Country Stanhope and diary Heathery Burn t seems to be a bumper year for fruit like apples and pears – perhaps because warm Iweather back in the spring was perfect for bee pollinator activity. Now there’s a lot of rotting fruit on the ground and that attracts a host of hungry animals. During the daylight hours blackbirds often Walks get first pick of the fallen fruit, along with the inevitable wasps, but once darkness falls other visitors arrive that are seldom seen – by Mark Reid including millipedes. During the daytime millipedes tend to conceal themselves under WA LK INFORMATION fallen leaves or loose bark of dead trees, but after dark they begin to feed actively. Unlike Distance: 6.75 km (4.25 miles) centipedes, which are carnivores, millipedes Time: 2 hours feed on plant material and they can’t resist Map: OS Explorer Sheet 307 fallen fruit. If you go out with a torch after Parking: Durham Dales Centre, Stanhope dark in autumn and search under fruit trees Refreshments: Pubs, cafes and shops at the chances are that you’ll find one nibbling Stanhope. No facilities en route. at the rotting flesh of an apple. Terrain: Clear paths, tracks and lanes all Millipedes have two pairs of legs on each the way. Crawley Edge is exposed to the of their body segments, unlike centipedes elements. that have only one pair per segment. The species you’re most likely to encounter is the How to get there: From the A68, turn west snake millipede which has a shiny black along the A689 through Weardale to reach body, grows to a length of up to two inches Stanhope. and coils up like a spring if you poke it. It’s Caution: This walk heads up onto the fascinating to watch one of these animals moorland above Crawley Edge, which is when it’s walking, because with over fifty exposed to the elements. This walk passes body segments when fully grown and with old quarry and mine workings – do not four legs per segment the movement of over explore these workings. two hundred limbs is a marvel of nervous coordination. As it trundles along an POINTS OF INTEREST undulating wave of leg movements, that’s Stanhope is the ‘Capital of Weardale’, an almost hypnotic to watch, seems to travel attractive small town set amongst the fells of down the animal’s body. Millipedes’ the North Pennines. The history of Stanhope is nocturnal habits protect them from many closely associated with the Prince Bishops of predatory birds but they have one last form Durham, whose hunting lands stretched west- of defence if they’re attacked – glands that wards into the upper reaches of Weardale, as secrete a fluid that’s repugnant to most other well as the once booming lead and iron ore animals. mines and stone quarries, whose scars still Phil Gates litter the landscape. Stanhope was granted a market charter in 1421, however, over the years this market lapsed and so in 1669 Bishop Cosin re-founded the market and erected a ‘new’ stone cross in the Market Place. This cross was replaced in 1871 and the old, weathered cross Based on Ordnance Survey mapping moved into the churchyard – the weekly mar- © Crown copyright: AM26/09 kets ceased during the late 19th Century. St Thomas’s Church dates from around 1200, Birdwatch built to serve the spiritual needs of the Prince Stanhope Burn, a delightful wooded valley. Here barn and then a stone house on your left Bishops and their entourage during their summer are the remains of 19th Century lead and iron- (Crawley Engine) just after which (where the hunting trips in the Forest of Weardale. Inside stone mines, 20th Century fluorspar mines, wall bends left) you join a track. Follow this fter the recent fuss over hoax rarity the church is an inscribed stone Roman altar, smelt mills, blast furnaces, stone quarries and track to the left alongside the wall for 75 metres claims I can report something which was discovered nearby in 1735 whilst in lime kilns. then bending round to the right then, where the Aremarkable – and absolutely genuine – track bends left towards the road, head straight the churchyard is a fossilised tree stump that is that has happened following Tropical Storm thought to be 250 million years old. Across the THE WA LK on along the clear raised track-bed of the Craw- Katia earlier this month. road from the Church are the battlements and From the Durham Dales Centre, turn left leyside Bank Incline (old railway). Follow this Many North birders were happy to tackle imposing gates of Stanhope Castle. These are 1along the main road to quickly reach Stan- track straight on gently rising up across the a long drive into Scotland to see the British very much Victorian ornamentation as the hope Market Place, with St Thomas the Apostle hillside (road across to your left), passing a mainland’s first sandhill crane which spent original Norman castle that once stood on this Church on your left. Take the walled lane to the rectangular enclosure (stone wall) on your left five days around Loch of Strathbeg RSPB site was little more than a grassy mound in the left (Church Lane) immediately after the after 500 metres then, immediately after the reserve near Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire. field as far back as the 14th Century. Church (just before the Bonny Moor Hen) and enclosure, you reach a track across your path There had been only two previous British Just above Stanhope are the remains of Ashes follow this up to reach a T-junction. Turn left where you turn left to quickly reach the road. At records, the first on Fair Isle in April 1981, Quarry, a deep scar across the hillside that along the road for 200 metres, passing the the road turn right for 50 metres then take the the next on the main Shetland island in stretches for about a mile just below Crawley Methodist Church on your right just after which track to the left (signpost). Follow this track September 1991. One also reached County Edge. This quarry