THE NORTH YORK MOORS - A Northern Coast to Coast Walk: From St Bees to Robin Hood's Bay - page 102

Cleveland Plain now coming into view, and a stunning view over heather
moors of the onward route.
THE LYKE WAKE WALK
The trig point on the summit of Beacon Hill officially marks the start of the Lyke Wake
Walk - a 40-mile trek across the moors that must be completed within 24 hours. These
days the walk starts at the Lyke Wake Stone on a little mound opposite the first car
park at the eastern end of Cod Beck Reservoir.
The Lyke Wake Walk began with an article in the Dalesman magazine in August 1955,
with the first challenge being taken up on 1 October 1955. Those first challengers, who
included Bill Cowley, instigator of the walk, 'cheered each other on by reciting the Lyke
Wake Dirge'. Normally sung at funerals in the 17th century 'by the vulgar people in
Yorkshire', the dirge suggests that everyone, after death, must make a journey over a
wide and difficult moor. Those who have done good deeds in their life - given away food
and drink, silver and gold, written helpful guidebooks(?) - will receive aid and will cross
the moor safely. But if not, the luckless soul will sink into hell flames - or Rosedale bog!
Continue away from the top of Beacon Hill to arrive at a gate. Another,
just a few strides away, gives access to the heathered expanse of Scarth
Wood Moor. Now an open track leads on across the moor, and is a partic-
ular delight in August when the heather is in bloom.
SCARTH WOOD MOOR
Scarth Wood Moor, like most of the moors that make up the North York Moors, is of
considerable prehistoric significance, and has a number of Bronze Age 'barrows', or
grave mounds. Geologically, it is affected by three faults, the largest being along the
line of Scarth Nick, soon to be encountered, and originally formed by an overflow of
melt water from a huge glacier that once filled Scugdale.
Ice sheets have advanced and retreated over the British landscape at least four times
in the last two million years, a period of alternating warm and cold climatic conditions
known as the Great Ice Age, which effectively refrigerated everything. The last period,
known as the Devensian, did not end until about 11,000-10,000 years ago, when plants
began to recolonise the moors, animals returned, and prehistoric people appeared on
the scene.