Lanchester to Ebchester - Farm shops, steel and stark plantations

We don't often get to travel to the far north for our Chester walks, so it was with no small sense of excitement that we boarded the train at King's Cross station, destination Durham, a healthy three hours train ride from London on the East Coast line.  This was our second walk in County Durham, the first one being Chester-le-Street back in September 2011.

County Durham has to be one of Britain's most undiscovered counties, as it tends to be ignored in favour of the more dramatically scenic areas of Northumberland and the North Yorkshire moors.  The great thing about this series of Chester walks is that it brings us to undiscovered areas and places we would normally by-pass which have a beauty and merit all of their own.

Lodgings and victuals

This was another 'double whammy' Chester walk, as we managed to get two Chesters for the price of one.  We'd initially drawn Ebchester using our random selection app, but when we realised that we could walk there from Lanchester, we decided to stay overnight in that larger town, as it had more accommodation options.

Lanchester Village Street Map

Lanchester is a nice enough place and we were really lucky to stay in The Old Post Office, a newly-opened B&B on Lanchester's Front Street.  It's funny how the name for the central street of a town has regional variations in England - it took me a while to get used to the term High Street for what we call (in Ireland) Main Street.  Front Street seems to be the North-East equivalent and suggests a place along a roadside, where carriages would stop on their long journey to Edinburgh.

Lanchester Front Street

We had dinner at Crinnion's bar and restaurant, next door to the B&B and caught up on our respective lives, as we always do on these weekend walks!

Lanchester to Knitsley Farm Shop (2.9 miles/4.7 kilometres)

This was a really easy walk, in the sense that we were able to follow an old railway path the entire way.  Whilst it's sad, in many ways, that many of England's railways have fallen out of use, particularly in former industrial areas like the Lanchester and Derwent Valleys, it's good that they have been transformed into cycling routes, which anyone can access if they want to get a break from the nearby cities of Newcastle, Gateshead and Sunderland.

Lanchester Valley railway path

Lanchester was a stop on the Durham to Consett branch line, which closed in the 1960's. The path felt quite remote and windswept as we made our way out of Lanchester village and along the western ridge of the Lanchester valley.  This part of County Durham has rich farmland and the great industrial cities of the North-East felt very far away, although they're only twenty or so miles distant.

View over Lanchester Valley

At Hurbuck Farm we dipped down into the valley and met our first paved roadway, the Humberhill Lane. From there, it was a short walk to Knitsley Farm shop, a really lovely place to buy some fresh farm produce or have a bit of lunch.

Hurbuck Farm

Cows and calves in West Knitsley Grange

Knitsley Farm shop and cafe

Knitsley Farm Shop to Consett (3.5 miles/5.6 kilometres)

From the farm shop, we followed the Lanchester Valley Railway path to the outskirts of Consett. Meeting a junction of cycle paths and footpaths, we ended up taking the wrong one - having been distracted by a bright red disused railway carriage, we missed the more direct path into Consett and were seduced by the more prominent Consett and Sunderland Railway path, which took us slightly off course, as it tried to convince us to walk all the way to Sunderland!

Red train near Consett

The Consett and Sunderland Railway path follows yet another former railway line, the Stanhope and Tyne Railway. It's 26 miles from Consett to Sunderland, so doable in two days, if you're interested in walking this route.  This path is part of the much longer Sea to Sea cycle path, one of Britain's most popular cycling routes, which runs from Whitehaven in Cumbria and finishes 140 miles later in Sunderland.  It's great to get so much off-road cycling/walking and it's much less dangerous walking or cycling on these former railway lines than on country lanes.

The Consett and Sunderland railway path

One of the main benefits of our detour, was that we saw an amazing public art installation called Terris Novalis by the Liverpudlian sculptor, Tony Cragg.  Consett had a very proud tradition as one of Britain's main centres for high-quality iron and steel production.  Even until the late 1970's, the Consett steelworks was profitable and provided hundreds of jobs locally but, in what seemed to be an ideological attack on an area famed for industrial action and strikes, Margaret Thatcher's government closed the Consett steelworks in 1980, making more than 3,000 people unemployed.

