Woods & Fields

Directions

1. Start exactly as for Woods & Maltongate, into the woods and along the stream.
2. At the five-bar gate, turn left along Bottons Lane.
3. A kissing gate takes you into the fields, dog on a lead from here. The path runs diagonally across with the old railway station away to your right, then up the hill.
4. A third kissing gate puts you onto a quiet road. Turn left and follow it past the allotments and the cemetery, where the views open out.
5. Watch the front gardens along here for a bungalow with a full model village laid out in it, lit up at Christmas.
6. Return either on the ha-ha footpath, keeping to the gravel as on the Yellow Walk, or along Peaslands and Dog Kennel Lane into the centre.

Before you set off

• Dogs on a lead across the fields, where there are sheep and lambs.
• If you return by the ha-ha footpath, keep to the gravel: the concealed ditch alongside can be hidden by summer growth.
• Close every gate behind you. Several routes cross land with sheep, and a few have chickens and a horse alongside the path.
• Keep dogs under close control everywhere, and on a lead near livestock, in the churchyards and through the village.
• After heavy rain, check that Thornton Beck is not in spate before using the low beckside stretches or paddling.
• Distances, total ascent, gate and stile counts and current path conditions are not published in this guide, so carry OS Explorer map coverage or a mapping app.