Walking East Stoke's Lanes: September 2025

Unlike last month where we headed down Church Lane to the Trent, this month we took two walks down Moor Lane. One at the start of the month when autumn was just starting to make itself known, and then again on the last weekend of the month, where we had an unexpected, and unusual, discovery on the bridge!

But more on that later, let’s start with those hints of autumn - there were plenty of them, and some much more than hints.

There are lots of acorns around this year, which isn’t a surprise as 2025 has been deemed a mast year, which happens every few years - this post from the Woodland Trust (published a few years ago) explains more.

It’s also teasel time - not an official name, just one I made up, but it’s a great time, honestly it is! I love their structure and light prickly-ness, and how they look against the green hedgerow and the sky.

For our second venture out along the same lane we passed a field of cows, which we thought we’d heard a few mornings ago. They were much closer than we thought, and despite their demeanour it didn’t rain.

But there were some amazing clouds and a kite flying above us.

It had rained overnight though - but all that was left were a few puddles on the edge of the lane, some muddy tractor tyre marks and the opportunity to photograph the cloud’s reflections in the puddles.

I’ve a couple of favourite views in our walks from home, and on this walk, this is my favourite tree. There aren’t many walks where I don’t end up with a picture or two of it, and I’m really not sad about that at all.

The hedgerows were even more full of berries and haws than our walk earlier in the month, but we were about to make an unusual discovery. On the bridge, on one side there was a chocolate sponge cake - I don’t know why either, and on the other, what we first thought were stones lined up, but turned out to be chunks of bread.

The bread made us think these had been left out for the birds, or wildlife - though it’s still unusual to leave out a whole jam filled chocolate sponge cake. And maybe it wasn’t as we’d originally thought related to the small, but empty, bottle of Jack Daniels we’d seen much further down the lane, or maybe it was, who knows?!

Thanks for joining me for this update, if you enjoyed this post you may also like to see all of the posts in this series.

Malton, a reminder of how ‘to weekend’

We had a last minute, impromptu weekend break to Malton, or Yorkshire’s food capital, and we had a great time. It feels like a while since we’ve had a weekend away from it all, though I’m sure it’s not that long really. It was a bit of a stab in the dark as to where we ended up, but we struck lucky.

I wanted somewhere not too far away, but far enough - it’s about a two hour drive for us, but neither of us fancied the Cotswolds this time round. It wasn’t until after we booked it that the weather forecast started to look decidedly dodgy, but well, I’m sure the weather wasn’t that great anywhere on Saturday tbh!

As we left home early Friday afternoon it didn’t take too long before we were in queues of traffic just north of Newark, and we remembered that travelling on Fridays isn’t always a good thing. The SatNav then shared that the A1 was shut further up, and did its thing and took us on a wild and wonderful route, which meant we saw parts of the country we would never have seen otherwise. But we arrived at our hotel, The Talbot in good time and settled into our weekend.

We ate in the hotel the Friday night, and following a really good meal and seeing the weather forecast for Saturday afternoon/evening opted to do the same Saturday night too. We didn’t do much on the Saturday apart from wander around the town and acquaint ourselves with many of the local independent shops, including the secret whisky bar at McMillans where we stopped to sample some of their wares.

We looked around the lush interiors shop, Interiors at Nine to Eleven and poked around the antique and craft shops in The Shambles leaving with some pretty hand painted cards, a vintage table runner and a pre-loved wine coaster. MOH found the local bike shop, Northern Ride who had an elusive ‘gadget’ mount that he’d been after. Purchase completed we headed over to the shops at Talbot Yard, stopping for a coffee at the Roost Espresso Bar, tasting (and leaving with) some Spiced Gin from the Rare Bird Distillery and buying a meat pasty for lunch at the butchers, Food 2 Remember - checking their opening times to make sure we could pop back and buy some of their produce before heading home.

A VINTAGE TABLE RUNNER AND SOME PRETTY HAND PAINTED CARDS

A FABRIC SAMPLE WHICH I FELL IN LOVE WITH - A BARGAIN AT A £1

And then we settled in for the afternoon back at the hotel with our new purchases, the newspapers and a book - and working out our plans for the next day.

The Walled Garden at Scampston Hall

This hadn’t been on my list before we got here (but then again not much had) but it was just over ten minutes drive away and looked a good bet, but it’s only open Wednesday - Sunday, so that was our plan sorted for Sunday then.

There’s twelve different areas in the walled garden which was designed by Piet Oudolf in 1999, and this is his largest private commission in the UK. It was great to be able to wander pretty much everywhere, including the Gardeners’ Yard. I’ll share more in a future post, but here’s a snippet from our visit.

THE CONSERVATORY

CHARD IN THE VEGETABLE GARDEN

THE SERPENTINE GARDEN

We also headed out to explore the parkland, though with the sky looking decidedly dodgy again, it was only a brief wander down to the Palladian Bridge (from where the photo below was taken) and along the lake to the cascades and then back across to the cafe.

LOOKING DOWN THE LAKE FROM THE PALLADIAN BRIDGE

THE CASCADES

It was a good choice, and a good way to walk off the cooked breakfast. In fact we didn’t even have a cake in the cafe we’d been so well fed since we arrived. The hall wasn’t open when we visited, but I’d be interested to peek inside if we’re ever this way again.

