THE NORTH YORK MOORS - A Northern Coast to Coast Walk: From St Bees to Robin Hood's Bay - page 103

At the edge of Scarth Wood Moor
When the path rejoins a wall (the handiwork of a community programme
team working here in 1988), a low stone waymark for the Lyke Wake Walk
(LWW) is soon reached. Here go left and descend to Scarth Nick, following
the wall and ignoring more prominent tracks heading off to the right.
At Scarth Nick, reached by two flights of cobbled steps that do nothing
for your knees, go left along the road to cross a cattle-grid, and then turn
immediately right through a gate into forest.
DROVE ROADS
Scarth Nick is the crossing point of the Hambleton Drove Road, one of numerous routes
taken by tough, weather-beaten Scottish cattlemen, hired to drive cattle from Scotland
into England to sell at various market towns, even as far south as London.
When these drove roads were regularly in use it was a busy time for sheep and cattle
farmers, the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries aggravating
an already growing demand for beef that could not be met by English farmers. Ironic-
ally, it was the Industrial Revolution, and the invention of steam power, that sealed the
fate of the cattle drovers, as steam power overcame leg power, and the new railway
network made it possible to slaughter cattle locally and send carcasses to markets by
rail. Declining rapidly by 1850, at the turn of the century droving had ceased altogeth-
er.
The path through the wood soon joins a forest trail, where the walk contin-
ues ahead along level ground. At a break in the forest on the left (Cleve-
land Way sign and Lyke Wake Walk marker stone), leave the level forest
trail by starting down a wide stony track. A few strides further on, a brief diver-
sion leads onto a small balcony with a seat that offers a splendid view over the village of
Swainby below.