About
the Yorkshire Wolds
The Yorkshire Wolds are a range of
low, rolling hills which rise from the River Humber
at Hessle and run in a crescent curve (which reaches
a height of about 250 metres) culminating in the east
with the dramatic cliffs of Flamborough Head and Bempton,
north of Bridlington.
The solid, mainly chalk geology of the
Yorkshire Wolds is the most northerly outcrop of chalk
in Britain.
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Gannets |
For thousands of years man has found
the raw materials here for agriculture, industry and
the built environment. The area includes some of the
most fertile and intensely farmed agricultural land
in the country, particularly in respect of cereal crops.
The Yorkshire Wolds is an archaeological
landscape of international importance. Major sites and
monuments include examples of Neolithic, Bronze and
Iron Age burials, ritual complexes and prehistoric dyke
systems. The area is particularly rich in deserted mediaeval
villages.
Chalk grassland is now an extremely
rare habitat in Britain and this is the most important
semi-natural wildlife habitat remaining in the Yorkshire
Wolds. A wide range of plants and insects are largely
confined to chalkland. Positive management schemes are
needed to maintain and to enhance the present flora
and fauna, some of which may be lost forever without
adequate protection. Scrub growth is a very real threat
to the remaining grassland areas on steep valley sides.
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Marbled White butterfly
on scabious flower |
This is a rich but tranquil landscape
through which runs the Wolds Way from Hessle Foreshore
to Filey Brigg, a walk to enjoy for its intimacy and
serenity. The course of the Wolds Way is shown on the
map above with a broken yellow line. Here in the Yorkshire
Wolds there is a superb opportunity to explore and understand
how people have interacted with their environment through
successive layers of history over thousands of years.
An integrated approach is not only interesting in itself
but the best way of safeguarding a sustainable future.
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