Great Whernside Walk: Kettlewell to Providence Pot Circular Route

Following Dowber Gill Beck and the Ridge on the Great Whernside Walk

Start your Great Whernside walk in the village of Kettlewell, parking in the Yorkshire Dales National Park pay and display car park. Leave the car park by the main exit and turn left, heading into the village. Before you cross the road bridge over Kettlewell Beck, turn right, signposted to Kettlewell Camping. Follow the road past the village war memorial on your left to reach the maypole at a crossroads, where it stands inside a small circular seating area in the middle of the junction.

Turn left at the maypole, signposted to the church, and follow the road up to the King’s Head public house. Here the road bends sharply left over a bridge across Kettlewell Beck, but ignore this and carry straight on instead, signposted for the Dales Way. Walk past the houses and cottages with the beck on your left, then continue along the tarmac lane as it gradually leaves the village behind.

Stay on the lane and ignore the public footpath on your right signposted to Conistone. Also ignore the following public bridleway on your right signposted to Whernside Pastures. When you reach the bridge over Kettlewell Beck, take the right-hand footpath signposted Great Whernside via Hag Dyke and Providence Pot. Follow the stone track to a second bridge, cross it, then take the right-hand public footpath signposted Hag Dyke and Providence Pot. Go over a gated stile, where the path splits, and take the right-hand fork signposted Providence Pot.

Continue along this footpath through the valley for roughly a mile, following the course of Dowber Gill Beck. The path stays close to the beck throughout this stretch and climbs at a gradual gradient, so it makes for a steady start to your Great Whernside walk. Eventually you reach the entrance to the Providence Pot cave system, which is capped with a large concrete slab and easy to spot.

Stand at the capped entrance and face up the valley towards the rock face, then look to your left. You’ll see a narrow path climbing steeply up the valley side. Follow it. The climb is very steep at first before it levels out into a pleasant grassy path with excellent views back down the Dowber Gill Beck valley you’ve just walked through. After about a third of a mile you reach the rear of the youth hostel at Hag Dyke, which marks roughly a quarter of the way round your Great Whernside walk.

Keep to the path as it bears right past the rear of the youth hostel, then head steeply uphill on the rocky path with a dry stone wall on your left. This is the first section of the climb, a boulder-covered hillside. At the top the path levels out and turns grassy, and ahead of you the boulder-strewn summit of Great Whernside comes into view. The grassy path is fairly easy to follow and is marked by occasional wooden posts with yellow painted tops, though the ground across this level stretch can be boggy.

Beyond the level section the path steepens again for the final pull to the summit and triangulation pillar. As you draw near, you’ll begin to encounter large scattered boulders. If you don’t know the area, it’s worth getting your bearings here by remembering that your way off the mountain is to the left, which is north. Keep following the path to reach the triangulation pillar at the summit of Great Whernside.

Stand at the triangulation pillar with your back to the views and the way you’ve come, facing the metal gate in the fence line, then look to your left beyond the large cairn. You’ll pick out a faint path crossing the ridge and heading north. Follow it across the mountain with the fence line on your right, staying fairly close to it without walking alongside it. Continue between the boulders to reach the first of a series of wooden posts with yellow painted tops, where the path splits, and take the left-hand fork, which heads away from the fence line and slightly downhill.

Carry on along the path, with more yellow-topped posts confirming you’re on the right line as it descends the mountainside slowly but surely. After about three quarters of a mile you reach Black Dike Hole, where you cross a stile and begin a very steep descent. This is roughly the halfway point of your Great Whernside walk. As the path flattens out the ground can be boggy, and after another three quarters of a mile or so you arrive at a minor road right beside a cattle grid.

Cross the road and take the wide grassy path opposite as it bears round to the left. After about a fifth of a mile you meet a dry stone wall, and although it isn’t obvious, you join a grassy bridleway as the path begins to move away from the wall. Keep heading straight ahead for around a third of a mile to meet the wall again and pass through a gate.

Stay on this bridleway, known as Starbotton Road, for about two thirds of a mile. It roughly follows the line of the dry stone wall on your left, sometimes running close to it and sometimes further away, but the wall stays in view for most of the way. You’ll reach a wooden signpost where the bridleway splits, which is about three quarters of the way round your Great Whernside walk. Take the left turn, signposted public bridleway to Kettlewell.

Follow this straightforward bridleway, known as Top Mere Road, south towards Kettlewell for around one and three quarter miles. As the track starts to descend more steeply, Kettlewell comes into view below. You’ll reach the bend of a minor road, where you carry straight on downhill, then turn right at the T-junction at the bottom and follow the road down into Kettlewell to complete your Great Whernside walk.

Great Whernside Walk: Distance, Duration, Statistics

Recommended Ordnance Survey Map

The best map to use on this walk is the Ordnance Survey map of the Yorkshire Dales Northern & Central Area, reference OS Explorer OL30, scale 1:25,000. It clearly displays footpaths, rights of way, open access land and vegetation on the ground, making it ideal for walking, running and hiking. The map can be purchased from Amazon in either a standard, paper version or a weatherproof, laminated version, as shown below.

