Walk 20 Rothbury Terraces
Walk 21 The Simonside Hills
Walk 22 Tarsetdale Bastles
Walk 23 Bull Crag Peninsula
Walk 24 Cat Cairn, Lewis Burn and Lakeside Way (south)
Walk 25 Kielder Forest and Lakeside Way (north)
Walk 26 Deadwater Fell and Peel Fell
TYNE VALLEY AND NATIONAL PARK (SOUTH) INCLUDING HADRIAN’S WALL
Walk 27 Heavenfield and Wall
Walk 28 Hadrian's Wall and Greenlee Lough
Walk 29 Vindolanda and Crag Lough
Walk 30 Best of Hadrian’s Wall
Walk 31 Haltwhistle and the South Tyne
Walk 32 Hadrian's Wall Path and Thirlwall Castle
Walk 33 Allenmill Flues
Walk 34 Above Allenheads
Walk 35 Blanchland Moor
Walk 36 Birkside Fell and Beldon Burn
Appendix A Route summary table
Appendix B Useful contacts
Looking across to Bamburgh Castle from Lindisfarne (Walk 4)
Much of the walk above Allenheads follows shooters’ tracks (Walk 34)
INTRODUCTION
Northumberland – a land of open spaces and big skies
There’s something very special about walking in Northumberland. It’s got a lot to do with all the history in the landscape – from cliff-top castles and world-class Roman remains to long-abandoned prehistoric settlements hidden in the hills. It’s also got something to do with those big northern skies, largely free of pollution, unfettered by man-made constructions and opening up views that stretch on for miles and miles and miles… It’s undoubtedly got a lot to do with the landscape itself: remote hills, seemingly endless beaches, wild moors, dramatic geological features and valleys that are so mesmerizingly beautiful they defy description. It’s surely related to the wildlife, too – from the feral goats and the upland birds that are sometimes the walkers’ sole companions to the ancient woods and vast expanses of heather moorland that burst into vibrant purple bloom every summer.
Stretching from Berwick-upon-Tweed in the northeast to Haltwhistle in the southwest – two places that, even as the crow flies, are about 95km apart – Northumberland covers more than 5000km2. It’s not quite the biggest county in England, but as you wander its hills and valleys and beaches it feels like it. There are wide, open spaces here like no others found south of the border. Unsurprisingly, this is England’s most sparsely populated county – with just 62 people per km2. To put that into perspective, it compares with 73 in neighbouring Cumbria with its vast areas of uninhabited fell and moorland, or, at the other extreme, 3142 in the West Midlands and 5521 in Greater London. Want to escape from it all? This is the place to come!
Roughly 25 per cent of the county, including Hadrian’s Wall and the Cheviot Hills, is protected within the boundaries of the Northumberland National Park. The county also has two designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty – the Northumberland Coast and the North Pennines.
This book covers the whole county. The routes range from easy ambles on the coast and gentle woodland trails to long days out on the lonely hills: hopefully, something for all types of walker – and all types of weather.
Weather
Like the rest of the UK, Northumberland experiences plenty of meteorological variety but, being on the east side of an island dominated by moisture-laden southwesterlies, it tends to be drier and generally more benign than the western side. Having said that, the Pennines and the Cheviot Hills get more than their fair share of strong winds, heavy rain and snow. And, in winter, the easterly winds that periodically come in off the North Sea are enough to bring tears to your eyes. During summer, the coast is prone to sea fog, or haar, an annoyance that will normally burn off quickly, but can linger all day if there’s a steady wind coming off the North Sea to keep replenishing the banks of moisture.
It’s shorts weather above Rothbury!
Now for the statistics. July and August are the warmest months, with a mean daily maximum temperature of about 18°C. The coldest months are January and February with a mean daily minimum of 1.5°C. According to rainfall totals for Boulmer on the coast, the wettest period is from October to December, while April to July are the driest months. Obviously these figures will differ according to altitude, as well as latitude and longitude; and don’t forget, they’re averages.
Snow is even more widely varied from one part of the county to another – with the white stuff rarely lying for long on the coast while, in the North Pennines, it’d be an unusual winter if there weren’t occasional road closures. Generally speaking, January and February see the most, although snow can fall any time from late October to late April in the North Pennines and, to a lesser extent, in the Cheviot Hills.
The weather becomes an important consideration when heading on to the high ground, particularly in winter. Check forecasts before setting out, and prepare accordingly. The Mountain Weather Information Service (www.mwis.org.uk) covers the higher Cheviot Hills in its Southern Uplands forecast for Scotland, while the Meteorological Office (www.metoffice.gov.uk) provides detailed predictions for locations throughout the county.
Geology
Northumberland’s size gives rise to a varied and complex underlying geology. In its most simplistic form, it could be summed up as a mixture of largely Carboniferous sedimentary rocks and volcanic rocks, both intrusive and extrusive, all topped by Quaternary deposits, including those of the last glacial period.
The rolling hills of the Cheviot range are generally associated with a period of mountain building known as the Caledonian Orogeny, about 490 to 390 million years ago. The collision of several mini-continents, including Avalonia, with Laurentia and the subduction of the Iapetus Ocean, resulted in volcanic activity. This created a mass of granite surrounded by extrusive volcanic rocks, most notably andesite. The collision of the plates also resulted in faulting, evident in places such as the Harthope and Breamish valleys.
Although there are older rocks dating as far back as the Ordovician, about 450 million years ago, the rocks of the North Pennines are largely Carboniferous limestone, sandstones and shales laid down about 360–300 million years ago, when this area was covered by a tropical sea.