The Pennine Way: Tyne and Cheviot
This stage is famous for its time beside some of the finest sections of Hadrian's Wall,
but there is less awareness of what else the Way visits in its northernmost sections.
Initially, not very much at all; some rather nondescript sections of moorland, strung unconvincingly together to form a route,
until reaching the Wall north of Greenhead. From the wall, look north over wild and rough country,
little changed from the days of legions and reivers: that is where the Way goes.
From here to the finish at Kirk Yetholm, several days away, there is only one settlement of any size, Bellingham.
There are many miles of the Border forest, encircling Kielder Water, which lies to the west of the Way.
At the small forestry settlement of Byrness starts the last mountain stage of the Way, across the Cheviots,
to the eponymous summit, beside the border fence for much of the way. Kirk Yetholm is just inside the Scottish border.
There is no habitation at all, not even a bothy, on the last 26 miles from Byrness, so many make one last grand day of it;
others divert into Coquetdale. I've not been beyond Byrnesss, though plan to on my cross-England walk.
I will be past 60 yet so uncertain whether it will be one day or two.
The notes from this page are taken from my 1994 walk with Dave Travers. I've also walked the Hadrian's Wall stages,
in reverse, with my wife and son, in 2007; see my Hadrian's Wall page.
28 August 1994: (from Garrigill 4 miles to) Alston to Slaggyford, total 10 miles
It's a pleasant start from Alston, looking back over the South Tyne to the town (pictured left),
but then the river is left behind for a detour onto some pretty unpromising moorland.
For a time you flirt with the old Roman Maiden Way, and indeed you pass by the edge of a Roman fort,
the first indication of the grandeurs to come. Eventually you come closer to and eventually beside the South Tyne
on the way in to the unpromisingly-named village of Slaggyford, where we stayed the night.
Alston is known as the highest market town in England, and its branch line railway -
still open when I came this way in the 70s - was maintained so long only because it was the only reliable winter route into town.
29 August 1994: Slaggyford to Once Brewed, 18 miles.
The Way starts off close to the old railway for a while before skirting more anonymous moorland to near the village of Lambley.
More meanderings around fields and moors follow - really, it can get very tiresome (see Dave, top picture in sidebar),
before a fitting reward: the outer vallum (defensive ditch) of Hadrian's Wall, down a little lane to the mediaeval Thirlwall Castle.
Here we sheltered in a cafe from a vicious rain shower - it had been on and off all day.
The Wall runs through here but is not easily discerned.
That changes at the next road, when the whin sill outcrop is encountered at a quarry and, beyond the workings,
the Wall is visible at last. It's not only the Wall that takes the imagination.
Most of the Roman milecastles and turrets are present still,
and you soon come to the earthworks and other remains of Great Chesters Fort.
On this day's walk, we had another three miles of classic wall walking (pictured left), in and out of showers and sometimes hail,
over the highest part of the Wall Windshields Crags, before like many walkers we took accommodation at Once Brewed.
There is a youth hostel here, but we chose the Vallum Lodge Hotel.
30 August 1994: Once Brewed to Bellingham, 18 miles.
Two more miles of excellent Wall walking before you head off north into what looks like, and for England undeniably is,
a bare wilderness. It's easy to get disorientated in the boggy ground beyond the Wall, but you soon dive into the Wark Forest.
There is an awful lot of this until more open country is entered around Warks Burn, a tributary of the North Tyne.
Unlike the South Tyne, which the Way stays close to for some miles, the North Tyne is encountered only once,
just outside Bellingham, a pretty little place with a flower-girt main street (picture 2).
Our B&B, Lynne View,
is still open for business.
31 August 1994: Bellingham to Byrness, 16 miles.
There are some interesting low hills beyond Bellingham, topped by Padon Hill, which has a large stone monument.
Certainly in 1994, their place on the Pennine Way did not lead to obvious tracks across,
and we found it quite taxing to plot the corrct route. One more stretch of forest then remains,
the Redesdale Forest (pictured left), named after the River Rede, another North Tyne tributary.
The Way stays close to the Rede for its last two miles into Byrness.
There are B&Bs in the forestry village just up the road, but the Byrness Hotel is the traditional staging-post for Wayfarers,
ourselves no exception. In '94, we had been shadowing an end-to-end walker for a few days, who by now was living on Ibuprofen,
but determined to finish the last 26 miles in one hit; the hotel left him a full protein-rich breakfast for the morning,
as he was planning a 4am start.
We returned home the next day. We had planned to catch the daily Edinburgh to Newcastle coach,
but as rail services had been hit by disruption there was no room for us, so we had to taxi to Otterburn,
which has more regular services to Newcastle.
Come back somewhere around 2013 to find out how I coped with the final stage, when it will be part of my cross-England walk.
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