Our hotel deal included a cream tea, and we opted to have that in the hotel’s lounge when we got back that afternoon - that’s also a reason why we didn’t have cake in the cafe, but after a scone with jam and cream we were fully topped up again, and skipped dinner as neither of us really needed any more food.

A day at Castle Howard

I did know that we were staying about fifteen minutes from Castle Howard but I wasn’t sure if we’d visit or not. We ummed and ahhed about whether to go for the gardens only ticket, or to add in the house too - in the end we opted for both, and it was good to see the house again (we last visited in 2018) and to see how it had changed, including a couple of rooms which had been refurbished since we last visited.

It is expensive, but it’s cheaper to buy the tickets online - 10% cheaper - which is something. Though it’s not clear that the prices shown are the reduced price, and so I didn’t follow through on the purchase. As we were queuing we realised the prices at the venue were higher, so we ducked out of the queue and used the free wifi to buy our tickets online at the cheaper price. Well, it would have been rude not to!

THE VIEW FROM THE BOAT HOUSE

We opted to start our day by walking down to the Boathouse, an area we’d not been to before, then skirted round the boundary past the Temple of Venus along to the Temple of the Four Winds which I posted about after our last visit - it’ll be interesting to compare my photos from this visit, then we wandered past the lakes and up past the Atlas Fountain to the house.

THE ATLAS FOUNTAIN

Yes, we decided to do both - and I wasn’t disappointed. The Turquoise Drawing Room remained one of my favourites…

THE TURQUOISE DRAWING ROOM

… but there’s a new kid on the block, with the recent unveiling of the Tapestry Drawing Room, which if you look at the second photo below is even more remarkable given its state just two years ago.

THE TAPESTRY DRAWING ROOM

A PHOTO SHOWING THE STATE OF THE TAPESTRY DRAWING ROOM IN 2023 BEFORE RESTORATION

With the house tour completed, that just left us the Walled Garden to do - two walled gardens in two days, what’s not to like?

DAHLIAS IN THE WALLED GARDEN

It was full of dahlias, berries and so much more.

BERRIES IN THE WALLED GARDEN

And once again we were treated with the bluest of skies for our visit. I’ll definitely share more from our wander around this part of the garden, as looking back it doesn’t appear to be something I shared before - and I’ve no idea why as it’s a gorgeous space.

CLIMBING SWEET PEAS AND THE BLUEST SKIES

We finished our day with a visit to the Thai restaurant, Tuis of Malton, just along the road. The food was good, the portions were huge and I’d hate to think how many chillies they get through in a day, let alone a week!

Then it was almost time to head home, but not before a visit to the butchers and the bakery over the road. My freezer is now very full, and so’s my heart actually. Malton’s a great place to visit, and a great place to remind us how ‘to weekend’.

A day off walking (sort of!)

If you remember when we arrived at our hotel on the coast in Mattinata it was set into the cliff and we were taken to our room on a golf buggy, well that was a one off - and the rest of the time we needed to walk, which was a shame! But it was a walking holiday after all, but walking back up after a lovely breakfast, or even larger lovelier meal or worse after a day’s walking wasn’t my idea of fun, especially with my still tender ankle. After all the walking so far to get here, and knowing we had an extra night booked at this hotel, a day off walking was much needed.

So that’s what we did. Or rather that’s what our plan was anyway.

We opted to head into the small town of Mattinata which is built on the top of two hills and surrounded by the mountains of Monte Saraceno and Monte Sacro, which our walking notes told us ‘create a glorious backdrop to the village’. And to be fair, our view as we walked out of our hotel back towards the coast, was also pretty special.

And armed with Google maps we left the hotel and headed towards the town, along a long and less interesting road, which made the walk seem longer! But without buses, or other means and eschewing the idea of a taxi we were committed.

And it was worth the walk as it was a pretty town, and very much a town used to and by the local community. Our plan was to pick up some supplies for lunch the next day, stock up on painkillers and stop for refreshments, as well as see what the town had to offer.

What we weren’t expecting to see was a nursing tabby cat in one of the gardens we passed, but I think I was more impressed by this than she was. We passed them again later on as we left town and her four kittens were spread around the garden, and no doubt mum was just as aware.

Mattinata is generally a ‘white building’ town and also set into the hillside, so that meant steps and steep roads. But now with more interesting scenery (definitely more interesting than the main road into town!) we had renewed energy for our explorations, and shopping.

We found a small grocers shop where we bought some fruit and crisps. We even found a pharmacy where I was able to stock up on enough ibuprofen to see me through until we got home, and way beyond. Although my ankle was healing, what I didn’t know was I was soon about to crack my tooth - yes, always on holiday. Thankfully it wasn’t that painful, but it clearly needed looking at when I got home (and then needed to come out).

We even found a sandwich bar and delayed many of the local workers on their lunch break, while we ordered and collected our own sandwiches for our walk the next day. And then as we headed off to explore more of the town, and to find somewhere to rest a while before heading back, we spotted this quite modern sculpture in the town square.

We stopped for coffee, and then a beer, and a water in a cafe on the street. But sensibly before we started our trek back I went in to check out the loos, and found a series of fruit machines, which was quite unexpected.

Arriving back at the beach we stopped to take in the view, amused by how even in this small town they have their Instagram spot!

After stopping for a beer at the beach bar, we’d clocked up almost 8km for our impromptu walk, which is quite a lot for our day off walking! But to be fair it was much needed, and it meant that we were fully up for the our last walk of this trip taking us across the bay and up the headland in the picture above.

But that’s for another day.