High Moorsley & Pittington Hill
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2015 The Northern Echo 35 Walks what’son Walks High Moorsley & Pittington Hill far-reaching views from this track on the ridge. Head through the Walk information northwards across the rolling barrier, and continue along the hills of the lower Wear Valley railway track-bed for a further Distance: 6.25 km (3.9 miles) towards Penshaw Monument and 325 metres to reach a very large Time: Allow 2 hours Sunderland, with a patchwork of signpost beside the track (‘Hetton, fields and houses. After a while, Low Pittington’), and a footpath Map: OS Explorer 308. Always our route turns west and leads on crossing over the track. Turn take a map on your walk. to reach the brow of Pittington right here over a stile (yellow Start/Parking: On-street parking Hill and one of the finest views in waymarker), and follow the grassy throughout Low Pittington; please this area with Durham Catherdral path heading up across the field park considerately. clearly visible rising above the alongside the hedge on your right Refreshments: Blacksmiths at city, and the Durham Dales and to reach a stile beside a double Low Pittington Northumberland Hills of the metal gate in the top corner of North Pennines beyond. Terrain: Old railway line (gravel the field that leads onto a grassy track-bed), muddy field paths and track. Ignore the clear grassy tracks. Steady climb up to High track to your right alongside the Moorsley. Several stiles The walk hedge but head half-right slanting up the bank along a wide grassy How to get there: From the Al From the road junction in the path (through scattered trees) to (M) / A690 junction (Jct 62), follow reach a stile beside a gate at the the A690 towards Sunderland for 1centre of Low Pittington (facing up the village street with the top of the bank (beside a house on 1.3 miles then take the turning your left) that leads onto Moorsley towards Low Pittington. ‘Dead End’ sign), take the track off this road junction to the left Road. Caution: I encountered horses in beside the ‘phone box (old road the first field, as well as muddy sign to ‘To Durham, Rainton’), paths, a couple of stiles and a Cross the road and turn right marked by a footpath sign. Follow 3for 50 metres then take the track steady climb up to High Moorsley. this track straight on for 50 metres Take care crossing Moorsley Road. to the left through a gate (signpost then, where the track ends, carry ‘Hetton le Hill’). Follow the clear straight on along the enclosed grassy track straight on through grassy path to soon reach a small woodland for 175 metres to join Points of interest footbridge across a stream and a another track sweeping in from stile just beyond. Cross the stile your right (end of the woodland), and walk across the small field reach a stile set in a hedge/fence straight on through trees, with HIS route is one for a where you carry straight on along then cross another stile just to across your path. the slopes of Pittington Hill rising clear day, for it offers the clear track for a further 200 your left, after which walk across up to your left, and follow this magnificent views for metres to reach a fork in the track the next large field alongside the path as it gently curves round Tmodest height gain from beside the covered reservoir on Cross the stile and turn hedge on your right (horses in this to the left (following the curves High Moorsley and Pittington your right (small tower with 4immediately right alongside field) to reach a stile in the corner of the hillside) to reach a stile Hill. The first part of this walk dome). Follow the left-hand track the hedge/fence on your right, at the end of the field that leads across your path that leads into follows part of the former bending sharply round to the left and follow this straight on across onto Moorsley Road. Turn left woodland. Cross the stile and Durham and Sunderland Railway alongside the hedge on your left. several fields (Cobbler’s Hill) for along the road for 100 metres then walk on for a few paces then turn line. This railway was built in Follow this rough grassy/muddy 1.2 km, gradually rising up to take the clear path to the right right through a wrought-iron the 1830s linking, as its name track straight on alongside the eventually reach the top of a bank just after the first house on your kissing gate that leads onto an says, Sunderland with Durham; hedge (line of electricity poles) (Pittington Hill), where a superb right (signpost and blue cycle sign enclosed track which you follow however, its terminus was at for 350 metres then, at the end of views unfolds across the Wear ‘Hetton, Sunderland’). back down into Low Pittington. Shincliffe just to the south of this field (electricity poles end Valley towards Durham City. Durham, and so in the post Second on your left), turn sharp right Continue straight on alongside World War cut backs, this line Walk along this clear path to alongside the hedge on your left the hedge gradually dropping Mark Reid succumbed and closed in the 2quickly emerge onto the old (narrow grassy path), and follow down the hillside alongside Walking Weekends 2014 late 1950s. It is now a walking a railway track-bed. Follow this old this curving round to the left then the hedge on your right, and Peak District, Yorkshire Dales, cycling route, and forms part of railway track-bed straight on for passing through a large gap in a curving round to the right down Lake District & Snowdonia the cross-country Walney to Wear 1.5 km (approximately 20 minutes hedge across your path (passing to reach a junction of paths and walkingweekenders.co.uk cycle route. A path turns off this walking) to reach a black-painted beneath electricity poles) then a barbed wire fence across your path. Turn left along a narrow Unique corporate activity days, old railway line up to reach High metal horse/bike barrier across continue straight on alongside the navigation skills and team building Moorsley, from where a track the track, with woodland on hedge on your left for a further 225 path along the bottom of the field that soon leads to a stile, experiences in the great outdoors. heads up across the low hill to the your left and a cream-coloured metres then bending sharp right teamwalking.co.uk south of the village. There are house across up to your right again (following hedge) and on to after which follow the clear path Countrydiary By Phil GatesBBirdwatch y Ian Kerr PRING is still a distant prospect, but spread very quickly if it FTER ten years of research, a field wall. The crow remained and the first wild flowers of 2015 are finds its way into gardens. America and Russia scientists cawed or, as he said, just laughed at him. S beginning to appear. Last week A have proved something that There were also Perhaps these learned researchers could I found a few lesser celandine flowers snowdrops blooming in birders, shepherds and farmers have have saved themselves a lot of bother, beginning to open in St. Cuthbert’s the churchyard alongside known for decades: that members of time and expense by getting out and churchyard in Durham city. the celandines. We tend the crow family are as intelligent as talking to a few folk in the countryside When the mottled green leaves of to think of them as native monkeys and apes at solving problems with plenty of first-hand experience of celandines open they fold back against the wild flowers, but they are and far outstrip dogs and other pets. the family. soil, presenting the maximum surface area almost certainly garden escapes. They were In fact, tales abound of just how bright We are enjoying a light influx of tundra to winter sunshine, and the flower buds first recorded in the wild by botanists in the and savvy they can be. A hill shepherd bean geese with individuals and small expand quickly during periods of mild 1770s, but must have become naturalised once told me that he’d taken his shotgun groups turning up with regular flocks weather. The plant exists in two forms, long before that. Some of the finest to sort out a carrion crow hanging of greylags, pinkfeet and Canada geese although it’s difficult to tell them apart displays of snowdrops are associated with around his lambing pens. The crow took with sightings at Rainton Meadows, until flowering is over. One form produces churchyards. The pure white blooms have one look, flapped out of range and settled Lambton Pond, Scaling Dam, Filey, plentiful clusters of small seeds after the long been associated with Candlemas, the down. Next day he took along a rifle. Hunmanby Gap and at three localities flowers fade, but the other produces very Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary The crow again moved out of range and around Druridge Bay. It means that few. Instead it develops groups of tiny buds on February 2nd. In some places bunches settled down before he could even raise any gathering of more common geese called bulbils at the base of the leaf stalks. of their flowers are still used to decorate the gun to aim. He told me with more is worth checking through for these They look like enlarged rice grains and chapels.