Rylstone to Skipton via Barden Moor
This walk involves strenuous climbing across unmarked open access land and should only be attempted with an experienced map reader. The Countryside Access Website should also be checked before departing for any restrictions which may be in place on the open access land (View Open Access Walking Maps for the Upper North West Area).
Start Skipton Bus Station or Rail Station
Length 6.6 miles / 10.6 km
Facilities Cafés, pubs and toilets in Skipton
Ordnance Survey Map Outdoor Leisure 2 (the walk makes use of open access, some of which is not shown on the OS map, and also various permissive routes)
Map Link
Catch a bus from Skipton Bus station or train station, to the duck pond at Rylstone (“Pride of the Dales - 72” on a weekday or Saturday, or “Keighley and District – 67A” on a Sunday - see this website for details.)
Cross over the Grassington Road (B6265) and head up the road opposite the duck pond, signposted to the church. Walk past the church and turn right, through a gate, onto a footpath along a track, signed to Barden Moor. Follow this track, paralleling the B6265 towards Skipton, then curving back towards it. Where this joins a walled lane, turn left.
Go past the Bridleway which heads up a track on the left hand side. At the top of the lane go though the gate on your left which leads onto a track heading up to Norton Tower on the hillside above you. Follow this track to the tower.
At the tower, continue along the fence line to a wall corner, cross through a gateway and then through the gate. Head a little way up the hill (to above the boggy area), then follow the wall across the hillside until you can see a gateway in the fence ahead. Go through this gate.
This is where is gets tricky! You need to head down to the stream, cross over and then head straight up the hill opposite. It’s then a hard slog up the hillside aiming for the top left corner of the woodland.
At the top of this hill, follow the path along the boundary wall of the woodland until you reach a ladder stile. Cross this stile to reach the trig point at Crookrise Crag Top. Follow the path along the wall side to its end at a ladder stile and cross back to the other side.
Follow the path down to the reservoir at Embsay and go down the track to it’s right, then continue down the road. Take the second footpath on your right (just after the manor house). Follow this past the old tannery into a housing estate. Continue in the same direction when you hit the road (A map is fairly essential here!), back onto a footpath, cross a road, then through a gate to the left of the farm. Keep to your left till you find a stile, then head across the field to the Skipton Embsay road.
Turn right onto the road and walk along the pavement until you go under the Skipton bypass road. You can follow this road back into Skipton, but a nicer alternative takes the unlikely sounding route of crossing the road and, taking a run up the steep slope under this bridge, exit onto a path to the left of the bypass. Follow the path which parallels the bypass road until you reach a stile onto a path by Eller Beck in Skipton Woods. Turn left onto this path and follow the stream downstream.
Ignore the path that branches left in front of the millpond. A short distance after this, there is a short loop path off to the right which leads to a manmade waterfall before rejoining the surfaced path.
At the end of the woodland path, go through a gate and walk past the house to join a tarmac road. Where this road turns right, take the path to the left to cross back over the stream on a metal bridge.
The back of Skipton Castle comes into view from this bridge and the path now goes between the stream and canal and around the side of the castle. This path ends at the bridge at the top of Skipton High Street.