North Lincolnshire

Walk Details:
Date: 4/12/2005
Total ascent: 8m/ 26ft
Total distance walked: 0.37 miles
Walk difficulty: 0.5/10
Enjoyment rating: 1.5/10
Best bits: Good views off of the escarpment on the approach to the top
Worst bits: The actual top was a bit of a non-entity
Walkers: Anth, Jim
Car Parking: You can just about squeeze a car onto the verge at ST 995 172. Alternatively, if you don’t mind driving up a rough track, you could actually drive right up to the county top.

Top details:
Name: Saxby Wold
County top number: 107 of 207
Grid reference: SE 99830 17229
Height above sea level: 102m/ 335ft
How nice was the top? 1.5/10
Views: 1.5/10
Description/Notes: The highest point in the unitary authority of North Lincolnshire is an indeterminate point along a track, close to a reservoir compound.

The Walk:

The approach road along the top of the Saxby Wold escarpment had seen spectacular views. Unfortunately reaching the county top meant turning our back on these views and heading into the flat top of the wold.

Nervously parking the car in the limited space on the verge, we walked up a broad track between unenclosed fields. It felt like “big sky country” – completely open, flat and featureless. The lack of cover made it very exposed, and even the light breeze grazing the wold felt bitterly cold. It felt a lot higher and more remote than the mere 102 metres suggested – there was no traffic noise, and if it hadn’t been for the icy wind would have felt very peaceful.

It was so flat that it was hard to determine the exact top. We decided it was somewhere outside a small reservoir compound. A diminutive wind turbine in the compound was the most prominent feature for some distance around.

As with all flat, unmarked tops it was a strangely unsatisfying affair, but we headed back to the car with four tops already visited today, feeling that the chase was on for a record number of tops in one day. Hull next…