Appleby and Great Ormside

Start/Finish: The Cloisters, Boroughgate, Appleby (GR: NY683204)

Distance: 7.75 miles/12.5 km

Time: 3–3.5 hours

Terrain: Field and riverbank paths, green lanes, tracks and quiet roads

Height gain: 476 ft/145 m

Facilities: Appleby (cafés, shops and pubs) and Hoff (pub)

Maps: Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer OL19, Howgill Fells & Upper Eden Valley; OS 1:50,000 Landranger 91, Appleby-in-Westmorland

This gentle circuit through quiet countryside includes long stretches beside two idyllic watercourses: the Eden and Hoff Beck. Great Ormside and Hoff are small communities of great charm. The higher sections offer fine views of the North Pennine fells. High Cup Nick,
looming magnificently beyond Appleby Castle keep, provides a spectacular backdrop to the walk’s closing stages.

Appleby, handsome buildings of red sandstone, is the former county town of Westmorland and a key crossing point of the Eden. The main thoroughfare is sloping Boroughgate: Appleby Castle, a Norman structure, and High Cross are at the top; St Lawrence’s Church, Market Place, Low Cross, the Moot Hall and the Cloisters at the bottom. The crosses denote the market’s limits.

Appleby Castle and High Cup Nick on the approach to Appleby

Route

1. From the Cloisters, gateway to the Norman St Lawrence’s Church, turn left on Bridge Street and cross the Eden. During the floods of December 2015, the bridge arches were submerged. Turn right
on The Sands and continue into Bongate, named because in feudal times bondsmen (or serfs) lived here. Just after the Royal Oak pub, drop right on Mill Hill. Bear right at a fork and cross the Eden on a footbridge. This delightful spot features a ford, a former mill, a weir and picnic tables. The castle keep is up to the right. Join a track rising from the ford and immediately turn left on an enclosed way, signed for Ormside.

2. This narrow way soon emerges into open country. An obvious path tracks the Eden upstream. The river, to the left, is a constant companion through fields and a short wooded section. A second, longer stretch through trees ends with the path climbing steps to the right. At the top, bear left and follow a level path to a stile on the right. Cross it, descend sharply and bend left to a footbridge over Jeremy Gill, an Eden tributary. Cross and climb to the right.

3. The path levels and continues over a stile. Cross a stream and crest a rise to find a stile. Turn left on a grassy way. It opens out into a field. Turn right, cross a stile and join a track under the Settle-Carlisle railway. Where the track bends sharply left, keep ahead through a gate. Great Ormside is before you. Hug the left edge of a field and in fifty yards pass through a gate. Bear half-left to a stile in the field corner. An enclosed way emerges on a road in the village. Head right and, without neglecting to turn and admire the view, follow the road as it climbs under the railway. It soon descends and where the road levels, turn right through a gate into a field (signed Tilekiln Ponds).

Hoff and Hoff Beck

4. Keep to the right edge of the field. In its corner, join a track and pass through a gate. Rise to a gate then cross the next field, aiming for a gate in a fence. Beyond, bear half-left in a field and, after cresting a rise, locate a kissing gate in its corner. Turn left through a young plantation. Leave it via a stile and maintain the line across a field’s bottom edge to reach a road. With Tilekiln Ponds on the right, climb left. As the road levels, turn right, by a fingerpost, through adjacent gates. Bear half-left across a field and pass through a gate in a fence. Drop, on the same line, to a stile in its corner. Before descending, look back on a splendid fell panorama. Join a road and turn right.

5. Where the road bends left, turn right through a gate. Climb the left edge of a field. Pass through a gate and, using a gate on the left, in twenty-five yards move to the other side of a fence. Maintaining the line, descend to Lookingflatt Farm. A gate provides entry to its yard. Pass between outbuildings to the farm’s drive. Turn left and, passing the farmhouse, go through a gate. The drive bends left. Here, locate and cross a stile on the right, signed Hoff.

6. Follow the right edge of a field. Cross a stile in a thin belt of trees and bear half-right, aiming for a stile in the field corner. In the next field, bear half-left. Climb to spot a stile to the right of a bridge over Hoff Beck. Turn left on a road into the pretty hamlet of Hoff. Just before the whitewashed New Inn, bear right on a track (signed Bandley Bridge). Keep right of Stonekirk, a house, pass through a gate into a farmyard then angle right through another gate. Follow a clear path, left, along the bank of Hoff Beck. The course through fields is obvious. After an enclosed section, the path runs very close to the water. Entering a wooded gorge, climb steps to the left. Cross a stile and descend to a kissing gate. Beyond, at a fork, bear right and in fifty yards cross a stile and Bandley Bridge.

7. Immediately after the bridge, at a fork, bear right, cross to the far side of a wall then climb steeply left, aiming for a prominent tree on the skyline. At the top, a wonderful panorama is revealed: Appleby and its castle keep fill the foreground, with High Cup Nick beyond. Cross a stile and bear half-right across a field. Locate a stile to the right of livestock pens then hug the left edge of the next field to a corner, where a stile admits to a green lane. Turn right. In 100 yards, bear left over a stile into a field. Walk along its right edge. Descend to another green lane. Turn right then left over a stile. Follow the right edge of a field to Colby Lane. Turn right to a T-junction by an attractive green. Head left on the B6260, forking right up Shaw’s Wiend to the top of Boroughgate, by the castle entrance. Almshouses, part of a hospital built in 1651 by Lady Anne Clifford, are on the right. Seek residents’ permission to view the courtyard. Descend Boroughgate to the start.