Terris Novalis sculpture detail

Terris Novalis sculpture by Tony Cragg

Consett has a quietly demure feeling about it these days and it's hard to get a sense of what has happened in those intervening years.  There's very little left of its former industrial heritage, apart from public works of art. The landscape is now dominated by the hospital building at Shotley Bridge rather than the Steelworks, an apt symbol of 21st-century Britain, in many ways!  We found an interesting blog post about the Terris Novalis sculpture - well worth a read.

Consett had a long history of steel-making

Public seating where the steelworks used to be

Consett

Consett to Ebchester (2.3 miles/3.7 kilometres)

We'd originally intended to finish our walk at Ebchester, but things were going so swimmingly on the relatively easy railway paths (no being chased by cows or stung to death by nettles) that we made a decision, quite early on in the day to push ahead as far as time would permit us to go, considering it would be a bus journey back to civilisation and the 7pm train from Newcastle to London!

Derwent walk leaving Consett

It was a nice walk from Consett to Ebchester and fairly busy with cyclists, dog-walkers and even a couple of people carrying their shopping on mobility scooters!  Whilst it was tempting to stick to the railway path along the ridge of the Derwent valley, we felt it would only be right to descend into the valley and visit Ebchester, our second 'chester' of the day!

Ebchester village

Known as Vindomora in Roman times, Ebchester was founded as a Roman fort on Dere Street, the main Roman road from York to the north.  I'd say it was a pretty miserable outpost, back in the day, but nowadays it's a very pretty little village that looked peaceful in the late afternoon sunshine.  We debated the origin of the suffix vin- related to wine (BAM's theory) or wind (my theory) - actually it's more likely to be a word of Celtic origin meaning white, like the modern Irish modern bán.

St Ebba's Church in Ebchester

The useful map in this photograph shows Binchester as well, a place we haven't yet visited, but one which is firmly on our list.

Durham in Roman times

Ebchester to Lintzford (3.5 miles/5.7 kilometres)

From Ebchester we followed Shaw Lane and then a public footpath out of the village and back up to the ridge and the railway path.  From there on in, it was a pretty dreamy walk, feeling miles away from anywhere, as we skirted along the Derwent valley with the villages of Hamsterley and Hamsterley Mill barely impinging on our rural idyll!

The Derwent Valley

The only distraction along the way was the red deadnettle which I spotted and identified using my flower app, as I'm trying to learn the names of British wild flowers.  It's called a dead nettle because it doesn't sting.

The red deadnettle

We also walked through the curiously-named Make-me-Rich plantation.  I couldn't help but wonder, as we passed the sternly watchful trees, whether or not someone did get rich from the plantation?

Stern trees in the Make-me-Rich plantation

With a close eye on the time, we decided to end our walk at a pretty little roadside village called Lintzford, where we caught the 45 bus on to Newcastle and the long journey home.

The River Derwent at Lintzford

Access for wheelchair users:

Because this walk mostly followed disused railway lines, I could recommend any part of this walk for wheelchair users. The only bit that wouldn't be accessible is the footpath from the railway path to Lintzford, so you might want to consider coming off the railway path at one of the villages, or continuing to Rowlands Gill

Image credits:

All photos were taken by me, please feel free to reuse, under the Creative Commons license:

- Attribution (especially to this blog post)
- Share alike

- Non-commercial

Lancaster - Power, Pylons and Protest

Lancaster Castle

It was back up north again this month for the next walk in our 'Chester' series.  Lancaster is a small city in the north-west of England and, rather like Chester, it has a historical importance that overshadows its current small size.  In the 15th century, the House of Lancaster fought a series of wars with the House of York, known collectively as The War of the Roses, to gain the English throne.  In a subsequent history that is so dominated by London and the south, it's hard to gauge the power of these two northern cities and how they changed the course of English history.

We almost started our trip at a completely different northern city, when we mistakenly got off the train at Preston.  The train sat patiently at the platform, as we looked around Preston station and remarked on its familiarity, marvelling that many of those northern English stations look kind of the same.  It was just seconds before our train to Lancaster pulled out before we realised we'd got off at the wrong stop!  Perhaps we were drawn to Preston because of our last walk in that part of the world, when we visited Ribchester back in May 2012?

