Yorkshire Heritage

Active Heritage Cycle Routes

Helmsley Castle - Mount Grace Priory (via Rievaulx Abbey)

To see the route from Helmsley to Rievaulx, visit the Helmsley Castle-Rievaulx Abbey-Byland Abbey page.

This route follows a very undulating path over the moors from the Cistercian Rievaulx Abbey to the Carthusian Mount Grace Priory.  Strongly recommended is the purchase of Ordnance Survey map OL26, North York Moors (Western Area), as many of the tracks suggested are unmarked.

From Rievaulx Abbey, turn left out of the car park and follow the path until the small Rievaulx bridge.  Turn right, and then a few yards further on, right again, following the signs to Old Byland.  In Old Byland village, turn left and follow signposts towards Cold Kirby.  To get into the village, you will turn left onto Cold Kirby Road, following this road to the end, then turning right at the end.  After a few hundred metres, you'll come to a junction with the Cleveland Road, a very straight road heading North.  Turn right onto this road, past Dialstone Farm, and continue along this path heading Northwards until you get to Osmotherly.  On this route, you'll pass Boltby Forest on your left, as well as several disused quarries as you follow the track along a ridge past Kepwick Moor and Arden Great Moor.

As you approach Osmotherly, you'll pass a Cleveland Way car park at Square Corner.  Continue on the track until you reach a fork in the track at Solomon's Temple, as the don-hill path levels off.  Here you have the option of either forking left towards Osmotherly village itself (this route involves a steep include) or continuing along the track and taking the next track off to the left, down Bad Lane, which skirts a spruce wood (on your right), before rejoining the road out of Osmotherly, passing alongside the Cod Beck reservoir.  Once on this road, follow the road signs to take you back to the A19.

Once on the A19, turn south  and then follow the brown signs to Mount Grace Priory, turning left onto the track up to the Priory itself.