Distance: 7 miles Time to complete walk: 3 hours
Safety Tips: Steep walking sections at the beginning and toward the end. Take a full day to do this walk and in the summer. Follow the waymarked stones and if you lose your bearings use your GPS signal. Be especially careful on the path back after you descend Hare Hill. The path can be marshy and ensure you test the ground ahead with your walking stick.
A perfect summers walk which has so many brilliant elements to it a whole day could be devoted to it. Bolton Abbey is the destination and the start of the walk. Its ruins lie next to the River Wharfe, perfect for picnics and riverside walks. Challenging due to its steep parts and length, the walk includes a wooded area, amazing views at the top of a hill, riverside walking and ends at the historic Bolton Abbey and Priory. A walking stick is recommended as part of the walk can become marshy after wet weather.
The Bolton Abbey Walk
Getting There
From Middlesbrough follow the A66 to Darlington and then follow it to the A1 Scotch Corner. Keep on the A1 south bound and look for Junction 47 which is signposted to Harrogate. Follow the A59 road through Harrogate and follow it out of Harrogate until you come to a roundabout for Bolton Abbey on a right hand turn. Parking is included with the admission fee for the Abbey and it is £8. Bolton Abbey becomes very busy during the summer but additional parking is well catered for.
Map of the Bolton Abbey walk
The Walk
From the car park leave near the village store and turn right and head for the road. Turn left and follow the road under an archway. Look for s signed track on the left. Go through a gate.
Go through gate
Follow the track and look for a gate on the right signed as a bridleway.
Gate with bridleway sign
Bear left to a signpost under a power line. Follow the signpost right. Go past two pools and through a gate. Head to the right towards the woods and go through a gate into the woods.
Go through gate into the woods
Follow the track through the wood which is a gradual climb and meanders through the woods. Follow the track until you come to a gate.
Flower in the woods
Through the gate you will come onto an open field. The way ahead is now made by looking for stones in the field with blue coloured waymarks on them.
Waymarked stone
Follow the rocks - you need to head towards a gate to the right. Go through the gate and head diagonally through the next field. If unsure at this point there is a good GPS phone signal here. Basically head for the gate to the right of the field near the wall.
Gate in the top right of the field
Go through the gate and turn left and follow the track against the wall. The path climbs more steeply onto Hare Hill by following the track and waystones. Climb to the top of the hill for amazing views. It will be worth it!
Follow the waystones up the hill
Admire the view before descending the hill to a gate.
Descend to a gate
Just a few steps ahead take a path to the right which will be a nice downhill route heading to a signpost at the wall near the road. Turn right and parallel to the road for a short time. You will soon come to a signpost signposted as FP to B6160.
Signpost near road
Turn right and follow the track to a stile being careful with the ground you are on, the path can get muddy and waterlogged after wet weather. Your walking stick is handy on this section of the walk. At the stile take the left fork in the track.
Take left fork after stile
Follow the track heading for a corner in the wall. Continue to another wall and then turn right at the wall. You should be able to see Hare Hill ahead. Follow the track around to the left to a signpost.
Signpost to stile
Turn left at the signpost over a stile and follow the wall down to the road below. Go over another stile and turn right on the road. Enter the carpark on the left and head past the Strid Wood Visitor Centre down a path which forks to the left. Follow the path to the rivers edge.
Take left fork in path
Follow the river track downstream, this is a nice riverside section of the walk, but this still has steep areas on the path.
Follow the path downstream
Eventually on this pleasant part of the walk you will come to Cavendish Pavillion. Bear left past the café and go over a footbridge.
Cross over the footbridge
Turn right after footbridge
Immediately over the footbridge turn right onto a path which is part of the Dales Way. Go over a stile in a wall and over a stream on a road.
Pass across stream
When the road carries on look for a gate on the right and go through this and continue on the path. Shortly when you come to a fork either take the lower path or the higher one. The higher one has lovely views of the Priory below.
Take low path or higher path
View of the Priory on higher path.
Descend to a bridge near some stepping stones. You can now explore the priory and take a well end break. Excellent space for a picnic.. The car park is found by following the path to the left of the priory back to the main road and left to the car park.
Views of Bolton Priory
Bolton Abbey
The estate is open to visitors, and includes many miles of all-weather walking routes and a variety of attractions for people of all ages. The Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway currently terminates at Bolton Abbey station one and a half miles/2.5 km from Bolton Priory.
The monastery was originally founded at Embsay in 1120. Led by a prior, Bolton Abbey was technically a priory, despite its name. It was founded in 1154 by the Augustinian order, on the banks of the River Wharfe The land at Bolton, as well as other resources, were given to the order by Lady Alice de Romille of Skipton Castle in 1154.In the early 14th century Scottish raiders caused the temporary abandonment of the site and serious structural damage to the priory.The seal of the priory featured the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Child and the phrase sigillum sancte Marie de Bolton.
The nave of the abbey church was in use as a parish church from about 1170 onwards, and survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Building work was still going on at the abbey when the Dissolution of the Monasteries resulted in the termination of the priory in January 1540. The east end remains in ruins. A tower, begun in 1520, was left half-standing, and its base was later given a bell-turret and converted into an entrance porch. Most of the remaining church is in the Gothic style of architecture, but more work was done in the Victorian era, including windows by August Pugin. It is still a working priory today, holding services on Sundays and religious holidays.
Bolton Abbey churchyard contains the war grave of a Royal Flying Corps officer of the First World War.
The Domesday Book lists Bolton Abbey as the caput manor of a multiple estate including 77 carucates of ploughland (9240 acres/3850ha) belonging to Edwin, Earl of Mercia. The estate then comprised Bolton Abbey, Halton East, Embsay, Draughton; Skibeden, Skipton, Low Snaygill, Thorlby; Addingham, Beamsley, Holme, Gargrave; Stainton, Otterburn, Scosthrop, Malham, Anley; Coniston Cold, Hellifield and Hanlith. They were all laid waste in the Harrying of the North and were granted first to The Clamores of Yorkshire until c1090 when transferred to Robert de Romille who moved its centre to Skipton Castle. The Romille line died out around 1310, and Edward II granted the estates to Robert Clifford.[
In 1748 Baroness Clifford married William Cavendish and Bolton Abbey Estate thereafter belonged to the Dukes of Devonshire, until a trust was set up by the 11th Duke of Devonshire turning it over to the Chatsworth Settlement Trustees to steward.
Today, the 33,000 acre (134 km2) estate contains six areas designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest, including Strid Wood, an ancient woodland (mainly oak), which contains the length of the River Wharfe known as The Strid, and a marine fossil quarry. The estate encompasses 8 miles (13 km) of river, 84 farms, 84 buildings of architectural interest, and four Grade I listed buildings; and is currently home to 27 businesses from tearooms to bookshops. Apart from people employed within these businesses, the estate employs about 120 staff to work on the upkeep of the estate.
Bolton Abbey Hall, originally the gatehouse of the priory, was converted into a house by the Cavendish family. The hall is a Grade II* listed building.
As well as Bolton Abbey, the Cavendish family also own the Chatsworth (Derbyshire, England) and Lismore Castle (Waterford, Southern Ireland) estates
