footpath Group, and this easy walk demonstrates exactly why – it’s convenient to get to, offers easy walking, is packed with interesting locations, landscaped parks and industrial heritage, as well as offering stunning views back to the Yorkshire Dales, of the Kent estuary, and over to the Lake District fells.
The route we present here overlaps in places with a number of our other walks – the great advantage of this is that you can use this as the basis for longer or more challenging days out by adding sections from the connecting routes.

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Ingleton Circular via Fell Lane

Easy

4.1 miles | 6.6 km | 197 m Ascent | 5.1 Naismith miles |Alison Kinder & Colin Stroud
This walk was designed to be brief such that as a group we could meet as usual yet be finished in time to reconvene with friends and family at the Old Sawmill in Clapham for a convivial meal.
Don’t go thinking that this walk is any the lesser for being short and sweet though – it goes far enough up Fell Lane (one of the routes up Ingleborough) to give good views of the peak, and we have Ingleton and the Lune Valley to enjoy too.
A brief look at the OS map will show that this walk intersects with many other footpaths so there are ample opportunities to extend or modify the route – or simply enjoy it as it is: An easy but enjoyable walk that can be slotted into the day with minimal planning.

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Keasden Wander

Easy

4.5 miles | 7.3 km | 117 m Ascent | 5.1 Naismith miles | Kate Rowe
During the summer months, Bentham Footpath Group generally offers a walk in the evening – the aim is to take a short and easy stroll out of the heat of the afternoon sun, ideally with a brilliant sunset as a backdrop.
Things don’t always work out as we plan though – so although this is a great walk, the weather was not ideal, and our focus shifted to rainbows, brooding skies, unseasonably early fungi and unexpected streams – all equally beautiful in their own way.
Shorter walks mean that it makes sense to start nearer to home, so we set off from Keasden Church just 5 miles from Bentham, and then took a meandering route made up of three intersecting loops – hence the name “Keasden Wander”. Each of those loops offers an opportunity to shorten the route, or indeed to connect with other paths to extend it, so as well as being a good walk in its own right, this route can be the basis for a longer full day of walking.

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Pen-y-ghent

Easy

6.8 miles | 11.0 km | 617 m Ascent | 9.9 Naismith miles | Peter Lennard
Pen-y-ghent is the smallest of the “three peaks” at 694m (2277ft).
This circular walk goes anticlockwise so that we tackle the steep ascent at the South end of the hill first followed by a gentler downhill return with views over to Horton, Ingleborough, and Hull Pot.
BFG walks are rated based on a combination of distance and ascent, and this one is quite short and so is classified as “easy”. Be aware through, that the climb to the peak is steep and rocky, so care is needed.

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