11:43am Monday 22nd June 2009
A few miles to the south-west of Redcar is Flatts Lane Country Park, a lovely family day out in itself, and the starting place for a stunning walk up onto the wilds of Eston Moor, says Mark Reid.
POINTS OF INTEREST FLATTS Lane Country Park covers a large area of woodland, grassland and wetland just to the south of industrial Teesside and Middlesbrough, and takes its name from the track known as Flatts Lane that crosses this country park, which was an important trade route between markets and ports in the Middle Ages used by monks, farmers and merchants.
In the 1850s, ironstone was discovered in the area and the Cleveland Railway was built across the site, which transported the ironstone to furnaces and foundries alongside the River Tees. Later, brickworks were built on the site utilising the local clay to make house bricks for burgeoning Middlesbrough. In the Seventies, the brickworks were demolished and the site cleared and developed for recreation into the country park of today.
Rising up to the east of this country park is Eston Moor, a swathe of windswept moorland that has almost a primeval feel about it with its heather, bracken, scattered silver birch and boggy wetlands. Perhaps this is because this moorland is littered with prehistoric remains, including several Bronze Age burial mounds, a ring cairn and ditch and bank field boundaries.
This ancient farming landscape dates back over 3,500 years and remains very much intact due to the fact that around 2,500 years ago the climate began to warmup, and so these early farmers moved down from the hills to the more fertile valleys leaving behind their cultivated uplands, which gradually became uncultivated moorland.
The finest of these prehistoric monuments is the large hill-fort that encircles Eston Beacon, the only surviving hill-fort in Cleveland that was occupied from the early Bronze Age (circa 2,000BC) until around 500BC and the onset of the Iron Age. The deep defensive ditch and bank around this hill-fort is still clearly visible. Eston Beacon is a stone-built tower that was built in around 1800 as a look-out post and warning beacon during the Napoleonic Wars, later used during the Second World War.
Just beyond the Beacon is Eston Nab, a sheer escarpment of gritstone boulders from where there are superb views across Middlesbrough and the vast and fascinating industrial landscape of Teesside with its flare stacks, cooling towers and chimneys.
Standing amidst a Bronze Age hill-fort looking across a very modern landscape, the contrast is striking.
WALK INFORMATION
Distance: 4.5 miles
Time: 2.5 hours
Maps: OS Explorer Sheets 306 Middlesbrough & Hartlepool
Parking: Large car park at Flatts Lane Country Park
Refreshments: Shop and toilets at Flatts Lane Country Park Visitor Centre. No facilities en route.
Terrain: Clear tracks and paths across heather moorland and through birch woodland, although rough and muddy underfoot. The ascent and descent to and from Eston Moor is fairly steep along a rough, muddy track.
How to get there: Flatts Lane Country Park lies along a minor road signed off from the A171 near its junction with the A1043 just to the south-east of Middlesbrough.
Caution: Keep well away from the edge of Eston Nab – sheer drops.
THE WALK
1From the Flatts Lane Country Park Visitor Centre (with your back to the centre), head straight on over a small footbridge and walk across the open, bearing slightly to the right up past a bench in the field corner to reach a stile just beyond that leads onto the road. Turn right along the road (take care – face oncoming traffic and walk in single file) for about 50 yards then, as the road bends to the right, take the footpath to the left into woodland (signpost). Follow the clear path bending to the left up some steps through the woods to soon reach a clear track across your path. Turn left along this track to quickly reach a stile beside a gate (signpost Footpath to Eston Nab).
2Head through the gate and follow the rutted, muddy track straight on, climbing steadily up across the hillside, with woodland on your right, to reach a stile beside a gate at the top of the climb after 0.5 miles (with Eston Moor ahead). Head through the gate and follow the clear path bending round to the right then, where the path levels out and forks after a short distance (waymarker post), follow the left-hand path heading across the moor. Follow this clear, wide path straight on across the heather moorland through birch woodland then, where you emerge from this woodland after about 0.25 miles, you reach a large pond on your right. Just after the pond the track forks, follow the right-hand track straight on gently rising up across Eston Moor for 0.75 miles to reach a track across your path just before the group of transmitter masts at the top of Eston Moor, with the stone-built Eston Beacon just across to your left.
3After exploring Eston Beacon, Eston Nab and the Bronze Age hill-fort, turn right along this track passing the transmitter masts on your left and follow this clear track heading straight on with coniferous woodland on your left and the open moorland of Eston Moor to your right. After 0.25 miles, the track bears away from the woodland slightly (by a bench) and drops down across the moorland for a further 0.5 miles to join another clear track which you follow straight on to quickly reach a small overgrown stream/boggy ground at the bottom of a ‘dip’.
After the stream, carry straight on along the clear track passing an old quarry on your left and follow this track gently rising up then curving round to the right and levelling out, at which point turn off the track to the right along a narrow grassy path (with gorse on your right).
4Follow this narrow path straight on to soon join a fence on your left. The path becomes much clearer and leads straight on alongside this fence, with Eston Moor to your right and fields to your left, for 0.5 miles to reach dense woodland in front of you (where the fence bends sharply to the left). Follow the clear path to the left across walkboards (keeping to the fence on your left) then, after about 50 yards, turn right along a wide path through the woodland (waymarker). Follow this wide path straight on through the woodland, with a stone wall on your left, for almost 0.5 miles then, as you emerge from the woods, carry straight on along the clear path gently rising up to soon reach a junction of paths (we were here earlier on this walk!).
5Carry straight on along the clear path and follow it bending down to the left to quickly reach a stile beside a gate. Head through the gate and retrace your steps down along the rutted, muddy track slanting down across the hillside to reach a stile beside a gate at the foot of the hillside. Head through the gate and follow the track straight on for a short distance, then follow the path to the right winding down through woodland (steps) back to join the road. Turn right along the road (take care) for about 50 yards then take the path to the left over a stile that leads back into Flatts Lane Country Park.
Walk by Mark Reid, Author of The Inn Way and Walking Weekends series of guidebooks. innway.co.uk
NAVIGATION SKILLS WEEKENDS
Do you want to learn new outdoor skills, feel more confident in the outdoors, plan your own walks or learn how to use a compass? Mark Reid offers weekend navigation courses in the Yorkshire Dales (National Navigation Award Scheme bronze level). teamwalking.co.uk
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