Cockburnspath to Coldingham Bay
Walked by Sally and Richard. Friday 6th July 2018.
14 miles of walking (nearly 8 hours), almost all on the route of the Berwickshire Coastal Path.
For more photos of this walk, click here.
Our room at the Parade School Guest House in Berwick-upon-Tweed was a little on the small side (looking at the photographs on their website, I think we might have been unlucky) but our hostess Ann was extremely friendly and the breakfast (Scottish salmon and scrambled egg) was absolutely delicious, one of the best B&B breakfasts I have ever had. Jon from Shepherds Walks Holidays was due to meet us at the B&B at 9am and to drive us to Cockburnspath and after last night’s confusion, we were ready and waiting - and Jon arrived very promptly. Ann had thought that Jon would brief us before setting off, but we wanted to get walking so were happy when Jon suggested that we leave straight away.
We soon realised that Jon is the founder of Shepherds Walks Holidays, and runs the company along with its sister companies Shepherds Walks, GPS Training and Capricorn Mohair Socks. The “Shepherd” in the name is an acknowledgement of the fact that Jon has been a shepherd in the past and although we have walked many of the long distance footpaths on which they offer holidays, there are two left that are very attractive to us: the Cumbria Way and the Raad ny Foillan (Way of the Gull) on the Isle of Man. Most of the holidays are in the north of England and south of Scotland, close to the company’s base in Rothbury (a good sign – local knowledge is important) and the Isle of Man features because Jon has lived there.
We reached Cockburnspath and Jon pulled into a little car park at NT777713, which is effectively the start of the Berwickshire Coastal Path. Jon talked us through the paperwork and the operation of the GPS Unit that they were lending to us for the holiday. Then he left us, and we were off. Well almost, first of all we had to smother ourselves in sun cream etc., then we decided that the car park was a somewhat inauspicious start to the walk so we headed back to the cross (a war memorial) that we could see back on the road. The war memorial wasn’t very photogenic from the road, but from here we noticed an information board about the Southern Upland Way, which also starts/ends in Cockburnspath. There’s actually an information board about the Berwickshire Coastal Path too, but that was overgrown – hence the photograph of Richard at the start of the wrong walk!
We returned to the car park, which is actually a track and we really were off. We passed under the A1 and East Coast Main Line then past some attractive cottages and Cove Farm and down towards the coast. The views were both to a beautiful blue sea and inland to attractive undulating countryside, with more of the attractive red sandstone buildings. For some reason I can’t identify, it felt very Scottish.
At the coast there were views to the left over the little village of Cove (more attractive Scottish-looking buildings) and beyond that…oh, what’s that to the north?, it looks like a power station. We were unable to identify the building from either the Ordnance Survey Explorer map or the Harvey strip map we were carrying, because Cove is at the northern extremity of both, but it turns out that this is the Torness Nuclear Power Station. Perhaps this is why the Berwickshire Coastal Path starts from Cockburnspath not further north in Dunbar, which would be more logical in many ways (or maybe it deliberately starts at the end of the Southern Upland Way). Whilst reflecting on the fact that the UK has power stations in some beautiful locations, I’d also acknowledge that the need for water and low population density mean that this is almost inevitable. Also, the Torness Power Station isn’t really a blot on the landscape, rather it is what makes the place what it is.
We turned right, away from the power station and soon reached what we remember as one of the most attractive parts of the whole path, the lovely little Cove Harbour. Others obviously agree that this is an attractive place because it features on the cover of 2015 edition of OS Explorer Sheet 346. We watched a fishing boat come into the harbour then continued on our way.
Soon Pease Bay came into view; here there is more attractive red sandstone scenery – plus a caravan park (and these, I’m sorry to say, I do consider to be a blot on the landscape). We descended to the holiday village and walked through it, in the process parting company with the Southern Upland Way and encountering the James Hutton Trail for the first time. We shared our route with this Trail for the next mile or so, towards Siccar Point, one of the locations Hutton visited in developing his theory that the geological processes that formed the landscape we see around us (including deposition, uplift with tilting and erosion) were the same as the processes operating today – for this work Hutton, rightly, became known as “the father of modern geology”.
Despite the fact that we were now walking on a trail with such illustrious heritage, after parting company with the Southern Uplands Way it is clear that the route we were following is not much walked and after leaving Pease Bay we first had to negotiate a rather overgrown path and then to climb up a rather steep flight of wooden stairs! These brought us out above Greenheugh Point.
The next section of the walk involved iteratively taking paths which climbed across the countryside, away from the coast, then walking more or less parallel with the coast on a minor road, then climbing up another level, all the while with attractive coastal scenery to our left. As we reached Old Cambus West Mains (presumably we’re in a former mining area) I stopped to photograph the view and a resident, helpfully stopping his dog from barking at us, commented how lucky they are to have the view every day. After passing Redheugh Farm and embarking on one of the climbs, we felt the need of a break and a well placed picnic place came into view; it was a spot in the shade of a tree by what would presumably have been a stream were it not for the ongoing dry weather. As we were eating our lunch, the hotel we’re booked into tomorrow rang to warn us of an event in their grounds tomorrow. Read more about that here.
