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This video shows a circular walk from the picturesque village of Austwick, through Oxenber and Wharf Woods that come to life with carpets of bluebells in Spring and afford wonderful countryside views. Halfway around you can visit Elaine's Tea Rooms in Feizor. The entire walk has been filmed in 4K, allowing walkers to see the entire route, including where to park, eat, and drink.
Today's walk is a circular walk from Austwick in the Yorkshire Dales through the lovely Oxenber Wood and Wharf Wood before returning through Feizor. Before we get started, let's have a quick look at where we're walking through today. We leave Austwick by the Pennine Bridleway and then pass over the Flascoe footbridge heading up into Oxenber Wood. In April and May, you are met with a beautiful carpet of bluebells with wonderful surrounding views.
Oxenber Wood is a designated site of special scientific interest and includes several areas of limestone pavement. As we exit Wharf Wood, there are views across in the distance to Pen-y-ghent on the horizon.
We then head along Feizor Nick track down into Feizor, and from Feizor we follow the walled Pennine Bridleway back to Austwick. Stay watching until the end so you can see where to eat and drink after the walk. We are starting today's walk from the market cross in the centre of Austwick. Only the base remains from the original medieval market cross, with the pillar being a Grade II listed replica from around the 1830s.
We leave the market cross to walk along the road, initially passing by the Cross Leigh Stores and the Post Office. Austwick itself hosts an annual street market and Cuckoo festival, where the village is decorated with handmade cuckoos. On the side of the village store is an information sign telling you more about Austwick.
Cross Leigh stores sell food to go, bakery goods and hot drinks if you want something whilst you are on your walk. Continue along the road where we soon pass by the Gamecock Inn. Once past the Gamecock Inn, just keep walking along the pavement and then along the road. After about 400 metres, just before the building, we turn right off the road to walk down the Pennine Bridleway following the Feizor one and three-quarter miles footpath sign.
Oxenber Wood is visible now straight ahead. A short distance further on, you meet and then pass over Flascoe Bridge. After about 400 metres, you arrive at a path junction. We are going to continue straight on along the walled path here.
The main track to the right forms part of our return journey. Head straight on now along the walled Wood Lane track as it initially bends around to the left. After a couple of hundred metres, we turn right off this Wood Lane track to head up the walled footpath. But just before we do that, if you look around to your left, you can see Norber and the Erratics on the hill just to the right of Robin Proctor's scar.
Walk up along the path, where, after a short distance, we pass through a gate. From the gate, we pass through the gate posts and head straight on uphill along the path, keeping to the right of the wall. Just stopping from time to time to admire the unusual terrain and views here near the old disused quarry. Continuing along the path by the side of the wall, we soon reach and then pass through the next gate.
Through this gate, if it's April or May, you get the first indication of the bluebells that lie ahead. We walk on for a few more metres to turn right uphill just before the information sign telling us about Oxenber and Wharf Wood.
From the Information board, walk up the waymarked path. The woods are wonderful all year round, but are even more special in April and May when the bluebells are out, forming a carpet through which the footpath wends its merry way. Where the path splits just before this wooden waymarker, take the wider right-hand path.
Looking behind, this extra height now affords us views of Ingleborough and Simon Fell on the horizon. Oxenber and Wharf Woods are historical wood pastures grazed at certain times of the year to maintain their rich diversity of plants that have adapted to the limestone soils.
If you enjoy these videos, please click the like button, subscribe to our channel and hit the notification bell, so you know when any new walks have been uploaded. It's free to subscribe, and your likes and comments really do help our channel. This whole area forms part of the Oxenber and Wharf Woods site of special scientific interest and includes several areas of limestone pavement.
As the path leaves the trees in this more open area, you can see a line of wooden waymarkers stretching out in front. This path continues on through Oxenber Wood, and if you want to cut this walk short, you can go straight on here, as you will meet up with our homebound path later on.
For now, though, we're going to leave this path here, taking the left-hand path and then almost immediately left again, following the wooden waymarkers as we head around towards Wharf Wood.
Again, we pass by more areas of limestone pavement. As it's a shorter walk today, I thought we'd just wander for a while at real speed and listen to the birdsong, albeit with some heavy-sounding footsteps. I think I might need silencers on my fell shoes. After a while, we reach and pass over a stone stile built into a wall. Over the wall is Wharf Wood.
Just continue ahead on the waymarked path. On our website, the route of today's Oxenber Wood Wharf Wood and Feizor walk from Austwick is set out on an Ordnance Survey map along with a GPS download for your phone or GPS device. The links for our Walks4all website are down in the description below.
A little change of colour here - rather than the carpet of bluebells, we now have a smattering of yellow flowers. I'm not the greatest at Flora identification, but I think these are cowslips. If not, let me know in the comments below. If you have any thoughts about this walk or find there are any issues with any of the footpaths used, please share that with us down in the comments below.
