The well on Huggate village green, where the walk starts, is reputedly the second deepest in the country: according to a sign on a millstone at the site of the well (which is now capped), it is 339 feet (103 metres) deep. It took two men about half an hour to wind up a single bucket of water, though the water was very pure, having been filtered through hundreds of feet of chalk.
Across the road from the site of the well are some old clay workings. A belt of clay runs through the middle of the village, and chalk in the clay lends it a characteristic yellow colour; bricks baked from local clay were used in many of the village's more substantial buildings, including Kirkdale House (formerly the vicarage).
Downhill from the green is the village pond. In the days of horsepower, ponds were vitally important and every village on the Wolds had one — all the animals drank here, and it also provided water for domestic purposes. The one at Huggate, dug out of local clay, is now left mostly to ducks.
Huggate was once part of a large estate and has many farm buildings from before the turn of the century. Date stones can still be seen in those constructed by William Jessop, owner of the estate in the late Victorian period when the village was a thriving farming community. St Mary's Church, also known as All Saints, is at the north end of the village; Norman in origin but much altered, its finest feature is the 14th-century tower surmounted by a splendid spire.
North of the village you climb steadily along the Wolds Way to outlying Glebe Farm. Views from here are widespread, stretching to the North Sea on the clearest of days, and the light of Flamborough Head Lighthouse can be seen at night. By the route at Glebe Farm there is a dewpond, a vital source of water for livestock in the chalk Wolds.
From Glebe Farm the walk continues through high land and crosses Horse Dale, a dry valley. At the top of the steady climb it is worth making a detour along the road to Huggate Wold Farm to see a life-size bronze statue of David Midgley, a farm foreman who retired in 1992 after 40 years' service.
The route continues along a minor road then down a track to a woodland. Walking is easy, and hanging wooded slopes give a feeling of stepping back to a time when oxen hauled wooden-wheeled carts up this route. At the bottom you walk into the open spaces of Frendal Dale, where earthworks visible along its eastern ridges were made by the Parisii — an Iron Age people thought to have originated from northern France and colonised the Wolds from about 300 BC.
The end of the dale sweeps around Millington Pasture and reaches Nettle Dale at a point where three long-distance footpaths meet: the Wolds Way, Minster Way, and Chalkland Way. From here the walk heads east on the south side of Pasture Dale back to Huggate, with the last section walked by following Pocklington Lane into the village.
Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.