Refreshed by our lunch we continued our climb, amused by a herd of cows in the field to our right who dashed around in circles as we approached, before glaring at us as we passed. Then, after the path had leveled out we experienced more typical sheep behaviour, where they insisted in dashing off in front of us rather than having the sense to let us pass or to veer off to one side. We were approaching a radio mast, also close to a Wind Farm, and somewhere in this area we would point out that the route shown on the Harvey map (and therefore on the Garmin) is not the same as the route signposted on the ground. The latter stays off Dowlaw Road for longer than the former, though it doesn’t really matter which route you take because it is a very quiet road and the routes eventually converge. However we were a bit perturbed by the inconsistency, so ended up walking across rough ground from the path to the road – this was fine in the dry weather but could very well have been boggy in more normal conditions.
We continued along Dowlaw Road past an attractive lake (oops, sorry, loch) to Dowlaw, which is just a farm that we skirted, passing a field containing an amazing number of sheep. We were quite well away from the coast here, south of Telegraph Hill and Fast Castle Head which might have been nice to visit if we’d had time. However our route through undulating scenery, with a definite descent and ascent around Dowlaw Burn, was pleasant.
Eventually we came back down to the coast and got our first view of St Abbs Head, about three kilometres to the east. Initially the walk to St Abbs Head was straightforward enough, along a relatively level path above the cliffs, with sheep that resembled goats in both appearance and nimble-footedness grazing on the cliff edge.
In the vicinity of Heathery Carr, somewhat unexpectedly, we encountered a steep descent followed by a steep ascent. With reference to its unexpectedness, in our own defence I’d point out that the route here is not shown on our Ordnance Survey Map. It had clouded over (we even thought that we felt a drop or two of rain at one stage) so I managed both the descent and the ascent quite well and I was delighted to be able to exert myself without anxieties about the effect on my heart, following my (unjustified) health scare earlier in the year.
There were atmospheric views to the inland Coldingham Loch, then we continued our undulating progress along the coast, passing two sets of double “poles” positioned a nautical mile apart, for use in the sea trials of new ships. There were increasingly good views to the island of West Hurker to the north-west of St Abb’s Head and eventually we were above the little cove at the junction of St Abb’s Head and the mainland. We’d been puzzling over the geology of the area for some time, after leaving the red sandstones behind. It turns out that St Abb’s Head is made of harder igneous rock (former lavas on this occasion) and there is a fault line running behind St Abb’s Head and now incorporating Mire Loch, which we could also see.
St Abb’s Head is now a nature reserve and we were slightly surprised to walk onto it by way of a minor road, though less surprised that we started to meet other people for the first time today. We followed the road round to the northeast of the headland, and stopped to look at some of the bird colonies; we’re not good on bird identification, but there were definitely guillemots and burrows, presumably left by puffins earlier in the year. We also admired the lighthouse, then continued around the headland, muttering somewhat at another descent and ascent near Wuddy Rocks.
The village of St Abbs (which appears to be commonly written without an apostrophe, though St Abb’s Head has one) and the walk to the village and harbour was straightforward. It’s a pretty place, which we have definitely visited before (with a brief sortie onto St Abb’s Head), stopping off on a journey up or down the A1, but I didn’t recognise it and I can’t remember when we were here – no doubt we’ll stumble across the photographs eventually.
Fortunately the beach and hamlet at Coldingham Bay (also referred to as Coldingham Sands) were only a short distance past St Abbs, and we found St Vedas easily, just up the hill from the beach. It was less straightforward to attract the attention of the owners, though we discovered that the door to the bar, which we had tried and thought to be locked, was actually open. We were shown through the house to the private entry for guests and to a somewhat old-fashioned but large room, with a lovely view of the beach.
In the evening we walked down to Coldingham (less than a mile inland) where we had a very nice meal at the New Inn and a look at Coldingham Priory. As we returned to Coldingham Bay we speculated over the name of the place we're staying: is it "St Vedas" or "St Veda's"? We had just convinced ourselves of the latter, when we stumbled across a leaflet outlining the history of the house in our bedroom. It appears that St Vedas is fictional, the creation of 19th Century author Annie S. Swan, who was born in Coldingham. Although the family moved away, the book "St Vedas" or "The Pearl of Orr's Haven" was based on her experiences and observations of life at Coldingham Shore, the village now known as St Abbs. St Vedas House was built just eight years after the book was published and one theory is that this was one of the five houses that Annie S. Swan was known to have built in her lifetime. The house was initially a family home, though it was converted to an hotel early in its history. Most of its focus now seems to be as a "surfing destination" with an adjacent Surf Shop. The family who own this lot also own the 100-year old Beach Cafe.
We fell asleep listening to the sound of waves on the beach.
