🥾 11 miles  🥾 Circular 🥾 Moderate 🥾 Walk Leader: Shaun F

It is late March 1461, and Edward IV is marching an army northward to avenge his late father, the Duke of York, who was slain three months earlier at the Battle of Wakefield. In just a few days his forces would come face to face with the Lancastrian army at the agricultural fields lying between the villages of Towton and Saxton. The 20 hour battle that would ensue on the 29th of march 1461 would be the bloodiest battle ever thought on English soil.  Historians  estimated  that 20% of the men that entered the field that day would not come back out alive.  

So a nice light hearted backdrop for a Sunday walk in the Yorkshire country side then!!!  

Our  walk begins in the historic village of Saxton. Saxton has everything you could want from a village: a traditional pub with old horse stables, random bits of historical infrastructure   such as old water pump, a beautiful church  and of course your community notice board displaying village events such as " cookie crumble Wednesdays" or "barrys Saturday plant sale".  After exploring the village and getting past the disappointment that its cookie crumble Wednesdays not Sundays. we leave the village to the west crossing over a potato farm to St Marys chapel in lead. 

St Marys chapel is a quaint church built in the 13th century by the  Tyas family (I haven't the faintest clue who they are) on the grounds of a medieval manor house. The manor house has since gone leaving just the chapel standing all by itself with just the local pub for company 

After exploring the chapel we will walk along "cock Brook" (who comes up with these names). It is said the Towton battle was so violent the brook was flowing with blood. Personally I don't think this is a very good metric for violence as literally any time a medieval  battle was  thought by a channel of water the description "river flowing of blood" is shoe horned in there.  The trail continues over undulating hills and around a pine forests to Hazlewood Castle!

We will have lunch overlooking the view  of the Castle before crossing over the racecourse and along Chary lane into the village of Stutton. Stutton is famous for having literally nothing exciting in it so we will traverse the old Harrogate  church Fenton railway to a small woodland 1/2 mile south of the village.  Here nestled  under the old railway viaduct is a shrine to Richard Osmond.  Quite why there is a shrine to Richard Osmond here are the sort of questions I find are better unasked, but should anyone want to spend some time paying homage to a BBC Game show co host then there will be ample time to-do so. 

Leaving the woods we will cross some farm land into the village of Towton, where we will pick up the battlefield trail ( must have been a long night for the footpath naming committee on that one).  The trail follows the edge of the battlefield   giving us multiple angles and viewpoints  of this historic site.... or it would have done had the farmer not decided that this would be the perfect field to grow corn in (you know the unnecessarily tall plant). So the view is sadly restricted somewhat. Although if we are being entirely  honest the view would have been a flat north Yorkshire field so don't think we are missing out that much. There is still plenty of interesting information boards and the historical significance of this site is still really cool, so we will still take this section at a leisurely pace. 

The trail ends at the battle memorial , the "darces cross" where we come across a footpath that sits in the "well the thought was there" category. Whilst there is a lovely footpath sign marking where there should be a path, the land owner clearly saw this as the perfect entry for the national    "who can squeeze the most spikey plants per km of footpath" competition. So unfortunately  we are stuck walking along the road verge for a 1/3 of a mile or so , before taking a left down a country lane back into Saxton 

🅿️ On street Parking in Saxon.

🥪 You will need to bring a packed lunch.

🥾 Boots are recommended.

🐶 Dogs: Whilst you are welcome to bring a furry friend, please be advised there's a small section on the verge of a main road and couple of section where we have to weave over fallen branches so please consider your dogs ability to handle this 

🍺 The all important pub: we will head to grey hound for a post walk pint .

Get Your Boots On is a friendly and sociable group aimed for those in their 20s and 30s, and is part of the Ramblers Association.