Northumberland
We love Northumberland and have had many holidays in the county, including on the coast. We walked most of the Northumberland Coast Path (the section from Warkworth to Berwick-upon-Tweed) over two holidays in 2016. On the first of those trips, we were also completing St Oswald's Way, so we crossed the causeway to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne and spent the night there, before returning by way of the Pilgrim's Way (that's the pedestrian route across the sands) and continuing north. We had also walked across the sands to Lindisfarne at the end of St Cuthbert's Way. So it is reasonable to say that we had completed the Northumberland Section of the England Coast Path (which includes the crossing to the tidal island) from Warkworth to Berwick-upon-Tweed, However, back in 2016, I described a significant (though very pleasant) inland diversion to the south of Lindisfarne. A route closer to the coast was opened in August 2023. Generally speaking we are not re-walking sections of the coast path because of new sections like this, but I love the Northumberland coast so much that I could be very tempted.
England (and so Northumberland) actually extends a few miles to the north of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and we'd walked this equally attractive section between the Scottish border and Berwick when walking the Berwickshire Coastal Path in July 2018. Thus all that remained to be done when we crossed the county boundary from Tyne and Wear near St Mary's Island when walking from Tynemouth to Blyth in July 2023, was to join up to the point where we had walked through Warkworth en route to the coast. After completing the walk to Blyth, this left a meandering section between Blyth and Newbiggin (meandering because of several river estuaries that need to be negotiated) then a section alongside Druridge Bay to Amble, and the final short hop to Warkworth.
All of these sections are rightly described as being part of the Northumberland Section of the England Coast Path, but the Northumberland Coast Path only starts at Cresswell (at the southern end of Druridge Bay) and ends in Berwick-upon-Tweed. I can understand the omission of the section to the north of Berwick, since this does count as part of the Berwickshire Coastal Path, and location of the county border has been much disputed, with Berwick itself having been in Scotland at times in its history. However, someone appears to have decided that the more industrial landscape around Blyth, and the Lynemouth Power Station aren't good enough for the Northumberland Coast Path, which I consider to be an unfortunate omission, as these legs are interesting with a sort of wild beauty. Fortunately the England Coast Path includes the lot.
