Dalby Forest and Bridestones

One of the areas very close to where we live is Dalby Forest at the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. The Forest provides a wonderful range of activities, including Halloween walks to scare the kids, and star gazing, mountain bike riding, swinging through the trees, concerts and walks.

Dalby Forest is managed by the Forestry Commission which planted trees from about the 1920s. Prior to that the area had been part of the Royal Hunting forest of Pickering supporting a number of rabbit warrens

At this time of year it’s good to go up and see the trees turning autumnal, but I haven’t managed it. However, as I have visited in past years, I have cheated by raiding my photos.

Despite there being large areas of conifer plantation, much of the Forest is deciduous, as well as including examples of other typical local environments. A range of such vegetation can be seen on the walk up to the Bridestones, which starts from near Staindale lake.


The walk is circular, but we tend to start by going in a clockwise direction up the steep wooded path to the right. This can leave us quite out of breath if we have been over-indulging in sweeties, but is worth every effort as the woodland is very pretty.


At the top it opens out to heath, including heather and bracken. Being higher up and more open it is now possible to get some improved views, the way up having been too wooded to see very far.




Crossing the heath brings us to the stones themselves. They are amazing rock formations, naturally sculpted by the elements, although they do look artificial in many ways. There are a number of them along the top of the ridge, in a mad variety of shapes and sizes.


They are also quite large, certainly enough to climb onto, in order to get great views across the valley.


The descent is once again through woods and is much more gentle; I think it may be designed to be wheelchair accessible. This incidentally is another nice feature of the Forest; a number of the walks are available for people pushing pushchairs or using wheelchairs, particularly the walk around the Lake.




There is also a longer circular walk back down from the stones, which is not accessible to wheelchairs. It cuts across more grassy areas and steep trails from further along the Bridestones path.



You can get across the streams easily enough, but need to do so in numbers in order to prevent the trolls getting you.