Lodgings and Victuals

We stayed in a hotel this time, the Penny Street Bridge, a nice enough place near the centre of town.  We arrived a lot earlier than we usually do, having taken a half day off work to make the long journey north, so it gave us a little bit of time to walk around the centre of town, before claiming our reserved table at The Borough on Dalton Square, a cosy bar/restaurant with great food.  As usual, BAM had done her research well, so we had a pleasant evening with good food, a couple of drinks and a short stroll back to the hotel in time for bed.

Lancaster to Cocker Bridge (on the 89 bus, destination: Knott End)

Lancaster on a Saturday morning is a busy place - despite the blustery weather, the town centre was full of shoppers and there was a thriving market taking place on Church Street.  As usual, we'd decided to start in the countryside and walk back towards the city, thereby giving us more control over our return train times, not to mention a sense of destination which would be hard to achieve if we were doing it the other way around.

Lancaster town centre

This meant figuring out the local buses, in this case the number 89 from Lancaster to Knott End.  It's funny getting on a bus to a destination you've never heard of and you have no intention of reaching.  I still don't know where Knott End is, but it sounds rather suspect as a destination, so we were happy to jump off at Cocker Bridge, where we'd decided to start our walk.

We had a pleasant bus driver who was happy to drop us off at this rather obscure starting point.  Being more used to how things work in London, we always find it a bit disconcerting when we go to other parts of England, where bus drivers are friendly and you're allowed to talk to them - you're even allowed to ask questions!  I did find it strange however when he asked us 'Is that the place at the bottom of the hill?'  It's a bit worrying that bus drivers often assume you know their bus route better than they do.  But, in fairness, it wouldn't be logical to assume the truth, ie. that we had made the journey all the way from London to get on a local bus to a place we'd never been to before!

Start of the walk at Cocker Bridge

Cocker Bridge to Bank End (1.5 miles/2.5 kilometres)

It was blowing a gale when we pitched out of the bus at the 'bottom of the hill', just after Cockerham village.  Despite the strong winds, we were lucky enough to be walking in one of the few parts of England where we wouldn't be up to our waists in water!  It's been an incredibly wet winter and many of the other 'Chesters' in the south of England are currently inundated.  Our path back to Lancaster was completely along the Lancashire Coastal Way which runs 66 miles from the curiously named village of Freckleton, to Silverdale which is on the border with Cumbria. 

Sign post for the Lancashire Coastal Way

We don't often get to do coastal walks during this Chester series, as the Romans tended to settle away from the coasts in heavily fortified river valleys, so it was a real treat to walk along the coast again and our first Chester walk on the Irish Sea.  We started by following a narrow trail along the dyke to Pattys Farm.  We passed the corpse of a rotting sheep, which was disturbing - we're used to dead moles, mice, rabbits and other small rodents, but it's the first time we've seen a dead sheep on our walk! 

Narrow path along a field/dyke

At Pattys Farm we took a turn on the swings, then followed a very accessible path to the caravan park at Bank End. 

Signpost for Pattys Barn and Bank End

Bank End to Cockersand Abbey (1 mile/1.7 kilometres)

The light along the coast at this time of the year is fantastic!  An ever-changing palette of blues and greys, with the stable sharpness of the green vegetation and the black earth, left behind by the retreating tide.  I took quite a few photos but struggled to capture the beauty of the area, as seen by the naked eye.  There are quite a few holiday homes along this part of the coast, but I couldn't imagine what this area looks like in summer - I guess, I'll have to go back there some time to find out!

Winter colours on the Irish Sea

Cockersand Abbey is mostly a ruin, although the Chapter House still stands, the rest of the Abbey having fallen into wreck and ruin after the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century.  It's a pretty bleak location in winter and, with the howling wind and the onset of rain, it felt desolate, as we slid our way past through a muddy field.

The Chapter House of Cockersand Abbey

Cockersand Abbey ruins

Cockersand Abbey to Glasson Dock (2 miles/3.2 kilometres)

I got a bit fixated by Plover Scar lighthouse, which is not far from the shore and marks the point where the River Lune meets the Irish Sea.  We could also see the grim outline of Heysham Nuclear Power station on the far side of the Lune estuary.  This walk reminded me a bit of another coastal walk we did three years ago in Rochester, Kent. From Plover Scar it's a short walk to Crook Farm, where we left the coast, turning inland along a muddy trail that eventually took us to the small riverside port of Glasson Dock.

