Note distances are approximate. Total 156.5 Km, plus additional walking from/to public transport stops at start/end.
The page lists seven 'stages' for the route. The actual walk will take me eight days, as I will have one 'rest day'. If walking yourself, you might prefer to split stages five to six across three days. Also note that neither Cow Green nor Howick are perfect start/end points for those of us using public transport, so I will be staying an extra night (and doing some more walking!) at each end of the route. The donations page includes my contact details, for anyone who wants to join the walk or meet up at any point.
A long-distance walking route should provide a natural and easy route from place to place, avoiding the highest climbs or most challenging walking. It should not be an endurance test and does not aim to provide excitement for the mountaineer. In the higher ground, I prefer to walk from valley to valley rather than spending whole days in the same valley, as this gives a sense of progression from community to community. This route crosses the main valleys and rivers in the region, as follows (numbered to show the stage when the river is visited).
I have included route details in the sections below, for anyone who wants to follow the same route. 1:50,000 scale maps will be required (or preferably 1:25,000 for the first day), the route details given below are merely a guide for those who can already read maps, and should not be used by themselves. But I don't expect anyone else to want to tread exactly the same path: the idea is rather to encourage you to put together your own routes through places of inspiration or challenge...
The starting point for the walk is the shore of Cow Green reservoir. The reservoir was built in 1969-1971, to supply water to the growing chemical industry in Teesside. The site chosen was recognised as internationally important for several rare alpine plants, survivals from the last Ice Age, and plans for the reservoir sparked opposition at national and grassroots levels, spearheaded by the Teesdale Defence Committee. Exceptionally for the period, the opposition triggered a series of Parliamentary debates and enquiries, and can be seen as an early example of the modern conservation movement. Among the letters to The Times is one from Peter Scott (as chairman of WWF) and Professor Humphrey Hewer (Council for Nature) dated 6 July 1966: this states, "What [Parliament] must decide is whether, to satisfy the demands of industry for a few years, it is prepared to give such an appalling example to the rest of the world."
The alpine plants being threatened by the reservoir included the famous Spring Gentian (Gentiana verna), but also smaller and rarer plants like the Teesdale Violet (Viola rupestris) and Teesdale Sandwort (Arenaria uliginosa). Cow Green reservoir and dam remain a stark reminder of an early biodiversity debate, of the power of local campaigning, and of the short-termism represented by cash driven techno-fixes.
I would be very interested to meet with anyone who was involved in the Teesdale Defence Committee - see donations and supporters page for my contact details.
Cow Green reservoir, on an unusually warm and sunny day |
Gardeners will recognise this, the (very scarce) wild form of Potentilla Fruticosa (Shrubby Cinquefoil), growing on the banks of the Tees just East of Cow Green. |
Cow Green is an isolated place, and not always easy to access by public transport. Bus number 73 travels from Middleton-in-Teesdale to the reservoir car park several times a day (but not on Sundays, you need to contact Alston Road Garage in advance for Cow Green, 01833 640213). If you have the energy, the walk up the Tees from Langdon Beck to the reservoir (via Cauldron Snout, just south of the dam) is part of one of the finest stretches of the Pennine Way. This would be a good start to the walk: as would spending a whole extra day walking north from Middleton-in-Teesdale or east from Dufton, but you've got another 150Km to go so resist these options unless you're feeling supremely fit!
Use the Traveline website or phone number (0870 6082608) to plan the transport, or see the leaflets on public transport in the North Pennines at the Durham County Council website, which include a map and timetables. Current options include:
This stage passes several remnants of lead mining on Bolt's Law, including old mine buildings on the walk up from Rookhope, a disused railway that served the mines (now a cycle track), the chimneys that indicate the ends of flues from lead smelting works, and yet another dam at Sikehead. Lead mines often used small dams to generate a head of water, which would be used to scour out or 'hush' lead ore from the surface of the landscape. All these processes have left obvious and visible scars on the landscape, and the conditions for those employed in the mining were often dangerous (most obviously the scraping of lead from the sides of the long flues, which lead to the Sikehead chimneys).
Perversely, the model of industry demonstrated by these scars may be much Greener than the globalised methods now employed for mineral extraction, in which the full environmental and social costs of both production and disposal are landed on developing countries, while the market receives cheap and apparently clean material. 'Hushing' of the landscape to extract lead ore, or sending children through flues to scrape off the lead after smelting, cause obvious destruction and death, which can be regulated or prohibited. In contrast, the 'free' globalised market hides the real costs of many industries, and encourages a 'race to the bottom' in terms of regulation and standards. The first stage of greening industry is to ensure that it is as fully localised as possible, so that communities can both receive the benefits of industry, and hold it to account for any environmental or social costs.
