Tag Archives: Cheviot Hills

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A brief trip to Scotland

Two weeks ago, Steph and I had a four-day minibreak to visit my sister Margaret who lives in a small community west of Dunfermline in Fife, Scotland on the north side of the Firth of Forth.

And we took advantage of that trip north to redeem—on the return journey—a couple of Christmas gift vouchers for a whisky distillery tour and tasting in the north Northumberland town of Wooler, then visiting several other localities along the Scottish border before returning home. The whole trip covered 376 miles.

On the Monday morning (6 October) we set off a little after 10 am, heading north on the A1. North of Berwick-upon-Tweed, the road runs close to the coast, and there are some lovely views over the North Sea, and further north still, views of the mouth of the Firth of Forth and Bass Rock, an important seabird colony particularly for gannets. We were very lucky with the weather more or less until we hit the Edinburgh By-Pass when it began to cloud over.

We broke the journey at St Abbs in the Scottish Borders, just 15 miles north of Berwick. We’d visited there once before. It’s an attractive small community with a harbour of fishing and dive boats. Dive boats? Yes, because the waters off St Abbs head nearby south to Eyemouth are a marine reserve, and attract many dry suit divers. But not for me, although I’m sure the diving could be spectacular. I learned to dive in the Philippines where the waters are considerably warmer.

Here is a short video of the drive down to St Abbs and views around the harbour and village.

We enjoyed a walk around the harbour, and had hoped to see something of the birdlife that the location is famous for. It was all quiet on the bird front – they must have all been hiding or out to sea.

After a spot of lunch, we headed back to the A1 and continued north to Comrie, arriving there about 15:30 just in time for a welcome cup of tea and a slice of lemon drizzle cake.

Our route took us around the Edinburgh By-Pass, and crossing the Firth of Forth on the ‘new’ Queensferry Crossing that carries the M90 motorway. The bridge opened to traffic on 30 August 2017. At 1.7 miles (2.7km) it is the longest 3-tower, cable-stayed bridge in the world, and replaced the Forth Road Bridge (which opened in 1964) and which now only carries buses, taxis, cyclists, and pedestrians. This link gives a potted history of these two bridges and the iconic rail bridge that opened in 1890.

The next day, Margaret, Steph and me headed 18 miles west to visit Stirling Castle, owned by Historic Environment Scotland, and as we are long-standing members of English Heritage, we had free entry. The castle is perched high on a volcanic crag with impressive 360º views across the city and hills to the north.

The castle reached its zenith, as a renaissance royal palace, in the 1500s and was the home of King James V (right), father of Mary, Queen of Scots. Her son, James VI of Scotland and I of England (who Elizabeth I named as her heir in 1603) acceded to the Scottish throne (aged 13 months) in 1567, and spent much of his youth in this castle. The oldest part of the castle (the North Tower) dates from the 14th century; there were additions in the 18th century when the castle became a military stronghold.

Being mid-week, we didn’t think there would be many visitors, so booked our tickets for an 11:30 entrance. The car park was almost full, with coach after coach disgorging tourists from all corners of the globe. Fortunately, parking (at £5) was well-organized, and we were not permitted to drive into the carpark itself until parking marshals could direct us to a free space.

There’s certainly plenty to see at Stirling Castle, and by the time we ‘retired’ to have lunch, I was quite overwhelmed by all the information that I had tried to absorb.

Outside the castle is an impressive statue of King Robert I, known as Robert the Bruce (1274-1329) whose particular claim to fame is his defeat of the forces of King Edward II of England at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. What I had never realised until this visit to Stirling Castle is that the site of the battle is just 2 miles south.

There’s so much to see inside the castle walls, from Queen Anne’s Garden with its view over the surrounding landscape, the Royal Palace that has been luxuriously refurbished and newly fabricated tapestries hung, the Chapel Royal (built in 1594 by James VI for the baptism of his first-born Henry), and the Great Hall, one of the largest and finest in Europe.

The Inner Gate built in 1708 on the orders of Queen Anne
The gatehouse leading to the Outer Court
The Royal Palace from Queen Anne Garden
The Royal Palace from the Outer Court
The Queen’s Outer Hall
Ceiling of the Queen’s Inner Hall
The Queen’s Inner Chamber with the Unicorn Tapestry above the fireplace
The Queen’s Bedchamber
A triptych in the Queen’s Bedchamber
The King’s Bedchamber
The ceiling of the King’s Bedchamber
The Stirling heads on the ceiling of the King’s Inner Hall
The Chapel Royal built in 1594
Inside the Chapel Royal
The Great Hall from the Outer Court
The Great Hall from the Inner Court
The hammerbeam roof of the Great Hall
The North Gate, the oldest part of the castle, built in 1381

A full set of photographs of our visit to Stirling Castle (and the other sites on our trip) can be viewed here.