Yorkshire Dales Walking Guidebooks

Walking in the Yorkshire Dales: North and East, by Dennis Kelsall, describes 43 circular day walks of 3 to 12 miles across the Howgills, Mallerstang, Swaledale, Wensleydale, Coverdale and Nidderdale, with Ordnance Survey mapping and notes on parking and refreshments.

15 Short Walks in the Yorkshire Dales, by Jonathan and Lesley Williams, covers the area around Sedbergh, Kirkby Lonsdale and Ingleton. Its 15 routes of 1 to 7 miles each take under three hours, ideal for families or a relaxed half day out. Both books can be purchased from Amazon, as shown below.

About Great Whernside

Great Whernside rises to 704 metres, or 2,310 feet, on the eastern side of Wharfedale, directly above the village of Kettlewell. It should not be confused with Whernside, the higher and better known peak that stands around seventeen miles to the west and forms part of the Yorkshire Three Peaks. Great Whernside is the highest ground on this side of the dale, and its long summit ridge marks the watershed between Wharfedale and Nidderdale. The mountain also sits on the boundary between the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the Nidderdale National Landscape, and the River Nidd rises on its eastern slopes above Angram Reservoir.

The name is far older than it might appear. It was first written down in 1214 as Querneside and comes from Old English, combining a word for a quern or millstone with a word for hillside. In other words, it means the hillside where millstones were found, which makes sense once you reach the top and see the great slabs of millstone grit lying everywhere. Quarries once worked this stone on the Wharfedale side of the hill. Viewed from Nidderdale, the same mountain was traditionally known as Blackfell, a name that survives on the map today in Blackfell Crags. The word Great was added later, first recorded in 1771, to distinguish it from neighbouring Little Whernside.

Access to the summit is a surprisingly recent story. No public right of way reached the top until 1997, when two footpaths were finally registered, one climbing from Kettlewell and another running along the summit ridge. Larger areas of the fell then became open access land following the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. Most walkers now approach as I did on my Great Whernside walk, starting from Kettlewell, though there is a shorter and steeper option from the Park Rash road and a longer, much quieter route from Scar House Reservoir in Nidderdale. Anyone coming in from the east should be prepared for wet ground, as those approaches stay boggy even after a long dry spell.

There is more history on these slopes than the bare moorland suggests. Tor Dike, on the north-western flank of the mountain, is an earthwork of ditch and rampart cut into the limestone, and it is thought to have been built either by Iron Age tribes defending themselves against the Roman advance or later, during the Dark Ages. Closer to the route of my Great Whernside walk stands Hag Dyke, roughly halfway between the village and the summit, a former farmhouse that has been run as a hostel by the 1st Ben Rhydding Scout and Guide Group since 1947. Below it, the Providence Pot and Dow Cave system runs deep beneath the valley floor.

The mountain has a sombre side too, having been the site of several aircraft crashes over the years, a reminder that the weather up here can turn quickly. On a clear day, though, the summit of the Great Whernside walk offers some of the finest views in the Dales, reaching west across Wharfedale to the Three Peaks and east over the moors towards Nidderdale.

Great Whernside Walk: My Photos

After parking in Kettlewell and walking out through the village, I turn into the Dowber Gill Beck valley to begin the climb proper. The narrow path runs along the northern side of the valley, with a dry stone wall and a line of old hawthorns for company.

The valley opens out ahead of me under a clear sky, its smooth grassy flanks rising steeply on both sides. Limestone boulders and the bleached remains of a fallen tree lie scattered along the valley floor, washed down over the years by the beck.

Looking back, I can see the route I have taken, with a broad scree slope spilling down the far side of the valley. Beside the path lie the tumbled remains of a stone wall, a reminder of how thoroughly this landscape was once enclosed and worked.

There has been little rain in the weeks before my Great Whernside walk, so the bed of Dowber Gill Beck is largely dry, leaving only shallow pools between the limestone slabs. Much of the water here disappears underground through fissures in the rock long before it reaches the valley floor.

After about a mile I reach Providence Pot, the capped entrance to one of the best known cave systems in the Dales. The concrete slab sits beside the bed of the gill, surrounded by loose rock and backed by a low limestone scar.

Providence Pot takes its name from the Providence lead mine that once worked the ground above these sinks. Members of the Craven Pothole Club dug out the entrance in the summer of 1954, and the concrete cap now protects a scaffolded shaft dropping into the passages below.

In 1955, cavers finally linked Providence Pot with Dow Cave further down the valley by way of Dowbergill Passage. The passage runs in a remarkably straight line for well over a mile, and the through trip between the two entrances is still regarded as one of the toughest in Yorkshire.

Before leaving Providence Pot, I take one last look back down the valley, where the bed of the beck is nothing more than a jumble of dry stones. In wetter conditions the whole channel would be running, and the sinks nearby would be swallowing the flow underground.