The path eventually reaches a stone stile built into a wall over which you can see Pen-y-ghent on the horizon. Just before the wall is another information board about Oxenber and Wharf Woods. Pass over the stile and gate that are built into the wall. We now turn right to start heading along the track. Pass through this next gate.
Looking behind through the gate, which we passed through, you can see Pen-y-ghent again, which, along with Whernside and Ingleborough, makes up what is known as the Yorkshire Three Peaks. Head now on the Feizor Nick track. The wood over to the right here is Feizor wood. As the track bends down to the left, ahead now is the hamlet of Feizor.
Head through this next gate. Then, after about 200 meters, you pass by Elaine's tea room - more on that later. We are going to walk straight on here. Just before a short cobbled section, there is an alternative footpath back to Austwick. If you wanted to walk back through the fields, it basically runs parallel to the path that we're going to walk down. Around the next bend, just before the road starts to rise, we turn right in front of the farm building.
We will follow the Pennine Bridleway to Austwick's 'one and a quarter miles' footpath sign. So pass through the gate. This track forms part of the Pennine bridleway and 'A Pennine Journey'. The Pennine Bridleway is a 205-mile trail from Middleton Top in Derbyshire to Ravenstonedale in Cumbria, with its full length officially opened in 2012 by Martin Clunes, the then-president of the British Horse Society.
Whereas, A Pennine Journey is a 247-mile trail starting and ending in Settle in the Yorkshire Dales and is based on a 211-mile walk Alford Wainwright undertook in 1938 and then later wrote a book about it called The Pennine Journey - The Story of a Long Walk in 1938. The book was eventually published in 1986. Just after the building ahead, which is Cat Hole Barn, the path becomes unsurfaced.
Over to the right ahead is Oxenber Wood again. By some ruins of Meldings's barn, another path comes in from the left. We just continue straight on here following the Pennine Bridleway Austwick footpath sign. Walk over the footbridge and continue along the walled path.
If you took the alternative path back from Feizor across the fields or cut the walk short in Oxenber Wood and then join that path, this stile on the right is where you rejoin our path. Having walked about 500 meters from Melding's barn, we reach this path junction that we were at near the start of the walk. This time, we will follow the wider gravel track around to the left. This gravel track is called Wood Lane.
If you are new to hiking or just want ideas for what walking gear to wear and take on your walk, check out our kit list recommendations in the description below. It makes Greystonber Lane, which is one of the roads into Austwick from the A65 by Austwick Bridge. We turn right here to pass over the bridge. We pass by the Traddock Hotel, restaurant and bar to then head on the short distance back to the market cross, where we started the walk.
Whilst that ends our walk for today, as promised at the start, let's have a look now at where you can eat and drink after and during the walk.
The first place is the Gamecock Inn that we passed at the start of the walk. It serves good food with a French twist and has a range of cast ales. It is dog friendly in the bar area and has some accommodation, and has another beer garden at the rear. It also has its own bakery with desserts and pastries to take out.
You may notice the sign saying business to let the. Since I filmed this on the 16th of May, I've read that Eric, the French chef and owner, is now staying for a few more years.
The next place is Elaine's tea room, which was halfway around the walk in Feizor. It serves homemade food, homemade cakes, scones, and has a daily specials board, along with hot, cold and alcoholic drinks. It is dog-friendly and has seating inside and out. The final place we passed just before the end of the walk was the Traddock Country House Hotel with a bar and restaurant.
It has a brasserie menu, a lunch menu, and a taster menu, and it serves a wide range of drinks. I believe the Traddock is dog friendly, but they are not allowed in the two restaurants.
Just before ending today's walk, we've put together a short flythrough created using the Ordnance Survey app, the link for which is in the description below, to show you where you've been and give the area a little more perspective. We started at the market cross and then headed out along the road before turning right in the direction of Oxenber Wood.
We then turned left along Wood Lane track before turning right to head up into Oxenber Wood itself.
On reaching the clearing, there was a line of wooden waymarkers ahead of us. You can see here that they lead through Oxenber Wood, and you could drop down to meet our return route. We ignored that, though, and we headed on around to the left.
We headed on through Wharf Wood to turn right onto Feizor Nick. We then followed that down into Feizor, passing by Elaine's tearooms and then turning right along the Pennine Bridleway.
We then followed the Pennine Bridleway back to the path junction near the start of the walk. We then followed the lane around to the left and then followed that along to pass back over Austwick Bridge to head back to the market cross where we started the walk.
In the transcript of the video, when any mention is made of the 'description below', it refers to the description shown beneath the video on YouTube. If you wish to access any of that information, click 'watch on YouTube' on the video above, and the description will be there, on YouTube, just below the video.