By the time we left the castle around 14:00 the clouds had lifted and we could see all the way into the surrounding hills. So we headed to see an impressive landscape feature near Falkirk, just under 17 miles southeast of Stirling.

The Kelpies are to Falkirk what The Angel of the North is to Gateshead. So what are The Kelpies? Sitting beside the M9 motorway (from which we have glimpsed The Kelpies on previous occasions when passing by and always meaning to visit one day) and alongside the Forth and Clyde Canal, The Kelpies are large (very large) heads of mythical horses made from steel, standing 98 feet (or 30 m) high.

Designed by sculptor Andy Scott, they were completed in October 2013 and unveiled the following April to reflect the mythological transforming beasts possessing the strength and endurance of ten horses. The Kelpies represent the lineage of the heavy horse of Scottish industry and economy, pulling the wagons, ploughs, barges, and coal ships that shaped the geographical layout of the Falkirk area (Wikipedia). They are impressive indeed.

That’s Steph and my sister standing beside one of The Kelpies

Our original idea was to visit The Kelpies the following morning as we left my sister’s to head south towards Wooler. Thank goodness our plans changed as the following morning we met heavy congestion south of the Queensferry Crossing, and crawled in traffic for about 10 miles, extending our journey by almost an hour. Consequently, we arrived in Wooler just after 1 pm and only 45 minutes before our distillery tour was due to begin.

The Ad Gefrin distillery was opened in 2023, but has not yet released its own whisky, although its warehouse is full of barrels ready for release as single malts by the end of 2026 or early the next year. For the time being it is retailing two whiskies—Corengyst and Tácnbora, branded as ‘blended in Northumberland’— made from Scottish and Irish whiskies.

We enjoyed the whisky tasting, and since Steph does not like the beverage, we took her samples home which I sampled again last week.

The distillery takes its name from the 7th century Anglo-Saxon settlement and royal palace of Gefrin, a few miles northwest of Wooler near the community of Yeavering, surrounded by hills in the vale of the River Glen. There is a small museum dedicated to Gefrin at the distillery which we also had opportunity to view.

Then, next day after an excellent full English breakfast at the guesthouse where we stayed, we headed to Gefrin. And although there’s not a lot to see on the ground, there are several information boards explaining how the site was discovered in 1949 from aerial photographs, and subsequently excavated by Brian Hope-Taylor (right) between 1952 and 1962. Some of his interpretations remain problematical.

You can better appreciate the landscape around Gefrin in this video from about 3’30”.

We continued our journey west, crossing over the border back into Scotland near Morebattle before arriving at Cessford Castle, ancestral home of the Ker family (who became Dukes of Roxburghe) around 1450.

The castle is unsafe to enter, but one can still appreciate its walls, 13 feet thick. It’s so isolated in its landscape, surrounded by a ditch that can still be appreciated to this day. As we walked around the ruin, we kept our eyes on a flock of sheep grazing nearby that I came to realise were actually rams, warily scrutinizing us.

The route of St Cuthbert’s Way (from Holy Island on the Northumberland coast west to Melrose in the Scottish Borders) passes near the castle, and which we more or less followed for a while as we headed towards Jedburgh and the A68 that would take us over the border at Carter Bar back into England.

Carter Bar, at 1371 feet or 418 m, is the highest point on the pass in the Cheviot Hills, before crossing over into Redesdale on the England side. On a good day there must be a better view north into Scotland since we experienced low cloud cover. Nevertheless we still could appreciate the beauty of this location.

It has a long history in the relations between England and Scotland, and the Romans were here in the 1st century CE. Just a few miles away is Dere Street, a Roman road that we have encountered before at Chew Green, a Roman encampment close to the border but further south.

Then it was downhill all the way to North Tyneside, and it wasn’t far beyond Carter Bar that we were once again on familiar territory.

We must have been home by about 3 pm or so, just avoiding a major holdup less than a mile south from where we left the A19. A construction company had ruptured a mains water pipe and the road was flooded for several hours. I read that the diversions and traffic disruption were epic!

