Pennine Journey Westgate to Blanchland

The heat of the sun got me out of bed and I was away by 9:00 ish (ok, I know its not early, but if you’d been to Darts practise at the Hare and Hounds….)  I called at Charlie’s and had coffee….
A bit later I slugged up the hill out of Westgate. various people stopped to chat. It took a while.
Eventually, at a strategic bend in the road, I headed off along a contour with a lane on it and this took me towards Heights Quarry. it was all very lovely so far.

The route follows the old railway line to Rookhope and its all very lovely with some smashing Weardale views until a deep gorge suddenly appears at the feet. There is a moment of doubt (cos its a big drop) – but by poking around, a path on the left is found which drops down gently to the beck and then appears on the other side of the gorge without much at all in the way of drama. For geologists, there’s a very nice mined-out mineral vein here.
For about a kilometre after this point, its best to keep your left eye closed. The path goes alongside heights Quarry, which is still working and is very busy. Its well waymarked and fenced off from any danger and eventually industry is passed and the intrepid Pennine Journier pops out on the other side into old railway cuttings with bits of woodland, lots of flowers and many buzzing insects. Its green and damp and beautiful.

After that, the Weardale Way goes easily along the railway line to Rookhope where it meets the cyclists’ Coast to Coast route and, of course, the Rookhope Inn where a short period of celebration is allowed.

After “lunch”, I climbed the Bolts law incline, a bit wearily and followed PJ instructions to go and bag Bolts Law, scene of recent solstice partying. There’s a lot of grouse living in the Bolts Law heather, and its very heavily managed, so if I had a worry about the PJ route, it would be here. I’m not sure the shooting estate will be too chuffed about this route going through here. There could well be conflict. True, its open access, but its not open all the time, and Journiers with doggies will have to find another route.

There is, in fact, a perfectly good footpath system from Rookhope running up by Stogel Clough and then over the North East slope of Bolts Law, crossing the summit and then down to Ramshaw. The path down to Ramshaw, though, is a mess. its difficult to follow, has what appears top be an old leat which is crossed on a rotten footbridge, and there’s electric fences. And lots of thistles. But its a right of way and can’t be closed. It just needs a bit of TLC, really. I followed this path down to Ramshaw, as best I could. I might report this to Durham County Council. I’m not sure its bad enough, though.

After Ramshaw, there’s some quiet lanes and some woodland footpaths to Baybridge, then a pleasant riverside path to Blanchland.
There’s no phone signal in Blanchland, so I used the phonebox to ring home. I got a minute for 60p. 60 PENCE for a minute.  Absolute robbery.  I allowed myself to be exploited to the sum of three pints of Black Sheep in the Lord Crewe Arms whilst waiting for Maggie to arrive.


And that, folks, is the sum of my Pennine Journey sampler.
It might not be exactly the route in the book. It won’t be far out though. Its not an official route anyway… 
Today’s was 11 miles and 1300 feet.

The Lead Mine Trail

The knipemobile is on the waiting list for an operation and so was unable to provide transport today. But I managed to prevail on Maggie to take me and superdawg to Edmundbyers so I could walk the Lead Mine Trail to Cowshill.
It was a wet start. This was followed by a damp middle and a soggy end. Luckily , I had brought an umbrella which was in use for most of the day.

The Lead Mine Trail is really three circular walks but the main spine of the route follows the line of a pre-railways packhorse route from the mining grounds in Weardale at Cowshill and Rookhope towards the Tyne. The packhorses travelled in trains of up to around 20 ponies and carried smelted lead ingots and, probably returned with supplies for the Dales people. Packhorses went out of business after railways and improved road systems were introduced in the early to mid 19th century.

Much of the route is bridleways, but there’s some roadwalking and , illogically in my view, a section of public footpaths. The footpaths could easily be converted into bridleways and, thereby giving owners of ponies the opportunity to follow this ancient horse route. There was one illegal cyclist, but , to be honest, I couldn’t see what detriment he was causing. Conversion to a bridleway wouldn’t do any harm to the economies of Cowshill, Rookhope and Edmundbyers either….
Any road up – me and the dawg set off in the rain from Edmundbyers on my adopt-a-path route – a nice groove in the heather which gives easy and quick walking for a few miles.

After crossing the Blanchland – Stanhope road, the actual paths and the guide map (wot I bought from Stanhope Tourist Info centre) – disagree on the route. So I got lost for a bit.
There was a dam with a goose and three gooselets on it. They squawked in goosejabber at me…..  The photo I took wasn’t very good, so you’re not getting to see it…

Then I had lunch inside the chimney, out of the drizzle , then I got a bit lost again and, eventually found a good path heading straight for Bolts Law summit. The chimney, by the way, is the terminus of a long flue which comes up the hillside from the North. The long flue was constructed so that lead fumes would condense-out lead which could then be removed by a small person (i.e. a child) with a pick and a bucket.
Bolts Law is a cracking summit with a trig, a cairn and big views North and East – a fine spot to watch the sun come up, I think – more of which a bit later.
The trail then drops down to Lintzgarth and climbs back up through a nature reserve to join a long section of tarmac. There was no traffic, though, which was nice.

