Deepdale and The Butter Stone

 

In view of the idiotic price of petrol, and the fact that I got up a bit late, I decided to have a local walk. Bruno mentioned that we’d never been to the Butter Stone and, drooling at the prospect of a rock fabricated entirely from Kerrygold, he was quite assertive about it.

So, we allowed enough petrol for the forty mile trip to Barnard Castle and back.

And so, after parking neatly on the main street, we wandered down to the River and used the gas pipe bridge to get across – and soon we were in the frosty-yet-somehow-still-muddy wildwood of Deepdale. The hills around had a general cover of new snow, which must have fallen last night and the breeze blowing over the snowfields was searching.

The wild wind wanders around the old wintery wood

Wondering whether it would waken the weather

Winding it’s windy fingers round the old wald world.

Yes folks, it was perishing.

Woodland paths are always filthy at this time of year, and the path through Deepdale is a fine example of filthyness. It wanders up and down the sides, just like the wild wind, in fact.

But – I did notice that there was a lot more bird song in the woods today. Outside the woodland, in the pastures and meadows, there is no apparent life at all.

At one point it traverses a short tilted shelf  overlooking a vegetated crag where the path is slippery with slutch and where a slip would have dire consequences. Bruno was strictly on the lead here. If I fell, he was coming with me.

At another point, there are six stone plinths which are the foundations for the Bishop Auckland – Tebay railway which crossed the gorge at this point. The trackbed of the viaduct was about 50 metres above this point.

Later, the path escapes to the long Eastern Pennine slope where there are small crags with overhangs and dry bracken – ideal for scoffing a chicken and bacon butty out of the nithering breeze.

Even later, we wandered across the edge of Battle Hill firing range and over easy moors to the Butter Stone, disappointingly (for superdawg), not made of butter at all.

The Butter Stone, so local legend has it, used to be the place where  the villagers of Cotherstone, undergoing a self-imposed lockdown during the plague, would leave dairy products for trade. And these would be swapped for whatever they would have needed. I suspect that this would at least contain salt, since villages in those days would be pretty much self-sufficient.

I also suspect that the stone had a deeper significance and an older function, because its not very big, to be frank, and it would have had top have had to be well known in plague times. There was, in fact, a small votive offering in a little depression in the stone. A penny. Not much of an offering. I added a  5p. Again, not much, but a wish or a blessing (or a curse) escaped me at the time. I expect you’d have to circle it three times clockwise for a blessing and widdershins for a curse. Or something.

We passed down through Lartington Hall parkland which at one time was a walled pleasure garden and at another, belonged to a 10th Century Danish aristocrat who gave it to the Bishop of Durham. It has some very fine old trees…

As I returned to Barnard Castle, it went dark.

We did 11 miles and about 1000 feet of uphill

The snatch of poetry , by the way, is an English translation of an old poem – I can’t remember whether its Old English or whether somebody just made it up and said it was Old English… .

Things We Found Today

Today was the second working party day at Barnard Castle.

Around eight of us attacked some defenceless shrubbery in a kind of amphitheatre which may well once have been part of Barnard Castle’s gasworks, when they used to make the stuff from coal and people could kill themselves by putting their head in the oven

(Note It had to be a gas oven, you had to turn the gas on, and it wasn’t a good idea to light the gas as this was dangerous.)

Anyway, now it has some fairly decrepit benches, a circle in the middle made from fancy bricks and some sculptures representing, I think, the river. It is, in fact, a meeting place for the local yoofs who drink alcohol there and then go for a fight in Barnard Castle.

So we attacked the place with pruners, saws, spades, forks garden not salad), a big axe and other metal things.

After about four hours and several thousand calories, it was 95% clear. We kind of ran out of steam at this point. To be fair, I ran out of steam after three hours and spent a while “tidying up…”

Archeologically, we found much evidence of late 20th and early 21st century entertainments viz – Somebody’s stash of cans of cider, still in date. – One pair of man’s underpants in reasonably clean condition (probably their lucky pants, I shouldn’t wonder) – lots and lots of empty beer, cider and fruit-flavoured vodka “drinks” (blech!) One used condom (small) containing something horrible (and it wasn’t fruit-based vodka drink) (blergggghhh) Three empty condom containers and a brick, I guess the brick was probably some kind of amateur form of anaesthetic for the female partner in the condom game as the vodka-based fruit drink (gag…. blurggg) was only 4% by volume and wouldn’t have been enough to stultify anybody enough… look, I can’t be thinking about this….)

Anyway – nice day – good company – positive feedback (apart from the chap who bemoaned the loss of the six buddleia bushes. I must admit, this did seem like vandalism. I mean- buddleia bushes….)

More of this to come at roughly fortnightly intervals until its all been done.

We did wonder about asking for high-viz jackets with “HMP”* on the back so we could go and scare the local yoofs who, noticing our presence, had moved their base so as to annoy people in the nearby park.

*HMP = Her Majesty’s Prison – there’s one just over the river. Its got some scary people in it, apparently.

Restoring Barnard Castle’s Riverside Paths

A couple of weeks ago I got recruited as a volunteer by Durham County Council’s Outdoor peeps (not the official name!) to take part in a project aimed at restoring Barnard castle’s riverside paths network. (I’ve been a voluntary countryside ranger for the County Council a few years now…)

These are very popular paths for locals and visitors and their dogs and are an important resource for a bit of quiet wandering around in a nice bit of woodland next to the River Tees.

Today’s work was opening part of one of the paths out because it had become overgrown with quite a bit of scrub – lots of elder and hawthorn and brambles and raspberries, so there was a full day of pruning and sawing and dragging bits of shrubbery around.

Most locals who were passing with their doggies seemed to think it was all a really good idea but one chap enquired as to the whereabouts of his favourite elderberry tree…. (doh!)

I think there were eight or nine of us plus the County Tree Officer and an off-duty countryside ranger with a chain saw.

Well be back in a couple of weeks to do a bit of gardening and there’s some woodland to thin out.

This is quite good exercise and uses muscles other than walking ones( I’ve been sawing all day!) and a bit of positive feedback from the Barnard Castilians and the fact that you can instantly see the difference – makes it all very satisfying. (And, of course, with being a volunteer, you get treated nicely in case you don’t come back! – Its not like having a job.)

If anybody wants any logs or firewood by the way, there’s piles of it by the River Tees at Barney.