NYCC Public Rights of Way
Northallerton sits between the excellent walking areas of the Dales and the Moors, and the main walking groups in the area (the Ramblers and the U3A) both use these extensively. Here in The Striders we believe there are a lot of equally nice places to walk without an hour's drive each way, and 90% of our walks are acessible by public transport. from Northallerton - indeed, many start or finish in the town.
Northallerton Striders aim to help people get back into walking by providing short, local walks for people who are currently not getting enough exercise. We do this by providing led and guided walks in a very friendly environment, with coffee after every walk, and we organise social activities outside walking - pantomime visits, barbecues, etc.
This site has walks for people of all standards, broadly grouped according to how long they take. For people just starting out or those with serious disabilities we list some 1 mile walks (which take most people 20 to 30 minutes), or we have 1 heart walks lasting 30 to 45 minutes. Our 2 heart walks last about an hour - usually around 4 kilometres (2.5 miles), and may have a couple of stiles.
3 heart walks last about 90 minutes and may be round the roads or may be across the fields - or a combination of the two.We have two types of 4 heart walks, depending on whether we have already walked them - these will have a good description warning of hazards and difficulties - or we plan to walk them in future, in which case they may be no more than a map with very brief descriptions.
If you would like to send us descriptions of any of these walks or of your own walks, please feel free to do so and we will publish them for you, or send updates to our existing walks - use the contact form initially and we will give you more details.
Enjoy your walks, and let us know about them.
Remember that walking is exercise, and you should always start out slower till you are warmed up, and slow down towards the end to let your muscles relax a bit.
Many of these routes include stiles, steps and / or kissing gates, and some cross railways and streams. All our walks may cross grass or ploughed fields (or follow a farm track, which is usually worse), so please wear suitable footwear. The notes for each walk will warn of major hazards, but paths may deteriorate or be blocked by the farmers. If you come across an obstruction or hazard which is not mentioned in the guide, please let us know.
Map excerpts on this site are provided by Open Street Map (www.openstreetmap.org), a community mapping project. Paths marked on here usually represent the actual course of the path (as walked by us), rather than that shown on the OS maps. If you find any errors on these maps, please log on and correct them!
You will also find links on many walks to OS GetAMap (www.getamap.ordnancesurveyleisure.co.uk/) and Walk 4 Life (www.walk4life.info) which both provide route plots onto OS 1:25000 maps. Walk 4 Life lets you record comments against the walks as well, and build up your own walk record.
The GetAMap routes can also be viewed against aerial photographs which can give an idea of the landscape being crossed.
The County Council also provide maps of the footpath network at http://maps.northyorks.gov.uk/connect/?mapcfg=Out_and_About. This allows you to zoom in to a high level of detail, but it is often slow to load.
Northallerton Striders
April 2012