Rombald's Moor - Top Spot!
The cache, a camo-taped pre-form tube, is hidden around 125m east of the triangulation station (also known as a triangulation pillar, trigonometrical station, trigonometrical point, trig station, trig beacon, or trig point, and sometimes informally as a trig) marking the summit of Rombald's Moor at 402m. This was built in 1936 as one of the original network of trig points.
To reach the cache location (approx 3.4 km/1 hour): park at the Cow and Calf parking area @ N 53 54.989 W 1 48.020 and make your way up the path heading straight up off the main flagged path towards the left of the rocky ridge. From here carry straight on to the stream crossing @ N 53 54.868 W 1 48.403. Then head straight across and up the slope to the top of Rocky Valley and onwards to the path junction @ N 53 54.796 W 1 48.800. Turn left (south) here and carry on across the moor on the flagstone path to the major path junction @ N 53 54.132 W 1 48.663 near Lanshaw Lad (see GC866FK). Turn right here and continue for just over 1km to the cache location.
Note: if you don't wish to pass by the Lad and in the process save yourself about 450m, take the short cut starting at the cairn @ N 53 54.404 W 1 48.777 and cutting the corner to join the top trail heading west @ N 53 54.183 W 1 48.932.
Alternative route from Ilkley west (approx 3km/50 mins): park at N 53 54.932 W 1 50.267 on Keighley Road and head straight up the road to the path junction @ N 53 54.243 W 1 50.825 near Whetstone Gate Wireless Station (with the two tall transmission masts). Turn left (east) here and continue along the flagstone path (containing numerous fossils) passing the Puddle Stones (with cache!) to the cache location.
Alternative route from Burley-in-Wharfedale (with photos): see here.
'I’ll now tell you a story to cause you some mirth
Of a giant who thought that his strength ruled the earth,
But, he married a woman from Yorkshire we’re told,
And under her thumb, was a great deal less bold . . .'
The 1,670 acres Rombald's Moor, the only non-Pennine moor, is 'West Yorkshire's finest and most famous moorland' lying between the Wharfedale and Airedale valleys and since 1994 has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest by Natural England. Most will know it as Ilkley Moor but this is only one of many moors which make up this large self-contained moorland area.
The moor is mainly used for recreational activities such as hiking, mountain bike riding, bouldering, bird-watching and . . . geocaching! The other major but seasonal activity - grouse shooting - was banned by Bradford Council in 2018 - much to the dismay of the shooters. This ended the council's tenure as the last local authority to allow grouse shooting on public land.
In the past it was used for hunting and farming and has numerous traces of human activity dating back as far as the Mesolithic era (15,000 - 5,000 BP) and continuing through the Neolithic (4,000 - 2,000 BCE) and Bronze Age (2,100 - 750 BC). Consequently, it is one of the most important UK sites for prehistoric rock art.
Awash with craggy outcrops, gritstone and rough land overgrown with heather, bracken and wild grass, the landscape is perhaps most well-known for its distinctive rock carvings and formations.
From hanging stones and boulders to huge flat slabs, more than 400 rock carvings (known as 'cup and ring' stones) can be found dotted around the moor, but the most notable site on the landscape is that of the iconic Cow and Calf rocks on Ilkley Moor - said to have been created by Rombold - a giant!
Around the moor lie many different types of moorland scene such as the sylvan glades of Ilkley Moor, the 
rocky edges of Addingham Moor, the bogs of Morton Moor and the high grouse-shooting heath of Bingley Moor, Hawksworth Moor and Burley Moor.
The moor is surrounded by several large settlements many of which have given the moor its names including (going anticlockwise) Ilkley, Addingham, Silsden, East & West Morton, Menston and Burley-in-Wharfedale.
In 1872, the War Office recommended that the whole moor should become a vast military camp but the plan after influential figures in Ilkley and Keighley raised concerns as locals were to foot the bill.
The name Rombald is associated with the legend of a giant who is said to have lived on the moor (see poem here), but most likely derives from Rommille - all of the moors around Skipton having been granted to Robert de Romille by William the Conqueror.
'Folklore has it that Rombold originally resided with his wife just outside Keighley on Ilkley Moor, an ancient moor containing many signs of stone and bronze age occupation. A domestic disagreement found Rombold racing from Ilkley to Almscliff hotly pursued by his wife, who was armed with an apronful of stones which she dropped as she chased him [creating the rock structures Little Skirtful of Stones and Great Skirtful of Stones above Burley Woodhead on the east side of the moor].
To avoid her, he is reputed to have leapt from one side of one of the valleys clear to the other, but there are lots of this kind of tale around. Presumably the huge stone he is shouldering in the statue [at Airedale Shopping Centre, Keighley] is one of the boulders he hefted to hurl back at his raging wife.
But another tale that I have heard is that Rombold was a great giant, a god-like character like the Norse god Woden, and resided on Ilkley Moor. When angered, Rombold generated thunder to register his displeasure by hurling enormous boulders across the valleys . . .'
Ilkley Rombald is the name given to an American Amber ale produced by a local brewery.
Rombald is also the subject of a 2014 children's book 'Rombald the Giant of Ilkley Moore by Anita Simic.
Rombald's Stride Winter Challenge is a 35km long/828m elevation long-distance run starting and finishing in Guiseley which passes the summit of Rombald's Moor, the Lanshaw Lad and the 12 Apostles stone circle en route. Winners complete the route in under 2.5 hours!