WINDS blew largely from a south-westerly quarter during April, though there was also our fair share from between north and east. As a result, we experienced quite a variety of weather, but with no extremes.

On the whole, the month was mainly pleasant, very warm and relatively dry.

We’d enjoyed a welcome trend towards decent springs this century, but it was rudely interrupted in the previous two years.

Hopefully, this season has restored it. In 2012, we endured one of the coldest and wettest Aprils in three decades. Last year, winter village of West Burton and the entrance to Walden and Bishopdale, two of Wensleydale’s tributary valleys.

The path soon meets Morpeth Gate, Brown’s “old green road”.

Turn left. Today it’s a little stonier and in places cut from the solid rock but it’s at least 30ft wide so there are grassy verges to walk on as you climb under Morpeth Scar and reach the shoulder of Penhill. It was used in early medieval times by the lords of Middleham Castle as access to their hunting grounds in Bishopdale. It later became a packhorse route and drovers’ way and was recorded on Thomas Jefferys’ great map of Yorkshire of 1771.

At the top it becomes High Lane and now flattens out as it heads for Middleham. We follow it for another half mile to where a walled track branches off left, opposite a footpath sign to Black Scar.

Called Green Gate it drops down through old quarries to join a tarred lane into a caravan site. Continue down the lane through the houses of Kagram to the A 684 at the west end of West Witton.

Turn right along the narrow village street of mainly stone 18th and 19th century houses.

In a few yards there’s a little park on the right and then comes the Wensleydale Heifer, a notable 18th century coaching inn.

A few yards beyond the inn turn left down the lane to St Bartholomew’s parish church, restored in 1875. Inside two early medieval bells are displayed as well as an 8th century Saxon cross head, recently attached to the east wall of the nave.

From the church the lane drops steeply down another scar before becoming Flats Lane which heads directly north to High Watlass Farm.

Just before the farm turn left to a large gate on what the OS map terms “other route with public access”. Bear to the right of a large tree in the middle of the first field and then to a stile. From there two yellow tipped posts mark the way to the riverside where a new finger post points back to West Witton as well as ahead along the river bank.

The next section of the walk is most attractive, initially close to the river and then alongside a wood. The landscape is enhanced by a succession of rounded glacial drumlins and even a little pool. After nearly half a mile the right of way enters the wood and drops down to the grandeur of Walk Facts - Swinithwaite Distance: 7 miles Time: 4 hours Grade: Easy Conditions: Well-signed paths and bridleways Refreshments: Swinithwaite, West Witton OS Explorer Map OL30 hung on until the 13th following the most bitter of Marches, but then improved markedly.

This time, temperatures were fairly even and, overall, were getting on for 2C (3.5F) above normal.

So, it was our fifth warm month on the trot and widely the third hottest April in 30 years.

That in 2007 was almost 1C (2F) milder and the brilliant one in 2011 by 1.5C (3F) – and no less than 2.5C (4.5F) warmer by day. Here at Carlton, near Stokesley, this April was just the second in my 30-year record in which maximum temperatures reached 10C (50F) every day, the other being in 2011. Yet the highest, 17.4C (63.5F) was only 1.0C (2F) above the average in 2011.

It was chilly on several nights mid-month and most places saw the mercury fall lower than at any time during the winter.

At Carlton, early on the 19th, the minimum was -2.2C (28F), whereas, in the past season, the coolest was -1.9C (28.5F), on February 28, though there were colder nights in March.

Generally, there was only a half to threequarters of the usual rainfall, with a mere trace in the fortnight from the 8th. A few spots did approach the norm due to thunderstorms during the final evening of the month, when up to 25mm (1ins) tumbled down. However, April last year was drier and the one in 2011more so.

The latter was the most arid month of any at Carlton, with scarcely 4mm (0.15ins) of rain.

In stark contrast, two years ago we had a soaking. With 165mm (6.5ins), it was my second wettest April, just behind that in 2000, 169mm (6.65ins).

Still, 2012’s was the only wet one in the past nine years.

April’s figures at Carlton

Mean Maximum: 13.9C, 57F (+1.9C, 3.5F);
Mean Minimum: 5.6C, 42F (+1.5C, 2.7F);
Highest Maximum: 17.4C, 63.5F, 6th;
Lowest Minimum: -2.2C, 28F, 19th;
Total Rainfall: 27mm, 1.1ins (-29mm, -1.15ins);
Wettest Day: 5.5mm, 0.2ins, 25th, and
No of Rain Days, with 0.2mm (0.01ins) or more: 12 (-2).
(Figures in brackets show the difference from the 30-year mean, 1984-2013)