Hedleyhope Fell–A Week of LTD’s Doggywalks by LTD

Ok, so, I’m taking over the blog for a bit. I’m doing seven walks wot that idiot Mike takes me on every day. He likes to vary them a bit. In fact he thinks he’s in charge of where we go, utterly unaware of the mind control wot I have over him just by shear concentra…. CAT ON TELLY. LOOK THERE’S A CAT On TELLY……

Hennyway – Today’s (Thursday 9 November 2017) was at Hedleyhope Fell near Tow Law, which is where Mike buys his coal, sticks and logs. Probably a coincidence that we went there….

Hedleyhope Fell is technically a lowland heath and a nature reserve for adders and butterflies and lowland heath stuff, but it’s also somewhere people go to walk their dogs, so there’s quite a lot of sniffing and standing on three legs and barking to be done.

Apart from the doggies and the feckin butterflies, Hedleyhope Fell  also has coal. There’s two old shafts and, probably some drifts with bits of coal appearing in the spoil heaps. They’re a bit hard to spot. One shaft is now just a depression in the floor of the valley, but, apparently goes to a depth of about 80 feet. It closed in 1929 which even before Mike can remember. Just before that, about 400 men were employed. The very last diggings finished in the mid 1950s with just a few old blokes in flat caps mainly looking fowrward to a few pints of mild and a bath in front of the kitchen fire whilst SHE cooks the tea. Nowadays, it’s under the management of Durham Wildlife Trust. I’m not a member, but Mike is.

The walk is 4.29 kilometres with 133 metres of ascent, mainly on paths but with a short section of tussocks. I had to be on the lead cos the notices say that dogs have to be on leads and there’s a bunch of fairly stroppy Swaledale sheep doing some conservation grazing, presumably to stop the place turning over to scrub.

It’s very nice anyway.

You don’t have to take a dog and it’s very nice in summer.

DOG ON TELLY BTW….. NO SORRY, IT’s A MEERKAT. Where’s ,my chewstick anyway? Also- there’s two chickens in the car park. Nobody knows why, but, apparently, you’re not allowed to chase them or play with them.