SIMONSIDE, most northerly summit of the Pennine Chain?

My interest in the Pennines is deeply ingrained through my ancestors. My paternal Grandmother’s side of my family can be traced back to the Northern Pennines to at least the 1600’s. I was born in Airedale. My Wife’s family was also from Airedale. Two of my children were born in Wharfedale and the third in Nidderdale. It was almost inevitable that I learned to love the hills of the Pennines and sought work attached to what I thought of as my umbilical cord. This took my Wife and I first to the Hope Valley in the Peak District. We knew the Dales well but we had an urge to explore further North and discovered Northumberland up as far as the Cheviots. This immediately became one of our possible places to live if a suitable job became available. This is why Simonside became part of our lives.

Most descriptions of the Pennines state that it is the spine of Northern England stretching from the Vale of Trent to the Cheviot Hills. Although the southern end is fairly clear the boundary of the northern end is far from clearly defined. Many commentators say that the Tyne Gap divides the Pennines from the Cheviots totally ignoring the fact that the Cheviots run severely North East. If one takes the mid point across the watershed, say Hexham, the rise of the Cheviots is approximately 40 miles due North of the Tyne. The one thing that is clear is where the Cheviots are defined on their southern edge as they just quite visibly rise out of the ground. Most dramatically a mile up the Coquet valley from Alwinton the river follows the line of weakness between between the two geologies, volcanics on the northern bank and shales and sandstones on the south bank. There is an extensive triangle of high land and fell north of the Tyne Gap. In the 1911 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica the following is described.

“The Pennine system is hardly a range, but the hills are in effect broken up into numerous short ranges by valleys cut back into them in every direction, for the Pennines form a north and south watershed which determines the course of all the larger rivers in the north of England. The chain is divided into two sections by a gap formed by the river Aire flowing east, a member of the Humber basin, and the Ribble flowing west and entering the Irish Sea through a wide estuary south of Morecambe Bay.”

The Tyne Valley is simply another river cutting through the watershed. There are no absolutes in describing the boundaries of the Pennines. The Pennine Way although finally mapped in 1965 has muddied the waters as it starts in the south at, Edale, ignoring the limestone scenery of the White Peak, and finishing on the northern side of the Cheviots into Scotland.

It is tempting to define the Pennines in geological terms but the name was coined back in time. It was not however recorded until the 18th century. It is unlikely that when the name was first uttered there was any concept of the geology or the “backbone of Northern England”. There would, however, be an appreciation by early travellers that it was very difficult to get over this barrier of hills from East to West. Where ever the name originated it is not surprising that it spread North and South. To find a route to Scotland one had to choose the coastal area to the West or alternatively to the East. Travel up the Eastern route the barrier of hills to the West eventually turns into the North Eastern direction of the Cheviots before Scotland is reached.

If one looks North from Newcastle or Hadrian’s Wall on a reasonably clear day you will see Cheviot and you will also see the unmistakeable summit of Simonside. If you look in a southerly direction from Simonside on a clear day you look down a range of fells to Cross Fell, the recognised high point of the Pennines. There is a continuity of fells up to and beyond the Tyne Gap to Cross Fell. My contention is that the Pennines continue to Simonside whether they are named as such on a map. Northumberland has not been very good at naming its fells. The area of Simonside is within the vague area named the Rothbury Forest. The separate range of low hills following the East coast to the Border deserves a name but remains without one until it reaches the Kyloe Hills south of the Tweed. I would argue that whilst the Pennines butt the Cheviots in their extreme NW they part company from the Tyne as one goes East. This puts Simonside in poll position to be the highest summit at the northern end of the Pennines. I am careful to call it a “summit” as bizarrely it is not the high point of the Simonside fells, this is Tosson Hill, 38 feet higher. However from whichever direction of the compass one looks the outline of Simonside is dominant. This is because the summit of Tosson Hill is on a broad fell to the West, causing an optical allusion.

The northern boundary of the Pennines is not the Tyne Gap but the Cheviot Hills and Simonside is the most northerly summit of the Pennine Chain.

IW 12th July 2020