Kirklevington - Crathorne - Middleton-on-Leven - Kirklevington

Alan Anderson

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A pleasant, fairly level walk in the rich farming country straddling the Cleveland North Yorkshire county boundary. The terrain consists mainly of fields and lanes both surfaced and unsurfaced. The mainly flat landscape is interrupted only by two forays into and out of the valley of the River Leven, a tributary of the River Tees, plus a brief trip through the small but steep-sided Fanny Bell's Gill. The final crossing of the River Leven involves crossing a ford.

The part of the route from Kirklevington to Crathorne is flat field- and lanes- walking. In the charming village of Crathorne the route passes the lovely old All Saints Church before descending to cross for the first time the River Leven. A long walk then follows along a virtually traffic-free, surfaced lane, after which the route once again takes to the flat fields with a brief visit in and out of a steep wooded gill. Field-walking again follows to the village of Middleton-on-Leven, where the route descends once again into the River Leven Valley. Riverside walking, some of which is undulating, then follows as the route navigates two very scenic deciduous woods to emerge and pass under the imposing A19 flyover that crosses the River Leven Valley. In order to leave the valley the boots must be removed and the river waded at a fairly shallow designated crossing point. A steep ascent from the river through fields then follows before the final flat section of lane- and field-walking returns you to Kirklevington.

England - North England - Teesside - Countryside

Features

Birds, Butterflies, Church, Flowers, Pub, River, Toilets, Wildlife, Woodland

6/30/2025 - Carolyn Brown

Tried this walk yesterday and lots of problems. To start I would advise not parking in the car park next to The Crown Hotel in Kirklevington. It's not a public car park, there are signs stating it's for customers only. We parked in the village hall car park, there is also a new car park at the bottom of Pump Lane. Waymark 4 - there is now a new housing estate built on the first field. So you need to go through the housing estate to get to the second field. Waymark 6 - Sands Hill Farm now has a doggy daycare facility. As we walked round the perimeter hedge the dogs went wild. Lots of barking and crashing into the cages as if they were trying to get out. It was not a pleasant experience and left us a bit scared if they had managed to get out. We could hear them for quite some time after we left. The post office in Crathorne is no longer there, there is a gift shop/cafe and a local dairy milkshake hut instead. Waymark 12 - As we followed the left edge of the field round a bend we were hit by a swarm of bees. There's obviously a nest in the hedge so be careful. Waymark 13 - there are 3 lone trees, the one you need is the largest and there's a gate not a stile. Waymark 14 - Footpath diversion which was easy to follow ends in a kissing gate not a stile. Was very overgrown with nettles. Waymark 15 - The railed footbridge was overgrown with nettles. Waymark 16 - the path up the steep gill was overgrown with nettles that were chest high. We had to bash them down with our rucksacks to create a path. Got stung a lot. Waymark 17 - The house owner (I assume) has blocked access after the stile. There's a fence put up so you have to go through a little gap. Again it's very overgrown with nettles and brambles. There's also a very thick low tree which made the path inaccessible. We climbed the gate and past the barn which had an angry dog in. We then had to climb through a hole in the fence to join the dense bushy lane. The fence had nails sticking out the other side to deter people I guess but it was the only way through. When we finally got to the end of the lane we had to move wheelie bins to get through. Waymark 24 - be very careful as towards the river at the bottom as the path meanders the field is full of nettles and hog weed. There are lots of thistles too, we got stung and scratched a lot. The way down to cross the river at the Ford sign was overgrown too. Again we had to use our rucksacks to bash it down to create a safe path. We did have to use our water shoes to cross even though we've had little rain in the last few weeks. Once at the other side, same old story. Impassable path due to hog weed, nettles and thistles. We had to create another path again using rucksacks and stamping on them. The ground was very hard going due to the lack of rainfall. A lot of the field walking was slow as we were wading through waist high crops and having to take care as the ground was full of cracks and holes. Some of the foliage was extremely tough to walk through. It took us nearly 7 hours to complete this walk, we have done 9 milers in about 4.5 hours. It was a truly brutal walk and unless it's cleared up then I would strongly advise to steer clear.