Our drawing of the route, over road and path data from OpenStreetMap. It shows where the walk goes and what it goes through. It is not a survey and not a navigation aid — carry OS Explorer on the hill.
Eight miles along the Ure through parkland and woods to Mickley and back on the Ripon Rowel, three and a half hours, easy underfoot with one long steady climb out of the valley at Old Sleningford and a handful of stiles. Start on Tanfield Bridge in the village below Marmion Tower where there is free roadside parking, and the 159 bus between Ripon and Masham calls at the village green. The path runs high along a wooded bank above a sweeping bend of the Ure, which is a fine place to see roe deer and a poor place for a dog to go over the edge, so a lead there is sensible; sheep graze the Sleningford parkland, the river gives a dog a safe drink at the mill, and the woodland tracks stay walkable in winter while the riverside meadows below the bridge flood.
A fifteenth-century gatehouse standing beside the River Ure, all that survives of the vanished manor house it once guarded, with a fine oriel window on the first floor. English Heritage keeps it free to enter and open daily, and states that dogs on leads are welcome throughout. It sits directly beside the churchyard, so it pairs neatly with a riverside stroll.
A Georgian coaching inn on West Tanfield's main street, now a smart dining pub with a Georgian dining room and a proper stocked bar alongside it. The kitchen is ambitious but the door policy is not: the inn describes itself as dog, cyclist and muddy boot friendly, so wet spaniels are as welcome as walkers. Log fires in the winter months and three bedrooms upstairs if the day runs long.
A village inn on Church Street with a garden that runs down to the banks of the River Ure, and one of the prettiest pub views in the Vale of Mowbray. Well behaved dogs are welcome and, in the pub's own words, might be offered a biscuit or two from the jar kept on the bar. Five en-suite bedrooms make it a sensible base for the Ure valley and Thornborough.
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