 

 

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We walked to Scotland last Thursday

Well, I might be exaggerating a wee bit. We didn’t walk all the way there. Just the last half mile. Let me explain.

Thursday was, for the first time in many days, bright and sunny although much cooler than we have enjoyed of late. And while the weather has been better here on the coast (we live just a few miles inland), it has been much more unpredictable in the hills, and rainy on many days.

However, with a more promising forecast we decided to head off to the Cheviots, and specifically to Chew Green Roman fort and encampment (built around 79 AD) close to the border with Scotland, and a location we have visited twice before.

At its nearest, the Scottish border is only 40 miles or so (65 km) northwest as the crow flies from our home in North Tyneside, or about 55 miles or so by road. This is the route we took.

Chew Green is just beyond the ‘end’ of the road near the headwaters of the River Coquet, and the drive there (on a very narrow road) beyond Alwinton winds its way through beautiful Upper Coquetdale.

This video, of the drive from Alwinton to Chew Green lasts over 41 minutes. You can double the playback  speed (without affecting your appreciation of the marvellous landscapes) by clicking on the Settings button.

The road does continue beyond Chew Green. However, it passes over the Otterburn Ranges, an area of the Northumberland National Park controlled by the Ministry of Defence where troops are trained and live firing takes place. Access is often restricted, as it was on Thursday, when the red flags are raised.

Nevertheless, we just drove a few hundred meters beyond the parking spot, climbing the hill facing Chew Green to get a better view of the embankments of the camp, something we had not done on either of our previous visits.

Leaving the parking spot on foot, we headed west (just south of the fort/encampment) until we reached a dip in the landscape with a small burn (and tributary of the River Coquet, if not the beginnings of the river itself), crossing over a stile, and stepping into Scotland.

No border patrols here, although for centuries past this was a most contentious border, and the location of many cross-border raids and cattle rustling.

That’s Scotland beyond the dip in the landscape in this video. It’s a pity there was no post along the path to indicate exactly where you pass from one nation into the other.

One foot in England, the other in Scotland.

Then we walked up over the fort, and made our way back to the car. Dere Street, one of the most important Roman roads that connected Eboracum (York) with Roman forts beyond Hadrian’s Wall and over the border into Scotland, runs right beside Chew Green. It’s remarkable that the camp’s embankments are so well preserved, after 1900 years.

At its headwaters here in the Cheviots, the River Coquet is no more than a babbling brook.

But within a short distance from Chew Green, it becomes a substantial river (as you can see in this video of the return journey down the valley) wending its way east to the North Sea at Amble.

Incidentally, most of the sheep in the videos are the local Cheviot breed, with some horned Scottish blackface.

 

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Traveling back in time in Coquetdale – Northumberland at its stunning best!

A couple of days ago, as Steph and I were driving—almost 23 years to the day since we first made this particular journey—up the narrow and twisting road to the headwaters of the River Coquet in the Cheviot Hills (that straddle the border between England and Scotland in the heart of the Northumberland National Park) I wondered aloud just how we managed to find this place so many years ago when Steph and I had a week’s holiday touring Northumberland.

We were headed to Chew Green, the site of a first century Roman encampment, alongside Dere Street, a Roman road that stretched from Eboracum (modern-day York) north into Scotland, at least as far as the abandoned Antonine Wall.

Chew Green is certainly off the beaten track. In fact it’s essentially at the end of the road, because just beyond the small parking area (///disco.bandaged.passenger) the road is closed from time to time, crossing the Otterburn Ranges military training area. And that was much in evidence as the guns boomed their presence across the hills, disturbing what otherwise would have been a completely tranquil visit.

Notwithstanding the noisy interruptions, the views along Coquetdale were breathtaking.

Coquetdale
Upper Coquetdale

The River Coquet is just under 56 miles long, meandering its way east from the Cheviots to meet the North Sea at Amble.

A couple of years ago we visited Warkworth Castle that stands on a hill overlooking the tidal section of the river just short of Amble. At Rothbury, we have visited National Trust’s Cragside a couple of times, most recently last October. And just a few weeks ago, Brinkburn Priory (that stands in a loop of the Coquet, east of Rothbury) was our destination.

