Burley Moor Stone Circles from the Cow and Calf

The route

From the Cow and Calf the route heads west below the crags, above White Wells at 1.9km, then climbs the western flank of the moor towards Keighley Gate. At 4.2km it passes the Badger Stone, a twelve-foot gritstone block carved with around a hundred cups, ten rings and a half-swastika motif, sitting beside the line of the old Rombald's Way trackway. It is the best piece of rock art you will run past in Yorkshire.

Over the top

The trig at 402m comes at 5.5km, standing on a burial cairn at the highest point of the massif. From there the route runs east across the plateau to the Lanshaw Lad boundary stone and the Twelve Apostles stone circle at 6.8km, then keeps going east onto ground most Ilkley runners never see.

Burley Moor

The Grubstones at 7.9km is an embanked ring cairn about ten metres across with twenty stones still standing; a cremation burial and a flint spearhead came out of it in the 1840s. Past it the moor gets wetter and the paths get fainter as the route drops east to Coldstone Beck at 9.5km before turning back northwest. This is the section that decides the run. Blanket bog, deep heather, and very little to steer by once the cloud is down. It is also the reason this loop is graded harder than its 350m of climb suggests.

Getting home

The last two kilometres run back along the moor edge above Ilkley past Haystack Rock, with the whole of Wharfedale opening out to the north and the Cow and Calf coming into view early enough to hurt. If Burley Moor is more than you want today, the 7.7km loop from the same car park gets the trig and the Apostles and turns for home at Gill Head.