Stockton-on-Tees

Walk Details:
Date: 8/7/2006
Total ascent: 26m/ 85ft
Total distance walked: 0.64 miles
Walk difficulty: 2/10
Enjoyment rating: 3/10
Best bits:
Worst bits:
Walkers: Anth, Jim
Car Parking: We parked on the road verge at NZ 482 109

Top details:
Name: Boy Hill
County top number: 127 of 205
Grid reference: NZ 47920 10755 (from www.hill-bagging.co.uk)
Height above sea level: 82m/ 269ft
How nice was the top? 2/10
Views: 4.5/10
Description/Notes: The highest point in Stockton-on-Tees is either at Boy Hill or at Thorpe Larches (see separate report). The top of Boy Hill is an indeterminate point in the midst of an arable field.

The Walk:

My wife had gone for a long weekend in Brighton with her sister – her last chance for a major shopping trip before our probably-going-to-be-a-daughter was born in early October. Jim and I had taken the opportunity to make a run for the hills – or, at least, the highest points in the unitary authorities of the Teeside and Tyneside areas. Jim was a disturbing sight when he arrived at our house – on a recent cycling trip he had made a disturbingly intimate acquaintance with a tree and in return had more bruises and cuts on his forehead and elbows than Zinedine Zidane.

Approaching our first top, one of two potential highest points in Stockton-on-Tees Unitary Authority, we had to give way to a long line of baby grouse making a dangerously slow crossing of the road. Obviously the stupidity of this game bird begins at an early age!

From perusing OS maps, we suspected that the majority of the tops we were due to visit this weekend would be disappointing – these were truly hills for list completists only. We therefore saw no point in trying to make circular walks - our aim was to get the miserable little critters out of the way as quickly and cleanly as possible, meaning that future bagging trips would be freed up for bigger and better hills. We applied this principle immediately on this very first top, parking as close as we safely could to the highest point.

Other baggers had said that the field in which the top lay was uncultivated and easy to access. They were right on one point – there were large gaps in the boundary fence. I jumped through easily whilst Jim’s face made a brief acquaintance with the bottom of the boundary ditch (it seemed that his bike accident had left him somewhat unsteady on his pins). However, the field was now cultivated with a somewhat scrawny looking crop of wheat, and we weren’t about to go tramping through and destroy it.

Fortunately the farmer had mown down a broad band around the edge of the field (presumably to reduce cross-pollination with neighbouring fields rather than to help county top baggers). We followed this up the left-hand edge of the field to the crest of the field, our shoes filling with spiky grass seed on the way. The views were better than we expected, with the North York Moors looming black and ominous to the south-west. The actual county top was about 200 feet into the field, but we could see no discernible difference in altitude from where we stood and certainly weren’t going to trample crops just to gain a few centimetres in height. We therefore considered this top bagged (although the grid reference shown above is taken from Simon Edwardes’ website, as the field was uncultivated when he visited) and headed back to the car.