Yarm ~ Medium Walk

Distance Covered: 8 miles Time to Complete Walk 4 hours

Suitable for dog walking: Yes

Yarm is popular market town renowned for its trendy bars and restaurants. This walk is mainly a riverside walk taking in the wonderful River Tees. Then head back on a quiet road back through Aislaby and back to Yarm. Yarm has a lot of very nice pubs and restaurants and there is a market every Saturday.

General Safety Tips: Do not touch the plants or flowers on the riverside path as Giant Hogweed is present and can cause some serious burns. The riverside path can be narrow and has a few fallen trees which can be negotiated with care. Keep to the verge on the walk back on the road, however it is a quiet road to Aislaby.

The Yarm Walk 

Getting There

From Middlesbrough head towards Tollesby then take Low Lane to High Leven. Turn righ onto Thirsk Road. Turn right at the roundabout onto High Street. Follow the High Street down to Sainsburys and turn left passing the Sainsburys car park. Head towards the Wharf car park on the right and is the second right car park. Parking is £3.00 for all day parking.

Maps of the Yarm Walk 

The Walk

From the car park turn right and right again to walk back to the High Street. Turn right and head along the pavement.

Head over the bridge and shortly afterwards cross over and enter a path signposted to Aislaby.

Follow the path under the viaduct and head right up a wide path to a road.

Turn left onto the road and left again following a signpost

Enter the field and follow the edge of the field to the right.

Follow the path over a footbridge.

Follow the path to the left and over another footbridge

Follow the edge of the field with the hedge to your right and follow the path as it bends to the left. 

Follow the path as it eventually u-bends round to green horse pole barrier

Head forwards and turn left onto the road keeping to the edge.

Approaching Aislaby, look for a woodland path signposted as the Teesdale Way on your left. 

At the river head right and through a gate.

Head along the path navigating fallen branches and onto a boardwalk 

The path is a pleasant walk and goes on for several miles

There may be fallen trees along the way which can always be walked around.

When the path bends with the river look for a cutting path on your left which takes you back to the riverside edge.

The path heads onwards to a surprise detour on your left- a table and chairs next to the riverside- perfect for a pitstop!

Continue and to the left of a gate head onto a narrower path - take care on this path. There is a fallen tree which you need to duck under to get past.

Soon the path becomes more open. Head towards a signpost which is signposted to Middleton One Row.

Head right up the hill to a sculpture with a poignant saying engraved into it.

From the sculpture seat, head to the top left and through a gate and turn right onto the road.

Follow the road keeping to the verge as it passes farms and houses until you eventually come back to Aislaby.

Turn right to return to the Teesdale Way and head left onto the riverside path and through a gate.

Keep on the riverside path and over a footbridge turn right after it.

Keep on the path and keep right and walk under the viaduct and emerge onto the road and turn right, go over the bridge and head back into Yarm High Street and the car park. 

Yarm 

Yarm-on-Tees, or simply Yarm, is a market town in North Yorkshire, England. It lies on a meander of the River Tees, extending south-east to the River Leven and south to the village of Kirklevington. A civil parish in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, Yarm is near the towns of Stockton-on-Tees, 5 miles (8.0 km) to its northeast, and Darlington, 11 miles (18 km) to its west.

Yarm is known for its high street, voted Britain's best in a 2007 BBC Breakfast poll, and the Yarm Viaduct which spans across the town. It is also known locally for its annual funfair.

The name Yarm is thought to be derived from the Old English gearum, dative plural of gear, 'pool for catching fish' (source of the modern dialect word yair with the same meaning), hence 'at the place of the fish pools'. Yarm was first mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, and was originally a chapelry in the Kirklevington parish in the North Riding of Yorkshire; it later became a parish in its own right.

The Yarm helmet is a c. 10thcentury Viking Age helmet that was found in Yarm. It is the first relatively complete Anglo-Scandinavian helmet found in Britain and only the second Viking helmet discovered in north-west Europe. It is displayed nearby in Preston Park Museum, Preston-on-Tees.

Dominican Friars settled in Yarm about 1286, and maintained a friary and a hospital in the town, until 1583. Their memory is preserved in the names of Friarage and Spital Bank. The Friarage was built on top of the cellars of a Dominican friary in 1770, for the Meynell family. It is now at the centre of Yarm School.

Bishop Skirlaw of Durham built a stone bridge, which still stands, across the Tees in 1400. An iron replacement was built in 1805, but it fell down in 1806. For many years, Yarm was at the tidal limit and head of navigation on the River Tees.

On 1 February 1643, during the First English Civil War, a small Roundhead force attempted to halt the progress of a large waggon-train of arms, landed at Tynemouth and destined to bolster the Royalist war effort in Yorkshire and beyond. Heavily outnumbered and outflanked by Royalist ford crossings, the Parliamentarians were quickly routed and the Royalists gained the bridge, crossing into Yorkshire.

On 12 February 1821, at the George & Dragon Inn, the meeting was held that pressed for the third and successful attempt for a Bill to give permission to build the Stockton & Darlington Railway, the world's first public railway.

In 1890, Bulmer & Co listed twelve inns in Yarm: Black Bull, Cross Keys, Crown Inn, Fleece, George and Dragon, Green Tree, Ketton Ox, Lord Nelson, Red Lion, Three Tuns, Tom Brown, and Union. Also listed was Cross Keys beside the Leven Bridge.

In the 13th century, Yarm was classed as a borough, but this status did not persist. It formed part of the Stokesley Rural District under the Local Government Act 1894, and remained so until 1 April 1974 when, under the Local Government Act 1972, it became part of the district of Stockton-on-Tees in the new non-metropolitan county of Cleveland. Cleveland was abolished in 1996 under the Banham Review, with Stockton-on-Tees becoming a unitary authority.

In January 2025, the Town Hall clock-winder, 76-year-old Graham Tebbs, retired after 32 years of manual clock-winding. The clock mechanism was now wound electrically.