Not strictly a circular walk as we got a steam train back to the start.
The sun was shining and it was warm, got the scooter off the back of the van and set out for Grossmont. We arrived at Grossmont station abut 11:00 and decided that rather than take a train ride, we would walk to the next station at Goathland, we would walk along the old, original route of the railway, just under 3 miles away. We cross over to the east side of the track using the level crossing and head south, parallel to the line.
You may noticed that a lots of walks we are doing are along old railways, there are reasons for this, first you know where you are going (you do not have to guess which field to cross, etc), and secondly these walks are flat (no big hills to climb). So this walk starts with a big hill, the original route of the railway through a tunnel, is now the way into the workshops area, so the walk goes over the top. You do get some excellent views from the top, looking back towards Grossmont station. From the top the path drops down to the far side of the workshop area and you can look over to the parked up engines and other rail machinery.
The walk is along the original course of the Whitby to Pickering railway, built by George Stevenson in1836, as a horse drawn tramway. Even though this is an old rail track it is not boring and does meander around quite a bit along the way. We crossed over a small river ( the Murk Esk) two or three times during the walk but, sadly the old railway bridges had been replaced with wooden pedestrian footbridges.
About two miles into the walk we came to site of the old Beck Hole station and I remembered that Trev had mentioned there was something interesting there. So we left the track and headed towards some houses, what we found there was a pub so obviously we had to stop for a drink. Trev was right, there was something interesting there, the Birch Hall Inn, one of the smallest pubs you will ever find.
Even though Beck Hole is in the middle of nowhere, the pub was very busy with walkers, eating and drinking on the day we where there. I got served through a small serving hatch in a very mall bar, I had a pint of Beckwatter, Beckhole's Best Bitter and Dot had her usual. We sat outside to drink but watching others eating and as it was now 13:00, I had to go back in for some sandwiches (and another beer).
Back on the trail it was about another 1.5 mile to Goathland and we were surprised to find that some of it was up a steep hill, originally on this part of the line, the carriages were winched up by a stationary engine.
Goathland was incredibly busy, with many cars and coach trips, it is famous as the set for Yorkshire Television's long running TV series Heartbeat. There was no filming today, the last time we saw them filming Heartbeat, was about 50 miles away in Masham. We joined in with the other tourists visiting the sights and doing souvenir shopping, we got birthday presents for Dot's Dad, Dot got a new rucksack (pink) and I bought some new walking shoes (not pink). Heartbeat is famous for it's 1960's Ford Anglia police car (like the one in Harry Potter), there were three of them in the village.
We thought hard and made the decision to get the steam train back to Grossmont, so we wandered down to the station, a train we due soon, so we bought a ticket. If you like steam trains this is a god place to be, as it is here that that the northbound and southbound trains cross. It was very busy but I got a good position on the station footbridge for photos.
Great but short steam train ride back to Grossmont, about ten minutes is all it took. Back at the station I checked the scooter was ok, then we walked through the world's first passenger railway tunnel to the workshops. The tunnel, on the original Whitby to Pickering railway, was built by George Stevenson between 1833 & 1835, as part of the horse drawn tramway.
Sir Nigel Gresley (the LNER Class A4 locomotive 60007 that is), was in the workshop for repairs, it had broken a suspension spring the day before.
If you wanted to you could walk back to Grossmont, that would make it a walk seven mile long.
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