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Ribble Way: Horton in Ribblesdale to Gearstones
Ribble Way: Horton in Ribblesdale to Gearstones
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Walk directions
From Horton’s New Inn Bridge, go through the Crown Hotel car park to join the Pennine Way and follow its route along Harbor Scar Lane. After a steady climb of about a mile (1.6km), the track levels out and soon you reach a place where a stream disappears into a hole just right of the track (SD 812 744). This is Sell Gill Holes.
Just beyond, fork left, then go left again through a gate. Pass a roofless barn then turn right and follow a path through fields then a green track through a long enclosure. This leads to a stile by a spring. Continue to a finger post and go straight ahead again through another long enclosure. Cross a deep valley then skirt right of a tree-filled hollow where a stream may be heard emerging from Birkwith Cave.
Join a track and turn left at the first junction. Turn right at the second junction, signposted ‘Nether Lodge’. Where the track turns right, up the hillside, leave it and follow the wall on the left to God’s Bridge over Brow Gill Beck (SD 798 776).
Cross then bear left over a rise. The path becomes a clearly defined track descending to Nether Lodge. Cross a footbridge to a gate and follow the path left to a fingerpost.
Take the direction signed 'Gearstones', along a rough path between a marshy area on the left and a low hill on the right. Follow the path through a dip then slightly right, slanting up soggy hillside to reach a gate in a wire fence. Continue ahead through a dip then bear first right then left across the tail-slope of a drumlin.
Head towards a roofless barn, pass left of it then turn right over another rise. Descend to an isolated cluster of decaying farm buildings at Thorns. Turn right into a walled lane and at its far end follow the wall round to the left and over the hill to Thorns Gill. Cross a footbridge and bear left along a faint track to the Ingleton–Hawes road (B6255) at Gearstones.
Ribblehead Station (and the Station Inn) are about a mile away to the left along the road.
Terrain
- Stony tracks and some muddy moorland paths
Landscape
- Limestone crags and green fields, then drumlins and ill-drained moorland
Dog friendliness
- Livestock may be present almost anywhere
Parking
- Pay-and-display car-park in Horton in Ribblesdale; Roadside parking (several large lay-bys at Ribblehead)
Toilets en route
- At car-park in Horton in Ribblesdale
About the walk
At Horton in Ribblesdale, the lush valley that takes the mature Ribble to the sea is far behind. Horton in Ribblesdale, as its name implies, is not in the Ribble valley; it is in Ribblesdale, where the mountains of West Yorkshire cradle the infant river. Historically, the Ribble has been a natural... boundary between Celtic Cumbria and Scottish Strathclyde. South of Swanside Beck and east of the Ribble, walkers encounter brooks, cloughs, moors and barns. North of Swanside Beck, Anglian and Celtic names are left behind and Scandinavian and Norse terms like beck, gill, foss (or force) and fell, become the new language. Close to Horton in Ribblesdale lie famous Alum Pot, Long Churn Cave, Hull Pot, Pen-y-Ghent Hole and Ginger Pot; names honoured by caving people and reminders that this area is singularly rich in potholes and caves. Alum Pot is 130ft (40m) long by 40ft (12m) wide and Alum Pot Beck hurls into its depth of 292ft (89m), dropping sheer for over 200ft (61m). Just 150yds away is Long Churn Cave from where a stream and a passage enter Alum Pot’s main shaft. Pen-y-Ghent Pot, which does not look impressive at ground level, is a frightening 500ft (152m) deep, making it one of the deepest pots in Yorkshire. Hull Pot is 300ft (91m) long and as deep as it is wide, some 60ft (18m). None of these are on or visible from the Ribble Way, but the walk does pass Sell Gill Holes, the best example of a pothole on the Ribble Way. The entrance is not on the scale of Gaping Gill or Alum Pot, but still it’s obvious that some care is required. Note the iron bar embedded in the ground above the shaft: cavers use this to secure their ropes when descending into the pot. There's another, drier, entrance lower down on the other side of the track. Below ground these entries lead to a system of chambers and passages totalling almost a mile (1.6km) in length and reaching a maximum depth of 255ft (78m).There are many drumlins along this section of the Ribble Way. Composed of a mix of broken rock debris and fine silt, called boulder clay, deposited by retreating ice sheets, drumlins are clearly identified, rounded hills, frequently shaped like half an egg that has been sliced lengthways. The more pointed tail ends of the drumlins point in the direction the ice was moving.
