Sutton Bank and the White Horse of Kilburn

The skies above Sutton Bank are often busy with gliders soaring on strong up-currents and rising pockets of warm air. The Yorkshire Gliding Club, established in 1931, has its station and airfield on the remarkably flat stretch of land above the sweeping semicircle of very steep cliffs (a natural amphitheatre creating thermals and funneling prevailing westerly winds into strong up-currents).

The flat limestone lands of the Hambleton Hills around Sutton Bank provide suitable conditions for horse racing (established as early as 1612, when racegoers sought refreshment in the Hambleton Inn and Dialstone Inn — now Dialstone Farm, likely named from the dial of weighing machines used to weigh in jockeys). In 1755 the main prize ('the Hundred Guineas') was transferred to York and local races went into rapid decline, though the tradition continues with racing stables at Hambleton House and training gallops.

Gormire Lake is the only natural lake of significant size in the North York Moors, formed at the end of the Ice Age when part of a meltwater channel was blocked by a landslide at the escarpment edge. Local legends suggest it is bottomless and haunted by a white mare and rider who plunged from cliffs above. The 70-foot vertical cliff face rising above Gormire Lake is referred to as White Mare Crag or Whitestone Cliff (after a rockfall in 1755, the freshly revealed limestone face was said to resemble a white horse from a distance). A nature trail circles Gormire Lake, a breeding place for wild duck, coot, and great crested grebe.

Part of the walk follows a highway used by Scottish drovers in the 18th and 19th centuries driving cattle into England to sell meat to expanding market and industrial towns. The 15-mile highway from Sutton Bank to Osmotherley is known as the 'Hambleton Drove Road'.

The Kilburn White Horse is a chalk hill figure cut into the hillside at the south end of the walk, just over a mile from the Sutton Bank visitor centre. Measuring 318 feet long by 220 feet high and covering about 1.6 acres, it is said to be the largest and most northerly hill figure in England, facing south-west and visible from the East Coast Main Line railway south of Thirsk, the A19, and even north Leeds (28 miles / 45 km away) on higher ground.

Near the White Horse on a remarkable horseshoe-shaped area of elevated flat ground is the Yorkshire Gliding Club (founded 1934, hosting famous fliers like Nicholas Goodhart, Amy Johnson, and Fred Slingsby), making it a notable launching point and the most popular gliding club in northern England.

Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.