Distance Covered: 4 miles Time to complete walk: 2 hours
Suitable for dog walking: Yes with extra care crossing Flatts Lane
Total Steps: approx. 11,500
Safety Tips: Take extra care crossing Flatts Lane as this is a busy road- keep to the grass verge. Always take a walking stick to negotiate the route if it is muddy or snowy. Wrap up in the winter and wear a beanie hat as the top of Eston Nab is open to the elements.
Climb to the top of Eston Nab for amazing views across a wide range from the Transporter bridge to Redcar and the iconic Roseberry Topping. The walk starts at Flatts Lane Country Park and is a linear there and back walk. The terrain can be muddy/icy and in sunny weather with dry conditions would be classed as an Easy Walk.
The Eston Nab walk
Getting There
From Middlesbrough, head up Ormesby Bank. At the top turn left onto Middlesbrough Road. Head on this road until shortly you come to a left turn which is Flatts Lane. Follow the road to a left turn into Flatts Lane Country Park which has an ample car park and is free of charge.
Map of the Eston Nab walk
The Walk
From the car park head through a gate up a grassy hill.
Head through the gate from the car park
Head up the grassy hill
When you come to a bench take the path to the left and head down to the road which is Flatts Lane.
Head towards the bench
Turn left onto Flatts Lane
Take extra care crossing this road to the other side . Then head past a cottage to the right which is Rose Cottage and look for a sign on a narrow path to the left.
Turn left onto the footpath
Follow the path as it climbs gently and you soon arrive at a T-junction
Go under the fallen tree
Arrive at a T Junction
Turn left to join the main path ahead and you soon arrive at a signpost to Eston Nab.
Signpost to Eston Nab
Follow the path as it gradually climbs and already you are afforded great views of Middlesbrough.
Follow the track as it climbs
View of Middlesbrough
When you arrive at a gate go over the stile on the right of the gate
Go over the stile to the right of the gate
Continue on the path ahead looking out for icy ponds in the winter. Use your stick to avoid them.
Keep on the path ahead
Ice ponds on the path
Pass a large pond on your right.
Large pond to your right
The path soon forks to the left and right - follow the left fork for excellent views of Middlesbrough and Redcar below. Then turn back after this detour and take the right fork of the path.
Take the left fork for a short detour
Views of Middlesbrough and Redcar below
Follow the right fork in the path until you can see pylons and the brick monolith at the top of Eston Nab.
Keep ahead on the path
When you arrive at another fork in the path- you can again take the left fork for amazing views below or the right fork to head towards the summit.
Fork in the path
View of Eston
Head towards the brick chimney at Eston Nab for shelter from the wind. Look to your right for remarkable views of Rosberry Topping.
Eston Nab
View of Roseberry Topping
Eston Nab
Eventually, return back the route you came up on remembering to turn right off the main track to Flatts Lane again and the car park. If you miss it you will end up on Flatts Lane and take care in crossing it onto paths back to the carpark.
Eston Nab
A nab is a rocky promontory, or outcrop, and Eston Nab, marking the highest point – at 242 metres (794 ft) – on the escarpment which forms Eston Hills, appears as a clear sandstone cliff on the northernmost edge of Eston Moor. It overlooks the town of Eston, which is part of Redcar and Cleveland, and can be seen from beyond Hartlepool on the northern side of Tees Bay.
It is the site of Bronze Age burial mounds and an Iron Age hill fort. However, regardless of all its history, to local people, the name of Eston Nab is synonymous with the monument that stands there. When families went out for a walk together – the monument at Eston Nab was the destination of choice.
Remains from the Bronze Age have been found, such as flint arrowheads, possibly date back to between 6000 and 4000 BC.
Frank Elgee, curator of the Dorman Museum, Middlesbrough, in 1927, uncovered parts of an earthenware cremation urn, together with burnt bone and flint. These possibly dated from 1800 BC.
There was a substantial Iron Age hill fort at Eston Nab. Boulder walls and ditches are still visible even though they were built in around 700 BC.
Eston Hills, of which it is the highest point, had a warren of cavernous tunnels carved into them, to create the ironstone mines that closed in 1949. They formed the original basis for the iron and steel industry on the River Tees and the building of Middlesbrough. Eston Nab featured in the film, A Century in Stone, a film about the Eston mines. The monument was shown as it was in the early 19th century.
In early 2014, for the sum of £15,000, Eston Nab was purchased from its private owner by a voluntary organisation known as the 'Friends of Eston Hills'. The organisation counts as a member Craig Hornby, a local film-maker whose best-known work, A Century in Stone, tells the story of iron-stone mining in Eston Hills. The property acquired includes land around the area of the monument, between the privately owned Bauer Teesside site and Eston Moor, which is already in public hands.
The monument is in the form of a pillar made of sandstone bricks. It was originally built as a lookout tower and beacon to warn of invasion during the Napoleonic Wars in the early 19th century. With the advent of ironstone mining in Eston Hills, the beacon was used as a house and survived until 1956. It was then demolished and later rebuilt into its present form.
A plaque on the side of the monument reads:
This monument is placed here to mark the
site of the beacon tower which was erected
by Thomas Jackson of Lackenby about 1800 as
a look-out post against invasion during the
Napoleonic wars and which again served the same
purpose in the second world war of 1939–1945.
It stands within a Bronze Age fortified
camp whose outer defences can be seen.
Erected in 1956.