From Horton’s New Inn Bridge, go through the Crown Hotel car park to join the Pennine Way and follow its route along Harbor Scar Lane. After a steady climb of about a mile (1.6km), the track levels out and soon you reach a place where a stream disappears into a hole just right of the track (SD 812 744). This is Sell Gill Holes.
1 of 7
Just beyond, fork left, then go left again through a gate. Pass a roofless barn then turn right and follow a path through fields then a green track through a long enclosure. This leads to a stile by a spring. Continue to a finger post and go straight ahead again through another long enclosure. Cross a deep valley then skirt right of a tree-filled hollow where a stream may be heard emerging from Birkwith Cave.
2 of 7
Join a track and turn left at the first junction. Turn right at the second junction, signposted ‘Nether Lodge’. Where the track turns right, up the hillside, leave it and follow the wall on the left to God’s Bridge over Brow Gill Beck (SD 798 776).
3 of 7
Cross then bear left over a rise. The path becomes a clearly defined track descending to Nether Lodge. Cross a footbridge to a gate and follow the path left to a fingerpost.
4 of 7
Take the direction signed 'Gearstones', along a rough path between a marshy area on the left and a low hill on the right. Follow the path through a dip then slightly right, slanting up soggy hillside to reach a gate in a wire fence. Continue ahead through a dip then bear first right then left across the tail-slope of a drumlin.
5 of 7
Head towards a roofless barn, pass left of it then turn right over another rise. Descend to an isolated cluster of decaying farm buildings at Thorns. Turn right into a walled lane and at its far end follow the wall round to the left and over the hill to Thorns Gill. Cross a footbridge and bear left along a faint track to the Ingleton–Hawes road (B6255) at Gearstones.
6 of 7
Ribblehead Station (and the Station Inn) are about a mile away to the left along the road.
Terrain
- Stony tracks and some muddy moorland paths
Landscape
- Limestone crags and green fields, then drumlins and ill-drained moorland
Dog friendliness
- Livestock may be present almost anywhere
Parking
- Pay-and-display car-park in Horton in Ribblesdale; Roadside parking (several large lay-bys at Ribblehead)
Toilets en route
- At car-park in Horton in Ribblesdale
About the walk
At Horton in Ribblesdale, the lush valley that takes the mature Ribble to the sea is far behind. Horton in Ribblesdale, as its name implies, is not in the Ribble valley; it is in Ribblesdale, where the mountains of West Yorkshire cradle the infant river. Historically, the Ribble has been a natural... boundary between Celtic Cumbria and Scottish Strathclyde. South of Swanside Beck and east of the Ribble, walkers encounter brooks, cloughs, moors and barns. North of Swanside Beck, Anglian and Celtic names are left behind and Scandinavian and Norse terms like beck, gill, foss (or force) and fell, become the new language. Close to Horton in Ribblesdale lie famous Alum Pot, Long Churn Cave, Hull Pot, Pen-y-Ghent Hole and Ginger Pot; names honoured by caving people and reminders that this area is singularly rich in potholes and caves. Alum Pot is 130ft (40m) long by 40ft (12m) wide and Alum Pot Beck hurls into its depth of 292ft (89m), dropping sheer for over 200ft (61m). Just 150yds away is Long Churn Cave from where a stream and a passage enter Alum Pot’s main shaft. Pen-y-Ghent Pot, which does not look impressive at ground level, is a frightening 500ft (152m) deep, making it one of the deepest pots in Yorkshire. Hull Pot is 300ft (91m) long and as deep as it is wide, some 60ft (18m). None of these are on or visible from the Ribble Way, but the walk does pass Sell Gill Holes, the best example of a pothole on the Ribble Way. The entrance is not on the scale of Gaping Gill or Alum Pot, but still it’s obvious that some care is required. Note the iron bar embedded in the ground above the shaft: cavers use this to secure their ropes when descending into the pot. There's another, drier, entrance lower down on the other side of the track. Below ground these entries lead to a system of chambers and passages totalling almost a mile (1.6km) in length and reaching a maximum depth of 255ft (78m).There are many drumlins along this section of the Ribble Way. Composed of a mix of broken rock debris and fine silt, called boulder clay, deposited by retreating ice sheets, drumlins are clearly identified, rounded hills, frequently shaped like half an egg that has been sliced lengthways. The more pointed tail ends of the drumlins point in the direction the ice was moving.
