Cawwhe one

Slow Way not verified yet. Verify Cawwhe here.

I did this route in 2 parts, walking Cawood to Escrick at the end of August and Escrick to Wheldrake in early October. I found it an interesting and varied route across mostly flat terrain, let down in my opinion by a lengthy stretch of road walking.

Buses at each end run Monday-Saturday only.

The walk starts by crossing Cawood's exciting swing bridge over the tidal River Ouse then following the river downstream on its floodbank to Kelfield. It proceeds on tarmac through the village then across farm fields, over a narrow footbridge and through allotments to Riccall, where there are benches in the old pinfold plus local businesses to provide refreshment. The route then turns north along the tarmac'd Sustrans route, formerly the York-Selby railway line and now the Solar System Way, which is shared with cyclists. This was very pleasant in dappled sunshine.

On reaching the site of the former Escrick station the route leaves the old railway line to join a road for about half a mile. This had a fair amount of traffic and no pavement but the road is quite wide and there were easy verges to move onto when necessary.

I managed to cross the busy A19 by hopping over to the grassy island in the middle of the dual carriageway and found a pavement on the other side to take me safely into Escrick, where there's a village shop just a few yards off-route and plenty benches on Carrs Meadow directly on the route.

I didn't enjoy the next bit which took me along country roads for nearly two miles. It was quite busy, fairly narrow and had a number of bends so I had to jump onto the high verges quite a few times and also crossed to the left-hand side on bends for better visibility. At my speed it was about an hour of road walking like this, so it was a relief to get to the footpath sign and leave the road for the last section taking me over farmland to approach Wheldrake by its back lane. This section was a bit muddy in places and there were a couple of narrow footbridges. On arrival in Wheldrake the Wenlock Arms provided a friendly and welcome drink while I waited for my bus.

Waymarking was reasonably good; I had no trouble finding the route using an InkAtlas printout and the OS map. There's a lot of tarmac on this route but there's also a kissing gate and several narrow footbridges, restricting access. I enjoyed the first half but wouldn't choose to walk the road section again.

Added March 2024: I revisited Escrick last week to see if I could identify a better route between Escrick and Wheldrake which would avoid the road walking. There is a public footpath shown on the OS Explorer map which heads northeast out of Escrick (going straight on along an attractive-looking track where the Slow Way route turns right). Sadly, however, this is not useable at the time of writing once the edge of Spring Wood is reached, due to the disused North Selby Mine site having "rewilded" and the right of way becoming both flooded and overgrown. (The "black dotted" path alongside the stream in Spring Wood is not actually a right of way.) I spotted a sign indicating that planning permission for the site is being sought so perhaps once the new development is complete the right of way will be reinstated.

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