Wooler to Fenwick and transfer to Lowick
Wednesday 16th June
12 miles, mostly on St Cuthbert's Way
Click here for all our photos from this walk.
We woke to a sunny morning and today it stayed sunny, and it was quite warm in the afternoon. Last night we had thought that we were the only visitors at Tilldale House, but another couple of guests (mother and daughter?) appeared overnight. Julia Devenport provided a delicious breakfast of scrambed egg and smoked salmon.
The guidebook describes today's walk as 'an easy section with no steep hills to climb'. This is true, but it isn't all flat. After crossing the A697, wending our way through the modern housing on the flood plain of the river (the Wooler Water) and walking past the school on the site of the World War II prison camp (with lions on the school gates made by Italian prisoners of war) we climbed up Westwood Bank onto Westwood Moor. The views back to Wooler and the Cheviot Hills were superb. Westwood Moor forms part of the sandstone moorland which lies between the Cheviot Hills and the coastal plain. It is rich in prehistoric remains (we opted not to take the diversion to see prehistoric rock carvings) and was also the site of the 'Whitsun Tryst', an annual horse/cattle/sheep fair, held every May until the late 19th Century.
We had seen the four female walkers we'd met yesterday in the distance in front of us. However, after we'd taken a rather indistinct left-hand fork we didn't see them again until the evening in Lowick, so we suspect that they missed the turning and so were substantially behind us for the rest of the day. As we descended we had excellent views of the Till Valley and the hump-backed Westwood Bridge.
We crossed Westwood Bridge and followed the road to the twin hamlets of East and West Horton, then we turned left on a road heading to Lowick that runs along the route of the Roman road, the 'Devil's Causeway'. A short distance down the road, a man in a car stopped for a chat. He was en route from Durham to Berwick for a work meeting, but he used to live in the area and was using the back roads rather than the A1 because he loved the countryside so much - he wished he was walking!
We turned right off the road onto a metalled track and followed this for a couple of miles (though, thankfully, it wasn't metalled all the way), up and over Mealkail Knowe, round a corner that the map indicates that St Cuthbert's Way cuts off - but it didn't do so on the ground - and down to Hetton Burn where we stopped for lunch (delicious cheese and onion pasties and flapjack from a bakers in Wooler) sitting on the edge of the bridge and watching ducklings swimming up the stream.
After lunch we climbed up to the road at the former Hazelrigg School (now a B&B). The road dipped slightly and then climbed again, and towards the top we took a path up through a disused quarry. After nearly missing a turning we went through a field of cows and up to St Cuthbert's Cave Wood - and so to St Cuthbert's Cave, a dramatic sandstone overhang where the saint's body is said to have been sheltered by the monks in AD875 during their flight from Lindisfarne following repeated Viking raids. St Cuthbert's Cave was more spectacular than I'd expected, though it had been slightly spoilt by carving (some of it on 'official' memorials, especially to members of the Leather family).
We climbed up above St Cuthbert's Cave for our first view of Lindisfarne and then climbed (through more fields of cows) to a gorse-covered outcrop of Whin Sill, for more spectacular views.
We turned left (now on a route shared with the Northumberland Coast Path and St Oswald's Way) past peat workings and into Shiellow Wood. We meandered our way through the wood for some time, leaving it by way of 'Dolly Gibson's Lonnen', an ancient 'green road' and then past Kyloe Old Wood, where some of the original Leylandii were raised in the 19th Century, when the wood was owned by the Leyland Family of nearby Haggerston Castle.
After finally leaving the wood behind us, we followed a minor road (which was the Great North Road until the 19th Century) down to Fenwick. We were staying in Lowick; we rang Primrose Cottage and Bob Bellerby came to fetch us immediately, then Irene greeted us with cream scones. They've only been here for 3.5 years (Bob is a retired fireman) but what a wonderful place, well deserving of the comment from previous visitors: 'If Carlsberg had a B&B this would be it'. We had a twin room with its own private lounge. There is usually a choice of two inns at which to eat in Lowick, but one had been closed following flood damage, so the White Swan was our only option. It's an unpretentious place, but we had a pleasant meal and then went for a walk around the village.