As the rain got its act together, we passed over Race Head at 580 metres, our high point, and down through the mining grounds to Cowshill.
Anybody intent on collecting a few bits of purple flourspar would be well advised to visit the footpath just above Cowshill. Its illegal, mind, and you could get into bother collecting pretty stones like that..
As I arrived in Cowshill, I could hear the bus reversing and, so, with a lot of luck, me and superdawg were transported swiftly back to Crook for the cost of just over four quid.
It was very wet.
It was 14 miles and 2400 feet of uphill.
Did I mention how wet it was?
Its an interesting walk but you need to sort out the transport logistics. Sunday buses from Cowshill are every two hours and the pub was closed…. 
And the walking is very easy – just one very short boggy bit.

Grooving at Groverake

I read this book the other week about flourspar. This may well not seem to be a terribly exciting subject, and, indeed, it did help me sleep on a couple of occasions. But it did tell me all about how it was an extremely common and once valuable mineral, especially in certain parts of Upper Weardale until some inscrutable eastern inscrutes dumped vast quantities on the European flourspar market and the local mines went out of business. Unlike most mineral mining, this happened as recently as the late 1980’s/ early 1990’s.

And so me and Brian turned up at Groverake, just a bit West of Rookhope and climbed up the line of the vein out on to Redburn Common. There were lots of big holes. Craters, really. And these had a few outcrops of red and yellow rocks in them which in turn had shiny bits. On inspection (with a big ‘ammer), most of these turned out to be either flourspar (flourite) or lead ore (galena) there was, in fact, a lot of galena.

We explored the vein and the holes up on to the moor where we discovered that we were very close to the Rookhope Flue.

This flue is over a mile long, crosses a local river on a kind of viaduct, and climbs up the hillside to the summit of Redburn Common. The idea is to send lead-heavy fumes up the flue which should condense on the walls for later removal by the insertion of a small child with a sharp pick and a bucket. Nowadays, this would be seen as cruel. In future we’ll probably view the feeding of saturated fats and sugar to children as cruel and not as the crime-prevention measure that it really is (kids are too fat and unfit to escape from the police after breaking a window or whatever)

Anyway, the top of the flue is a fine place to sit in the warm sun listening to springtime moorland birds and putting the world to rights.

After a while, we retraced back down the line of craters and bashed a few more geological samples.

Then we explored the nearby mine buildings. The main mine was abandoned around 1989 and the buildings still contain discarded clothing in the pit showers (mainly socks and gloves, it would appear) – and there are still documents in the office which has, though , all,been thoroughly vandalised. This is archeology in the making. Birds have been nesting inside and the place has an odd an slightly unnerving atmosphere.

We visited the head gear where the cage was in its “up” position. The shaft below was tested for depth and a stone or two each took around seven seconds before a splash was heard. Tip: Don’t jump up and down on the covering of this shaft. The time taken to hit the water is sufficiently long for far too much thinking to be done. I would guess that most thoughts would centre around how the current situation was unlikely to have a happy outcome.

So we went to the pub at Allenheads, and then the one at Garrigill after seizing a rear brake in Alston Front Street (worra smell…) Seems OK, now , though, but I went over a bump on Killhope, so that probably unseized it, I expect.

I think we did about 2 miles with about 300 feet of uphill, but that really wasn’t the point of this, which was to poke around looking for minerals and doing some pontificating on the meaning of various holes and “things”

The vein is rich in galena. I expect that most of the flourites in deep underground as there’s not a vast amount on the surface. You can look at this stuff, by the way, but you can’t take any away.

Watery Weardale Walk with One’s Wow wow

Y’see , when we were in Wales, I noticed that toddlers and their mums referred to the dog as a “wow wow….)

pause for tumbleweed to roll past………

Waterfall at the entrance to Slit Wood, Westgate

Anyway, it seems to me from reading various blogs and other sources that many people are just a bit fed up with the winter so far. It has been damp, after all, but, you know (sounding like Margaret Thatcher now….) faint heart never frecked a pig and it really is best for all concerned if one or two of you out there could just stir yourselves from your cosy armchairs and have a refreshing wander o’er moors and dales. Its only water, y’know. Thats why we have waterproofs. Its just early winter.. Its like April, but a bit darker….

Flood damage Slit Wood

The unlived who never climbed up a hill ever experienced that brief moment of joy at finding there that small and untidy heap of stones. But those that have lived (the dislived?) and are still abed (or at least a’armchair) may think themselves cursed that they were not here, as Ken Shakespeare once said

I bring you an eight mile walk in Weardale which didn’t have an untidy pile of stones, but did have several rainbows, some sunshine and some Pennine stuff chucked violently against the hood of my Paramo. But fun. all the same, and the dog liked it too.