As an aside (but a very worthwhile one), there is a detailed discussion of the poet WH Auden's love of and interest in this landscape and the lead mining industry, at Alan Myers' website (under Auden in the North).
Today's route starts by heading to the outflow of the Derwent Reservoir, and then making a bee-line for Riding Mill on the Tyne. This part of the route follows closely the pipeline that carries water from Kielder Reservoir down the North Tyne/Tyne to Riding Mill, then by pipe to the Derwent Reservoir outflow, and thence to the Wear and the Tees. So although Derwent is the last reservoir that we'll meet on this walk, it is linked to the region's largest, at Kielder.
Kielder dam was planned, like Cow Green, to supply water to industry on Teesside. By the time it was built, the chemical industry was in decline, and water has only been pumped over to Teesside on a handful of occasions to avert 'drought' restrictions. The whole scheme demonstrates a 'solution' to water shortages that has nothing to do with water efficiency, but that has major impacts on the ecology of three separate river systems.
Mountain Pansy (Viola Lutea) in Upper Teesdale, near Cow Green reservoir, 2008 |
Military convoy carrying Trident nuclear warheads, arriving at Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston (Berkshire), October 2004 These convoys routinely travel through our region, on route from Aldermaston to RNAD Coulport in Scotland. They are in effect huge "dirty bombs", travelling past our cities by day and night. Such is (a small part of) the cost of our so-called "nuclear deterrent". If you see these vehicles in the region, please call Nukewatch with details, on 01274 730795, 01555 820550 or 02380 554434. |
The walker "raising the red flag", at Warcop military range (just south of Cow Green reservoir), 2008 Warcop range has blocked off the route which used to run on the south side of the river, from Upper Teesdale to High Cup Nick. |
Part of today's walk will be along Hadrian's Wall. Unfortunately, it will be along that part of the wall that is now under tarmac - the B6318 or 'military road'. General Wade flattened Hadrian's Wall to build this road in the 1750s, in order to speed up troop movements across the country in fear of another Jacobite rebellion. Flattening a site of such historic importance in order to build a road for the army may seem unthinkable in the 21st century. But it is apparently not unthinkable in Iraq: compare the ravages caused by US tanks over the remnants of Babylon.
But at least that's better than hiding facilities for weapons of mass destruction in the Iraqi/Iranian countryside, perhaps? Today's walk visits a disused airstrip at the back of what is now a military barracks. Until very recently, this airstrip at Ouston was used as a secure vehicle compound or overnight stopover, for trucks carrying nuclear warheads from the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire up to the naval base in Scotland. The nuclear warhead convoys still pass through the area - the only difference being that they no longer stop over in semi-secure compounds, but now travel all night on dark roads past and through our cities. Such is the cost of our so-called nuclear deterrent. See the Nuclear Information Service website for further information.
The compound at Ouston/Albemarle has been the focus of anti-nuclear protest locally since it was built in the 1980s. A Peace Picnic in 1986 saw wire cutting and the eviction of a 6ft mole (symbolising leaked information about the site), another picnic in 1995 commemorated the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, the site saw regular vigils by Christian CND against nuclear weapons, in 2002 it was inspected following the principles used by weapons inspectors in Iraq, and in 2004 it was padlocked shut and a closure notice sent to the MOD.
This is hardly classic walking country and takes you across neither mountains nor major valleys, so this and the next stage are essentially an easy route between Tynedale and the Wansbeck.
Today's walk starts near what was Cornyhaugh mink fur farm, close to Kirkley Mill, and visits the grave of a famous suffragette in Morpeth. Both sites remind us of the importance of protest, but also of the need to safeguard rights to protest by exercising, not by suppressing them.
Cornyhaugh farmed mink and was the site of sustained protest in the later 1990s and until fur farming was banned in the UK. Despite widespread disgust at the practice of farming mink for the fashion industry, the fact that the farmer had chosen to run his business alongside his own home meant that protest was repeatedly stifled, under the cover of protecting his family from harassment. The 1997 Protection from Harassment Act was known as the "anti-stalking bill" as it went through Parliament, and was supposed to protect women from stalkers. Instead, one of its main (and increasing) uses has been to limit or prevent protests, whether against fur farming or arms companies. Cornyhaugh was in the forefront of this abuse of the act. Passing an act for one purpose and then allowing it to be used (or revising it so that it can be used) for wider purposes has become commonplace.
Once at Morpeth, you can visit the grave of local suffragette Emily Wilding Davison. She died in 1913, after being trampled by the king's horse at the Derby, while she was (perhaps) trying to tie the suffragette colours of green and purple to it. Her grave is marked with the short inscription, Deeds not Words.