was worked from the 1870s turn right up along a walled path (signpost straight on down into the side-valley of Heath- Cork, Ireland, in September, 1905 and was until the 1940s by the Consett Iron Company, ‘Ashes Quarry’). Follow this enclosed path up ery Burn, bending sharply round to the left over shot, ending up as a specimen at the where men toiled by hand using picks and shov- through a kissing gate and out onto an area of the stream then straight on heading across the National Museum. Dublin. els to extract limestone; it must have been back- old quarry workings and spoil heaps (Ashes side of the valley, with the valley falling away The Strathbeg bird was most likely of the breaking work. The limestone was taken by Quarry). Head straight on up alongside the wall to your left (track becomes grassy) before gently smaller northern form with a breeding range wagon up along the Crawleyside Bank Incline, on your right passing between large spoil heaps dropping down. The track becomes stony under- extending from central Canada to Arctic hauled by the Weatherhill Engine, where it then continue straight on up over two foot- foot again and drops more steeply down and regions. About 3ft 6ins from bill to tail tip, this joined a railway line on top of the moors. This bridges above deep quarry workings to reach a joins a wall on your left. Continue down this is a bit shorter than Europe’s common crane extraordinary railway was the Stanhope and kissing gate in a fence/wall just beyond. Head track alongside the wall then, as the old mine – from which it differs by its all grey plumage Tyne Railway, built in 1834 as one of the first through the kissing gate and follow the clear buildings come into view at the bottom of the (adult common has a black head and neck railways in the country to transport iron ore and path alongside the fence on your left rising up valley (Stanhope Burn) follow the track as it down each side of which is a bold white limestone from the mineral-rich hills above and round to the left. The path levels out and bears slightly away from the wall and leads stripe). Stanhope over to the burgeoning industrial leads on alongside the fence on your left (old down to reach a gate in a fence across the track. It was last seen on Monday when it flew town of Consett and on to the River Tyne. From quarry workings down to your left) for 100 metres Head through the gate and follow the track southwards from the reserve until above Stanhope, the railway traced the contours to reach a fork in the path – follow the less winding down to reach a junction of tracks and disappearing from view. However, there has of the high Pennine hills until it reached distinct grassy path branching off to the right a bridge across Stanhope Burn set amongst dis- to be at least a possibility that it might appear Waskerley where the loaded goods wagons were rising up across the hillside to soon reach a used and ruinous old mine buildings and workings. somewhere else. By coincidence a common lowered down another steep incline known kissing-gate in a wall. Head through this kissing- crane at Budle Bay, Northumberland, was as Nanny Mayer’s Incline from where the gate and then another kissing-gate just beyond, Turn left along the track (do not cross the also seen to fly south on Monday. trains continued on to Consett; Mrs Mayers was after which turn left along the clear path along- 3bridge) and follow this track heading down Otherwise the past week can be summed the landlady of a long vanished pub. In 1845 side the fence on your left to quickly reach a through the wooded valley of Stanhope Burn, up as “same again”, with the region’s most another railway was built from Crook to Consett path junction (waymarkers) where you carry with the stream on your right (track soon unusual birds still the blue-winged teal and that skirted Waskerley via Burn Hill, which straight on along the clear path rising up across becomes a lane), for 1.5 km all the way to reach two pectoral sandpipers at RSPB Saltholme, provided an easier (and level) route to Consett, the bracken-covered hillside (house down the B6278 road, beside Stanhope Grange. Turn Teesmouth, a buff-breasted sandpiper at thus avoiding the Nanny Mayer’s Incline. The to your left) up onto the flat escarpment of right down along the road (pavement) and Thornwick Bay, Flamborough and four snow line closed in 1968 and is now the Waskerley Way Crawley Edge. Follow the path straight on along follow this all the way down to reach a T-junction geese at East Chevington, Druridge Bay. The walking route. the top of this escarpment (fine views) for 350 with the A689 at Stanhope. Turn left along this few notable songbird migrants were confined Our route follows the Crawleyside Bank metres to reach a small enclosure (tumbledown road back into Stanhope. to Northumberland (wryneck at Hauxley, Incline and then turns off into the side-valley stone wall) and dilapidated corrugated barn set icterine warbler on the Farne Islands and a of Heathery Burn. In the 19th Century a cave into the corner, where you carry on alongside Mark Reid little bunting at Low Newton) and East was discovered in this valley which contained this wall/enclosure on your left to reach a metal Author of The Inn Way guidebooks Yorkshire (Richard's pipit and ortolan bunting some of this country’s most important Bronze gate in a fence just before the road. innway.co.uk at Spurn). Age finds, including pieces that pointed to the Brian Unwin first use of domesticated horses and wheeled Do not head through this gate but turn right Get outdoors this autumn with Mark Reid. vehicles in Britain. The finds are now housed at 2before it along a grassy path alongside the Navigation skills, adventure days, guided walks. the British Museum. A track drops down into wall on your left, passing a large corrugated teamwalking.co.uk northernecho.co.uk Seven Days 37