And so, me and superdawg went up to Westgate in Weardale and tramped the now familiar Slit Wood – the beck being almost in spate and having, it seems, done some recent damage to the path, it nevertheless saved us from the attentions of an over-attentive cow on the opposite bank, whom, by the time she’d built up courage to cross the torrent to attack us, saw us disappear up the hill and far away.

I can see a rainbow

We sheltered briefly against an icy squall inside the ruin of a stone shed. A banana was fatally damaged.

We progressed to the top of Scarsike Head and then, down the road towards Rookhope, we turned off over a stile (see video!) and through a nature reserve, boggily and battered by brief but spiky storms with rainbows – to Rookhope village where, due to forgetting to bring any money, we ignored the pub. (foolish!)

An old railway trackbed took us back towards Westgate, where we were joined briefly and energetically by a horse with her foal (I expect they wanted food…) but we took a long shortcut over the hill and then steeply back to the start. It was a long shortcut because , whilst shorter than the main and more level Weardale Way path, took longer because it was uphill through lots of soft rush – which is hard to walk through.

Another squall in Weardale

There was sun and rain and a cold wind and more sun and a bit of hail and a cheese ploughmans sandwich. If you ever see a cheese ploughman, I ate his lunch. Squally showers were still processing along Weardale. There must be a queue of them somewhere.

8 or so miles and 1300 feet of uphill. It were fab. You should try it sometime.

So rise up from your cushions my soft furnished friends; gird up thy gaiters and walk!

Watch the vid – its got sound! – But, its only superdawg making a dog’s breakfast of surmounting a stile.

Weardale walk with many, many people.

This could be the last walk before the 2009 TGO Challenge, or, maybe not….
Once upon a time, not too long ago, I used to act as a “steward” on Durham County Council guided walks and today, I decided to join one such walk. I did this mainly because it was advertised at a fairly beefy 15 miles (most DCC walk are a lot shorter than this) , and I could just be a punter on the walk
So I turned up at the bridge over the River Wear at Stanhope, slotted the knipemobile onto the grass verge and joined around 30 other people for this trundle around the Weardale Moors. I recognised several of the walkers and all of the three stewards. Two other TGO challengers were on the walk – Doug, who, along with me is a member of the Harold Shipman lookalike club, and his son, who was sporting a heavy-looking “practise” rucksack. These two will be TGO first-timers this year. Doug understands the alcohol-based TGO sub culture full well. I think that might be why he’s going.
Anyway – Our route today took us firstly along by the River Wear up to Eastgate.
Here, we completely ignored the inscribed Roman stone by the bus stop – created and set by a Roman cavalry officer from Lanchester (Longovicium as it was then) in honour of the god of woodland, one Deo Sylvano (Sylvanus), on the occasion of the killing of a large wild boar. As a Roman cavalry officer, he would have had the use of a horse, presumably and, I conclude from this that its quite unlikely that he created the stone whilst waiting for the bus to Crook. He wouldn’t have had time anyway. (It’s a replica, the original is in the British museum. They took our stone. (They terk arr stern)
Eastgate, I should explain, along with Westgate and Northgate (there’s no Southgate) are the boundaries of the Bishop of Durham’s base for hunting in Weardale. This consisted of a park area and a lodge which was more or less created every year.
It was almost the site of a significant battle where an English army of some 30000 troops faced a large Scottish army on the other side of the Wear for a few days. Apart from a Scottish commando raid on the King’s camp, no significant fighting took place, and, one morning, the Scots had gone to Teesdale and were heading for home towards the Tyne.
Onwards and upwards by the Rookhope Burn, through small farms with chickens, horses, goats, sheep, ducks and donkeys… and by small limestone gorges and old lead mines, we progressed till we came to Rookhope.
I noted that Rookhope’s pub is open all day, does hot drinks and meals. This may prove vaaaaaary useful for later walks…
So then we climbed the Rookhope incline. This is well-known by coast-to-coast cyclists and is a 600 foot climb up a hill on a dismalnlted railway line. The mineral trains were hauled up this hill by a steam engine and a winch which is, as you’d expect, at the top. The engine house is derelict and ruinous and the boiler lies forlornly rusting in the heather on the moors above.
There followed a long and mind-numbing plod along the level railway line which contours for several miles. The views are good, the crack was good, but the plodding was dull. WE ended up at Parkhead – an ancient (dismantled) railway junction which now has a bungalow, a derelict sandstone quarry and a café. The café is excellent and is the must-stop place for the cyclists and is well used.
After teas and cakes, we fair sailed down the track into Stanhope, this time using the Crawleyside incline (the same as the Rookhope one, but shorter) and a short walk through the old limestone quarries back to Stanhope where crossed the stepping stones by the ford, which, since the advent of satnav, has been the scene of lots of rescues…
Fab little jaunt. I’ve done this walk many times and I always enjoy it. (most of it)14 miles but only 1200 feet of climbing. That will just have to be enough walking for the Chally. I was pleased with my speed up the incline which I decided to climb as quickly as I could. I’m still alive. The ticker held out. The legs worked. The heart rate may have hit 85 bpm….which could be a 2009 record.