Charming ways of the Wolds

On a summer morning in East Yorkshire, John Woodcock hit the saddle to discover how pedal power is receiving a boost in the Wolds.

Trains finally departed from the Yorkshire Wolds in the 1960s, even earlier than that on a line built by, among others, a younger brother of Charles Dickens. Great expectations of the Malton & Driffield Junction Railway were largely unfulfilled. It was 60 years ago this month that passenger services ended on what today would be considered one of the loveliest journeys in the country.

A campaign was launched recently to restore at least part of the 20-mile route and promote it as the first heritage railway in the East Riding – a Wolds version along the lines of what the North Yorkshire Moors Railway has become in its area.

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Add the connection of a famous name – Alfred Lamert Dickens was one of two engineers appointed to begin construction in 1847 – and the potential for tourism in a relatively undiscovered landscape is obvious.

But the return of the train to the wavy chalk hills and steep-sided valleys is at best a distant possibility. Even if such a project was feasible it will be many years before steam billows again across reopened platforms serving the likes of Wharram le Street, Sledmere and Fimber, and Wetwang. In the meantime they're pushing another means of transport: something they've called "big skies" bike rides.

This comprises eight routes providing a sample of the Wolds' contrasts: winding lanes with hedgerows filled with birdsong, almost bare, claustrophobic ravines, and, many gears later, panoramas which David Hockney has likened to parts of the American West.

There's no argument with the leaflet-maps which detail each ride: "Cycling gives you the freedom to explore and to really enjoy this hidden corner of England at your own pace…Traffic is generally light and you may well find only skylarks and a hare or two for company. Red kites are starting to appear above broad fields, which are a patchwork of colour in summer".

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One of the routes covers 21 miles and starts and ends in Malton. Outward-bound there's a tough climb up Langton Wold where you're likely meet racehorses, and in these parts what longing there is for one of them to recapture a time when the gallops regularly produced winners of The Derby.

After the stiff ascent out of aristocratic Birdsall, freewheel down into twisting Water Dale, so other-worldly that a large van pulls into the side to let a cyclist through. Then you're in Thixendale – "Free range children and animals, please drive slowly" says a sign. It's in a narrow valley that's almost a cutting – try getting a mobile phone signal here – and seems so remote from the sea, rivers and anywhere else that the last thing you expect in a front garden is a cabin cruiser named Serendipity.

"Set in secluded splendour" is how Thixendale describes itself on notice boards outside the village hall explaining the local geology, wildlife and social history. It's an ancient place, an archaeological landscape of international importance, but a series of photographs updates the story: haymakers at Manor Farm and a plough team, late 1890s. The church choir brass band and village school, 1906. Miss Sarah Ann Lacy (ne Bell) feeding her cat Fluff, 1930s.

A couple of miles on you start pedalling back to Malton. That is you would if you were of Tour de France standard. At this point most average cyclists will have to dismount and push the bike up to the plateau above the remains of the medieval village of Wharram Percy.

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The consolation is that the views are wonderful, and you also gain some idea of the obstacles confronting the Yorkshire Wolds Railway Restoration Project. Below, all that's left of Dickens's line is the fading imprint of the track bed, and next to it an old chalk quarry, its cliffs like an inland Flamborough Head, whose raw material kept the line open for a few more years after passengers had gone.

Will they ever return? The chances aren't good, especially if it entails reopening the mile-long Burdale tunnel. It's now bricked-up, leaking and a home to bats. Consider the cost of managing all that as you cycle above it and head for home past picture-book fields and woods, among them the curiously-named Earthquake Plantation.

Another bike ride is centred on Market Weighton and in places runs parallel to two more long-gone Wolds railways. One of them is now the Hudson Way, after Railway King George – a footpath, bridleway and cycle track which the Minsters Rail Campaign wants to rebuild as the York-Beverley-Hull line. At Kiplingcotes they're as good as ready to welcome it back. The platforms are intact, the name board is still in place, and the signal box survives, all thanks to Lord Hotham who in the 1860s agreed to let the railway cross his land on condition that he was provided with his personal station and that no trains ran on Sundays.

All over East Yorkshire the bicycle has overtaken the train. The former Hull-Hornsea line is now part of the Trans Pennine Trail, there's the Howdenshire Rail Trail and the South Holderness Rail Trail. Despite that, some of the Wolds bike rides are accessible by train, mainly because the line between Hull and Scarborough and a number of its stations survived Dr Beeching's axe in the 1960s.

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From Hunmanby you can cycle the Great Wold Valley, the Burton Agnes area from Driffield, the Wolds west of Beverley, and a route taking in Rudston and Bempton Cliffs with a starting point in Bridlington. You'll need to use your legs or a vehicle with a bike rack to reach the ones above Pocklington, Market Weighton and the high Wolds around Sledmere.

All the rides are graded in terms of terrain – easy, moderate and hard – and each involves a round-trip of about 20 miles. This summer you can combine a rail journey and two wheels with a coastal cruise that offers the chance to see more than 200,000 seabirds from every angle. The RSPB's reserve at Bempton – there are plans for it to become the National Seabird Centre for England – is the best place in the country to appreciate the nesting and chick-rearing of gannets, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, fulmars and puffins.

On specific dates there's a Seabird Spectacular package that includes a guided tour of the cliff-top followed by the scene from below during a three-hour trip on the Yorkshire Belle out of Bridlington.

Then you can get back on your bike and seek out the rare bee orchid on Cold Wold, hope a puncture doesn't thwart you at Thwing, or pause on an embankment where a Dickens wrote his chapter on the history of the railway.

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Details on Big Skies bike rides in East Yorkshire, cycle hire, train connections and other details are available at tourist information offices in Beverley, Bridlington and Malton. Or visit www.realyorkshire.co.uk/cycle rides

Train details: www.nationalrail.co.uk or Tel: 08457 48 49 50.

Boat trips: Seabird Spectacular today, Saturday, June 26, Sunday, July 4 and Saturday, July 10. For details visit www.realyorkshire. co.uk/seabird or call 0844 8112070.

YP MAG 26/6/10