Plover Scar lighthouse

Crook Farm

Glasson Dock

Glasson Dock to Aldcliffe Marsh (3.2 miles/5.2 kilometres)

We took a brief respite at Glasson Dock, sheltering behind the wall of the bowling green, as we nibbled on chocolate and listened to the wind whistling up the Lune estuary.  From Glasson Dock to Aldcliffe Marsh it was a very easy and unremarkable walk along a disused railway line which used to link Glasson Dock with Lancaster and was run by the London and North Western Railway company.  The remnants of the railway line are still visible.  You can tell where the former platforms used to stand and you can almost hear the whisperings of past trains trundling alongside the river. 

Disused railway line near Glasson Dock

You can't quite see the Gothic buildings of Ashton Hall from the path, but you can see the golf course, which is managed by Lancaster Golf Club.  After Ashton Hall the path passes under a line of electrical pylons, which run straight out of the nuclear facility.  It was an eerie place and the wind caused a booming sound, as it thrashed its way through the steel framework of the transmission towers. 

Transmission Towers from Heysham Banks

Aldcliffe Marsh to Freeman's Wood (0.9 miles/1.4 kilometres)

At the beginning of Aldcliffe Marsh, the coastal path turns left down through the marsh, but this path was flooded, so we continued to follow the disused railway line, along a ridge of higher ground to an industrial estate, just past Freeman's wood.

BAM on the railway path near Aldcliffe Marsh

We see a lot of curious things during our Chester walks, but the graffiti along the edge of Freeman's Wood was very curious indeed.  According to the campaign website Friends of Freeman's Wood this woodland areas belongs to the common people of Lancaster and should remain a place where the public can enjoy the outdoors and should not be concreted over or sold off to private developers, as is currently planned.  The struggle for Freeman's Wood is a very local one, but interesting and you can read a good summary of the issues on this blog post. 

Protest graffiti in Freeman's Wood

Sign with protest rhyme

What struck us most was the rather haunting sign quoting the words of a 17th-century protest rhyme:

They hang the man and flog the woman,
That steals the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose,
That steals the common from the goose

English people are, quite rightly, proud of their common land and rights of way - conflict with private developers is centuries old and it's interesting to see this still being played out in the 21st century. 

Freeman's Wood to Lancaster Castle (1 mile/1.7 kilometres)

The industrial estate is mostly on the site of the abandoned Williamson's Factory - a major producer of linoleum in the late 19th century.  Lancashire was famous for its cotton mills and, I guess, linoleum was an offshoot of textile manufacturing.  Nowadays, this part of the city is full of new housing developments - these were partly constructed when we were there, but I'm pretty sure they will be completed and occupied by new house owners pretty soon.

Long Marsh Lane

From the river, it's an uphill climb along Long Marsh Lane to Lancaster Castle.  The castle was an impressive place to end our walk.  It was built on the site of a Roman fort and the Roman connection, along with the River Lune is what gives Lancaster its name, ie. 'Roman fort on the Lune'.  The castle has a rather grim history and was the scene of the 17th century Pendle witches trial, as well as many a sentence of 'transportation' in the 19th century, to the penal colonies in Australia.  The castle was a functioning prison until 2011 - it's now being redeveloped for tourism, which seem more in keeping with 21st century expectations!

View of Lancaster from the castle

Lancaster castle

We finished our walk with a hearty meal in The Water Witch - an award-winning pub on the Lancaster canal side - before jumping on the train back to London.

Access for wheelchair users:

Disused railway paths are usually good for wheelchairing

Large parts of this walk would be accessible to wheelchair users, namely the paths around Patty's Farm and Bank End, as well as the railway path from Glasson Dock to Lancaster.  The coastal path from Bank End to Crook Farm wasn't very accessible and I seem to remember some gates along this stretch of the coast.


Image credits:

All photos were taken by me - please feel free to reuse them, under the Creative Commons license, with Attribution/Share Alike