Emily Davison's grave was the starting point for a protest walk against the new Terrorism Act of 2000. This act created new offences, linked to a definition of terrorism that is so broad that it makes no reference to "terror" and could be used to catch a wide number of political protests. This definition of 'terrorism' remains at the heart of all subsequent anti-terrorism legislation, including attempts to lengthen the time that those suspected of "terrorist" offences can be locked up without charge. When the 2000 act was going through Parliament, Jack Straw rubbished suggestions that the act could be used to stifle protest, yet within a couple of years its use to stop and search protesters had become commonplace (including at a Labour party conference). In 2000, walkers dressed in suffragette colours or as modern-day protesters (all now brandable as "terrorists") walked from Emily Davison's grave to the statue of radical journalist Joseph Cowen on Newcastle's Westage Road.
Much of today's walk is spent on the coast at Druridge Bay and around Low Hauxley. But before we get there, we visit sites with a grim recent past. During the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD), as the government failed to consider alternatives to mass culling such as vaccination, thousands of diseased carcases were carried through Widdrington Station and Widdrington. Some were on route for a mass burial site just south-west of Widdrington, while others were destined for a huge pyre east of Widdrington Station.
The pyre site was close to the site that nearly 20 years earlier had been destined for a new nuclear power station, on Druridge Bay. After mass campaigning by local groups, the plans were withdrawn. We will be walking past the cairn on which those opposed to the plans were invited to place a rock to symbolise their personal resistance. Nuclear power has consistently been presented as a quick fix for our energy needs, whether on the grounds of cost or climate change. The quick fix falls apart when the unsustainability of storing nuclear waste for millenia is considered, and putting all our eggs in the nuclear basket could merely delay implementation of the biggest part of the climate change agenda - massive energy reduction. The Druridge Bay campaign (and its success!) has been an inspiration to a generation of campaigners.
As you leave Ashington, you will be about a mile east of the Potland Burn site, which is due to open as a new opencast coal mine in the next couple of years. This is despite being in an area designated as unsuitable for opencasting in the local plans: permission was granted by the local Council, after a Government planning inspector had overturned their previous refusal for an opencast site elsewhere in the area. This reflects the ability of business lobbying to overturn local and national democracy - there has been no official change by government to its policy on opencasting.
And a mile to your right (north east of the Country Park) is the Alcan works. This aluminium works requires the output of a whole (coal-fired) power station alongside it, and (like opencasting) opposition is often muted due to fears of job losses. But increasing energy costs and globalisation mean that the future of this industry is already fragile and job losses certain. A Green industry policy would intervene to diversify the local economy and to safeguard the skills of the workforce, not to prop up unsustainable industries.
Newcastle residents will know Earl Grey as the statue on top of the Monument. The area around the Monument was once described as our equivalent of London's Hyde Park Corner: a space for a variety of protest and political groups to preach, campaign and present an alternative view of society. Sadly the city authorities (and the police, by abuse of legislation dating from 1916) are more interested in laying on pavement cafes and street entertainment, and the space for uncontrolled political discourse is being constrained or vanishing entirely. As so often, we may not appreciate the value of public space for protest and preaching (including by those we may disagree with) until we have lost it for good.
The Walk for Democracy officially ends at the entrance to Howick Hall, the seat of the Earls Grey. While the 1832 Reform Act did little more than prevent a few of the most visible abuses of parliamentary democracy (like abolishing the rotten boroughs), and although it did not extend the vote beyond the property-owning middle classes, it did mark the beginning of a process that would lead to universal adult suffrage nearly 100 years later. Earl Grey himself considered his reforms modest and resisted attempts to go further or to ally his party to more radical causes, so the walk's endpoint can remind us both of the importance of parliamentary democracy, and of its limitations.
Apologies that, like the official starting point, Howick is not wonderfully practical for those of us relying on public transport. But rather than reaching for a car, you will find it much more pleasant to continue the walk for a few kilometres to Craster, from where there is a two-hourly bus service to Alnwick and Newcastle (Monday to Saturday, last bus currently 8:33pm, service 501). See above under Getting to Cow Green reservoir for details of traveline for timetable information. Alternatively, stay over at Craster for another night and enjoy the coastline and/or Dunstanburgh Castle on the next day (if your legs are up to it), or the Howick Hall gardens and arboretum.
Apart from a diversion inland at Alnmouth (ignore the route shown by the coastal bridlepath on the map - do not try to wade across the river Aln at this point!), you can stay on the coastline all the way.
Shortly before getting to Howick, on your right just after crossing the Howick Burn, you will pass the site of a Stone Age hut dating from c.7,800BC, which has been dubbed "Britain's oldest house". For further information, see the Howick Project website.