Tan Hill Inn to Bowes
1 NY897066 Take a grassy track just north of the Inn at the edge of Sleightholme Moor. This gradually diverges from the road. Occasional white-topped marker posts (not to be confused with shorter, all-white grouse feeder posts) guide the way over boggy moorland. You’re roughly heading north-east after descending gently onto the moor. A ford at the headwaters of the Frumming Beck is simply soggy in dry conditions. 2 NY911078 Pass an isolated sheepfold on your right near a marker post and dip gently into the shallow main valley – you’ll stay near the valley for a further 2.5km. On the way cross a couple of side-streams (boardwalk bridges), then pass a tall cairn. Briefly drop down alongside the beck on boggier ground, cross a longer boardwalk bridge opposite a pair of sheepfolds.
3 NY935090 Leave the Frumming Beck via a bridge on a gravel estate track. Follow this above the beck, passing a metal barrier just before a junction with the National Byway (the gravel Sleightholme Moor Road). Turn left.
4 NY950097 Cross a side-stream then pass through Sleightholme Farm. Pass King’s Barn, then take a bridleway diagonally leftwards across meadowland. Go through a gate, then contour below a slight rise through two fields to the substantial Intake Bridge.
5 NY957106 Locate a faint path leading diagonally up the grassy slopes onto the valley rim (NB it’s very easy to go wrong here, as a sheep-track leading through squelchy ground beneath steep slopes is far more obvious!).
Once above the valley, the path runs just right of a stonewall.
6 NY960111 Just before a wall corner, head left through a blue-topped gateway. Continue along the far side of the wall on the grassy edge of rough heathery moorland. Continue ahead on the Bowes Loop at a lonely tall fingerpost by Trough Heads Farm, near a line of electric wires bending left with the wall.
7 NY963120 Leave access land at a gate and enter
increasingly improved sheep meadows in the Greta Valley. A second gate leads to a faint farm track, then turns right as it joins a better surfaced one. At East Mellwaters Farm bend left by a large barn onto a tarmac driveway. Just before a bridge over the River Greta, turn right into riverside meadowland.
8 NY971128 Regain overhead electric cables, then bend right with the track through a gate. Cross a footbridge over the Sleightholme Beck then head just left of West Charity Farm. Bend right in front of the farm to join a driveway. This heads out along the valley towards Bowes Castle. After Myers Farm, branch leftwards through fields to a footbridge over the River Greta.
9 NY983131 Cross this and follow the riverbank for about 150m. Fork left up the bank on a tractor track and onto a green lane, soon joining Swinholme Farm’s driveway. Bend sharp left at a ruined barn, then fork right across a field containing a re-emerging drainage stream and over further fields to the castle. Join a lane by a Pennine Way fingerpost, heading left past a red shuttered building to emerge on the main road in Bowes. Turn right for the Ancient Unicorn Inn.
10 NY995135 For buses take a left at the next road junction – the stops are either side of the A66 flyover.