Lady Anne's Way - Appleby to Kirkby Thore

Tuesday 25th August 2026

A problem with any walk is finding somewhere close to the route to park either at the beginning of the walk or the end. I usually research this using Google Earth. Today I had found The Bridge, a closed down restaurant exactly on Lady Anne's route facing onto the hugely dangerous A66 and exactly seven miles from my last destination at Appleby. Unfortunately I failed to take a photo of The Bridge so I cribbed the photo below from an estate agent's site. At first the jpeg image seemed to be locked (copyright?) Using Preview on my Mac I took a screenshot and saved it as a jpeg and athough this is a poor quality image it serves the purpose.You will see there is a large vacant car park to the rear, and in the spirit of my gung-ho use of the photo I had no qualms in using that car park. I recruited my previously used taxi man from the last section of this campaign and he picked me up at 9:00 am and dropped me back at Appleby so I was off to a good start at 9:10 am.

The route took me pleasingly through Appleby. I have driven past the large column at the top of Boroughgate many times but today I had the pleasure of  walking past, and then onward down Boroughgate to cross the river Eden and then climb out of Appleby to gain mainly old drovers lanes for the rest of the walk almost all on level ground.

From AI:

High Cross: Built circa 1670 as a Doric pillar monument at the south end of Boroughgate, bearing the inscription "Retain your loyalty, preserve your rights". Its stepped base was historically used for selling cheese.

I'm not sure of the sentiment of that quotation. King Charles 11 was on the throne and there was much politico/religious stuff going on.

The walking was almost all level and easy to follow with one short badly overgrown grass field, but the rest was  on lanes and a some tarmac. This would have been a fairly unremarkable country stroll but as with the whole of Lady Anne's Way one is accompanied almost all of the time by views of hills not too far away with the Pennines to the right, and now the northern Lake District to the left.

Arriving back at The Bridge I needed to rurn right onto the A66 to head back to Penrith and south on the M6. Approaches from left and right on the A66 were blind at a distance enough to make the right turn a risky manoeuvre with danger from traffic approaching from either direction, but as you will deduce I survived. Next ime I will need to do it again on foot straight across to pick up continution of Lady Anne's Way.

 

The Bridge. This was a well respected restaurant but now in dilapidated condition and has been  on  the market with no takers for a long time. I will need to use heir car park again for my next section

The 1670 column at the top of Boroughgate in Appleby

Crossing the River Eden

Pennine Hills. High Cup Nick in the dip at right end

Murton Pike

A rare field of overgrown grass. The rest of the walk was on agreeable surfaces and I made good time

An unusual take on stile construction

I tried to get an internet translation but it didn't make much sense:

"pool house" or "pond house"

Shame, I thought I had found something interesting from an educated farmer, a little knowledge...

The main line north

Far Broom farm - zoom to  geese below

Broad Lea. A well found residence

Over the beck leading into Long Marton

The village institute in Long Marton. I couldn't even be sure there was writing on the plaque. My camera zoom triumphed- see below

The village shop in Kirkby Thore. The artic. on the left had been delivering at the shop and had needed to reverse out of the road to the right being directed by the shop owner with much drama while I watched on

There were a few of these bespoke benches in Kirkby Thore dedicated to jubilee/millenium etc.