Standing at the capped entrance and facing up the valley towards the rock face, I look to my left and pick out a narrow path climbing away up the hillside through the bracken. It is easy to miss from below, but it is the only sensible way out of the valley from here.

The climb rewards me almost straight away with wide views back down the Dowber Gill Beck valley, which forms the first mile of my Great Whernside walk. The dry stone walls running along the opposite side show just how steep the ground is on both flanks.

The path is steep to begin with but soon eases into a gentler gradient across the hillside. From up here the whole valley falls away below, with the higher fells of Wharfedale filling the skyline.

The path brings me out at the rear of the youth hostel at Hag Dyke, standing alone at around 1,525 feet on the flank of the mountain. Records of the building as a farmhouse go back to 1730, and it has been run as a hostel by a scout group from Ben Rhydding since 1947, with a chapel added in the 1950s that is said to be the highest in England.

I follow the path past the buildings and start up the hillside behind, where a dry stone wall climbs steeply beside a band of broken rock. This is the first proper section of the ascent, over rough and stony ground, and it is also where the underlying limestone gives way to hard gritstone.

I have climbed this mountain on several occasions, and today the ground is unusually dry, though this stretch of my Great Whernside walk can be very boggy after rain. Wooden posts with yellow painted tops mark the line of the path across the peat, which is a real help when visibility drops.

Climbing towards the summit, I keep stopping to look back at the views opening up behind me. The mountainside starts with just a scattering of boulders, but the higher I go the more thickly they lie across the slope.

At last the triangulation pillar comes into view, standing among a broken sea of gritstone blocks along the summit ridge. After the long pull up from Hag Dyke, it is a welcome sight.

As I get closer, I can see the huge pile of stones heaped up beside the pillar. Cairns like this are sometimes built up over many years by walkers adding a stone as they pass.

The triangulation pillar at the summit of Great Whernside stands at 704 metres, or 2,310 feet. That makes it the highest point on the eastern side of Wharfedale and one of only a handful of mountains in the Yorkshire Dales National Park to top 700 metres, which is a satisfying high point on my Great Whernside walk.

The views from the summit are spectacular on a clear day. Away to the west, the three summits of the Yorkshire Three Peaks, Pen-y-ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside, all stand out along the horizon.

This summit is one of my favourites anywhere in the Dales, and I never tire of the boulder-covered ground up here. The great slabs of gritstone lie tilted and split apart, with deep gaps opening between them.

From the summit I pick out the line of the path heading north across the ridge, then take one last look back at the triangulation pillar and its huge cairn. From here the walk changes character completely, swapping the climb for a long moorland descent.

I cross the ridge heading north, losing height gradually as I pick my way past more of the great gritstone boulders. The views to the west stay with me for most of this stretch, out across the head of Wharfedale and beyond.

As I drop lower, I know it won’t be long before Pen-y-ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside slip below the horizon. It is worth taking a proper look while they are still in sight.

After Black Dike Hole the descent steepens sharply, and the whole landscape ahead is lit up in the afternoon sun. Away to the north-west, the broad summit of Buckden Pike rises above the head of the dale.

The gradient eases as the path reaches flatter ground, which from my own experience is definitely boggy after a spell of wet weather. From here I follow the line of a dry stone wall down to the minor road.

Beyond the road the route swings round the head of the valley on a lovely stretch of walking, broadly following the course of another dry stone wall. This is the quietest part of my Great Whernside walk, with hardly a soul about.

The views open up to my left as I curve around the head of the valley, looking down the full length of Wharfedale with Kettlewell tucked away in the distance. It is a fine reminder of how far I have come since the morning.

I join the bridleway known as Starbotton Road, still with wide views out to the east across the fells. The old walls and ruined field boundaries up here show how far the farming once reached.

Passing through a gate on Top Mere Road, the view opens up directly ahead towards Kettlewell, far below in the fold of the dale. From this height the whole of Wharfedale seems to spread out in front of me.

Looking east, the dry stone wall running along the ridge lines up almost exactly with the summit of Great Whernside. It is a satisfying way to trace the shape of my Great Whernside walk from the outside.

Top Mere Road continues as a wide green bridleway, enclosed on both sides by dry stone walls. Old routes like this were built for driving stock between the valley and the high pastures.

More views open up to the east, where light and shadow chase each other across the flanks of Great Whernside. The scale of the mountain is easier to appreciate now that I am looking at it from a distance.

The dale widens as I lose height, with the flat green pastures of Wharfedale stretching away below the limestone scars. Kettlewell is close now, and the walking is easy on this old green road.

The descent steepens and the rooftops of Kettlewell finally come into view, gathered around the church tower. After a long day on the fells, the sight of the village is a welcome one.

The village is unusually busy today because of the Kettlewell Scarecrow Festival, a nine-day event held every August since 1994 that raises money for the village school, hall and church. From up here I can see a whole field turned over to parking and packed with cars, which brings my Great Whernside walk to a lively finish.