MOUNSTRALL LANE is one of our favourite cycling routes to the west of Northallerton. It runs from Yafforth in the south, with its medieval manor house beside the very visible icehouse, goes past the plump mound of Howe Hill where the Normans once had a motte and bailey castle, and it finishes three straight miles later in Danby Wiske, where the church sits above a plashy area which was once a medieval moated house. The middle section of the lane – which we believe is the only place in the country to bear the inexplicable name Mounstrall – is tree-lined like an avenue, its verges mown to pin stripes, as it approaches the high brick walls of Little Danby Hall.