The Coquet estuary from Warkworth Castle
Overlooking the River Coquet from Warkworth Castle
Warkworth Castle in April
12th century Brinkburn Priory alongside the River Coquet
National Trust Cragside
View towards Lordenshaw Iron Age hill-fort from the ornamental garden at Cragside
The Simonside Hills from Cragside’s ornamental garden

Besides the Chew Green encampment, our recent Coquetdale excursion took in a medieval castle with royal connections at Harbottle, the Lady’s Well at Holystone, and Lordenshaw Iron Age hill-fort with its ancient petroglyphs just south of Rothbury under the Simonside Hills. Quite a trip, some 112 miles by the time we arrived home in the late afternoon.

Chew Green
At ground level, the outlines of the Roman encampment appear as rather indistinct ramparts and ditches. Had we realized, we would have walked a short way up the other side of the valley where it’s possible to appreciate an almost aerial view of the site. The satellite image from Google Maps also helps.

There was just one other car parked, and no sign of the occupants. We did see several walkers crossing the landscape, presumably following the Pennine Way.

Below the car park, the Coquet crosses under the road, just a tiny brook in the bottom of the hollow. And, no more than 50 m from the edge of the encampment is the border with Scotland.

We climbed up to the encampment, and had a good wander about. We didn’t come across any signs of the 13th century village that is supposed to have existed here. But standing on the ramparts, it’s not hard to be impressed by a couple of things. First, the stunning beauty of these rolling hills. And second, how remote it all is. In this short video, I made a 360° panorama from the top of the encampment. If you listen carefully, you can hear the guns booming occasionally.

Which leads me to another question. Why on earth did the Romans build an encampment in such a remote location.? Admittedly it sits alongside an important line of communications, Dere Street, but since Hadrian’s Wall effectively became the northern limit of the Roman Empire in Britannia by AD165, for how long was the encampment and small forts occupied?

Chew Green, Upper Coquetdale

It’s an intriguing site, and one to which we must return before too long, with a plan to walk around the area.

Harbottle Castle
It’s remarkable how quickly the valley of the Coquet widens in such a short distance from the headwaters near Chew Green. The river itself takes on an entirely different aspect.

Instead of sheep farming, the broad valley is home to fields of cereals ripening in the intense July sunshine. And some 13 miles back down the valley stands Harbottle, with the remains of a late 12th century castle built by one of the Umfraville family (who also built Prudhoe Castle).

The castle sits atop a steep-sided mound that apparently had been used as a fortified site since ancient times. Today, there’s very little of the castle standing, but it is still possible to envisage just how impressive it would have been on its mound and surrounded by a deep ditch. The views of the surrounding countryside from the top of the mound were spectacular, especially towards to Drake Stone, that you can see on the horizon just after the beginning of this video, and in the photo immediately below.

Harbottle Castle has one particular royal claim to fame. Margaret, the mother of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary Queen of Scots (his cousin), and father to James VI and I of Scotland and England, was born at Harbottle in 1515. She was the daughter of Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII and daughter of Henry VII.

The Northumberland National Park service has built an excellent small car park and picnic area (///whips.baths.luckier) on the west side of the village.

Lady’s Well, Holystone
A further 3 miles down the valley, and off a side road, lies the village of Holystone. We visited there once before in 1998 to see the Lady’s Well. On that occasion it was pouring with rain, and we got thoroughly soaked. Not so last Tuesday. It’s a short walk from the center of the village to the Well (///lung.spearhead.entire)

Lady’s Well has its origins in the Dark Ages, a place where early Christians were baptized; it is rumored to be associated with St Ninian. The village became the site of a priory of Augustinian abbesses, but no longer standing since the Reformation in the 1530s. A Roman road also passes close to the well.

Lordenshaw Iron Age hill-fort
Just a couple of miles south of Rothbury, there a car park (///daring.hazelnuts.finds) on a side road off the B6342, for access to the magnificent Simonside Hills (that are clearly seen from Cragside) and Lordenshaw Iron Age hill-fort (///woodstove.objective.flats). The site is probably around 2500 years old .

The fort is a short distance north from the car park up a gentle slope, maybe 400 m at most. At the hill-fort itself, there’s not a great deal to see, apart from a series of concentric but not very distinct ditches (rather like the situation at Chew Green).

At the main stone, the cup and ring carvings are thought to date from the Bronze Age and therefore older than the hill-fort. They can be seen quite clearly on one face of the stone (///hires.shadows.edgy).

But from that vantage point, and the hill-fort itself, the views are just stunning over the Northumberland countryside.

This really was Northumberland at its best. A full album of photos and videos can be viewed here.