Fewston & Timble - long walk

Start at Swinsty Moor car park 1 at the southern end of Fewston Reservoir Dam.

Leave the car park by the main entrance, cross the road into the wood and take the path to the left downhill to the reservoir and the path that runs along the western shore of Fewston Reservoir. This path is easy to follow and for most of its length is within a few metres of the water 2.

After about 2 miles, a wooden gate with an ‘A’ frame access point leads into the car park beside the A59 at Blubberhouses 3. Turn almost immediately back on yourself, crossing a gated stone stile with a footpath sign and climb a steep pasture. Go through the gate at the top and head diagonally to the left across a broken down wall to the next wall corner. Keep this wall on your right, cross a wire fence and head for a mature oak tree with a gate to the right of it. Cross the stile to join an obvious track: now keep the wall to your left 4.

After the next gateway the wall alongside the track is on the right. Continue through a squeeze stile into an open field 5 and head for the gate straight ahead. Cross the stile next to the gate, follow the remains of a wall before that peters out, and then head uphill towards a solitary tree in an old boundary line. Follow the track that is visible on the ground across to the wire fence with some mature hawthorns beside it. Keep this fence on your left until you arrive at three gates. Go through the middle gate, the track down the hill becomes a lane with a squeeze stile and a footbridge into the wood 6.

Head up through the cleared plantation, to a stoned forest track 7.  Cross the forest track into the birch wood and follow the path to the public road at 11. On approaching the road, there is a gate from the plantation into the road - use the stile 20 metres to the right of the gate. Go through the gate on the other side of the road and head diagonally left to a squeeze stile surrounded by a wooden fence. After the squeeze adjacent to the telegraph pole, keep the wall immediately on your right until you reach a gate with a wide squeeze to the left, after which the village of Timble is in view. Head downhill towards a patch of trees, pass through a pair of gateposts without a gate and then through a gate. Aim for a gap between the wall and the house in front of you, cross a stile beside a wrought-iron gate and follow a track which leads out to the road at Timble 12.

Cross the road to a tarmac lane to the left and follow the lane. 25m after the last house on the left, turn right at a footpath sign by a field gate onto a narrow walled path 13. Follow this for 150m round a right hand bend and climb the stile on the left of the gate into the field. Head down the field to a wall on your right.  Keeping the wall on your right, go through two field gates. After the second gate head diagonally across the field to the bottom left hand corner and a stile over the fence into a wooden valley with Timble Gill Beck in the bottom.

Cross the beck via the footbridge 14 and climb the far side of the valley to a stile into a field. Keeping the field wall on your left head up the field. The wall becomes more broken, keep the wall on your left as you descend to a stone stile next to a former gateway at the end of the wall. Turn left through the gateway and follow the path as it contours round the bottom of the hill with the foundations of an old wall on your right. This path leads to a gate on to a farm track (beware, it is very muddy approaching the gate).

Cross a small beck and go through the gate or over the stile to the right onto the farm track.  Follow the track round to the right to the next gate, also with a stile. Go through the gate, over a beck and walk up the field with the wall on your right. At the top of the field go through the gate on the left (or over the stile beside it) onto a lane which has a wall on the left and a fence on the right. Follow the lane for 200m to the farm yard and turn left in the middle of the farm yard down the side of the stone barn to a stile over the wall in the corner. Now, keeping the steam on your right head downhill, and passing the end of a wall on the left bear slightly left to the bottom corner of a copse with a way mark arrow on a short post. Follow the arrow left round the lower edge of the copse and through a gap in a wall. Head slightly right to the far lower corner of the field, look for a faded yellow way marker painted on a tree at the top of the bank down to the river. 

Go down the bank, alongside the river to a kissing gate onto a small very narrow stone footbridge crossing Timble Gill Beck 15. After crossing the bridge turn left alongside the beck passing a white and orange gas main marker post on the left to a wall corner in approximately 50m 16. Turn right up hill with the wall on your left (this route is actually a bridleway). Opposite a gate in the wall half way up the hill, bear right up and across the field to two gateways in the top right corner. Go through the right hand gate and keeping the wall on your left head for the field gate in front leading onto a walled lane 17.  Follow this lane through the farm yard of Nether Timble and on through a number of gates to a wood on your right 18 (this section can be very muddy).  In 250m look for a timber step stile on the right leading into Yorkshire Water’s woodland 19. Cross the stile and head down the track towards Swinsty Hall. In approximately 150m look for a surfaced path on the left and follow this to join a wider path near the hall 20. Turn left and follow this path back to the car park 1.

Alternativley at point 19 carry straight on through a gate into wood and follow bridleway back to car park 1.

OS Map:  Explorer 297 Ilkley and Otley

Great care has been taken to ensure that the information in our activity packs (or other information made available) is accurate. However, we accept no liability for any claim, loss, damage or injury (howsoever arising) incurred by those using the information provided in activity packs or by Yorkshire Water generally.