Thursday, September 27, 2018

Notes from the North Pennines September 2018

This is about the second week of our trip north during the half of September 2018. The first one I spent in the Lake District, mainly painting at Higham Hall. More about that, with photos of the scenery and my paintings, on my Water and Art blog - Art in the Lake District.

To see the sketches I did this week, and the paintings developed back home afterwards, again please visit my Water and Art Blog - Art in the North Pennines.

Notes from the North Pennines September 2018.

Sketch of the countryside near Alston - Copyright Joan Lee (2018)
Stayed at a very comfortable cottage: Lord Mayor’s Barn a couple of miles west of Alston. Mixed weather, but generally mild, with a good deal of good weather for walking / getting out. Pleased to report the South Tyne and other nearby rivers running well and recovered from the prolonged summer drought. Rain on Monday night raising the River Tees made for plenty of flow over High and Low Force on the Tuesday.


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Tour of Britain Stage 6, near Higham Hall
On Friday 7th September, my painting course finished in the morning. I thanked Robert Dutton for a good course: intensive, but lots to take home, including potential material for future painting and printmaking. I liked painting in a different, wilder part of the country. Mostly painting / drawing Honister Pass, including a Plein air session there on the Tuesday. I left, generally was well motivated to up my game.
My Cycling Man came over to Higham from the North Pennines around midday, to pick me, and all my painting stuff up. It so happened that Stage 6 of the Tour of Britain was passing close by. Rolling road closures. Bunting and a bicycle outside the gates of the hall. We walked up the hill to where the road levelled out and watched it there. Chris Froome, last year’s Tour de France winner taking part as part of Team Sky. Peloton preceded by 20+ high speed police motor cycles and team cars. Encountered the Tour again, waiting on the A66 just outside Keswick on our journey east.

An great view ascending Hartside Summit, on the western escarpment of the Pennines. Had seen this escarpment from Cat Bells the weekend before. Had appreciated how long and steep the climb was. Highest point just over 1900ft. Views all the better in the late afternoon light, with the sun's rays shining through the clouds towards the watershed between the Vale of Eden and the Lake District. Lakeland Fells visible in the distance, as were the Solway and Galloway coast to the NW.

Saturday 8th September – Hexham

The Tyne at Hexham
River Tyne walk to / from Waters Meet. Light lunch in the town. Pleased to see the River Tyne revived, having hit near rock-bottom during the heatwave drought of May-July, especially the South Tyne. Account to the Environment Agency (Monthly Water Situation Report for NE England, July 2018), the mean monthly the flow at Haydon Bridge just upstream of Hexham was just 1.4 cumecs (cubic metres per second). The North Tyne was less affect its flow is regulated by releases from Kielder Reservoir. In flood, the Tyne is one of the most powerful rivers in England. This was the first time I'd seen the Tyne since the December 2015 floods (Storm Desmond). Then, the peak flow at Bywell upstream of Newcastle was 1730 cumecs (CEH / NRFA report on the Winter 2015/16 floods in northern Britain, published December 2016). That’s the second highest flow recorded in England, the first being 1740 cumecs on the Lune at Caton during the same event; and one of the highest in Britain. Without the mitigating effects of Kielder Reservoir, the flow would have been even higher. Though this was during particularly extreme weather / rainfall, the Tyne has a history of devastating floods, most notably in 1771, when all or nearly all the bridges were washed away. The flow then would have been well in excess of the above. Even when the Hexham bypass (Constantius Bridge) was built, a late summer flood in 1975 disrupted operations.

Reflected branches above the weir at Hexham
Today the river was benign, with branches reflected in the water, coxes doing Saturday rowing along the broad stretch through Tyne Green just above Hexham Bridge. The large weir immediately downstream of the bridge was clearly built to take a lot of water. Upstream, sizeable branches / trunks caught on the decaying pillars of what we took to be a railway crossing. Since our last visit (2008), it had gotten very overgrown at the Waters Meet confluence of the two Tynes, there no longer being a clear view.

Meeting of the Waters - North and South Tyne rivers
I first came to this area in June 1991), during a week's holiday in Northumberland with my parents and brother who'd just finished at university in the north. We stayed in a deceptively large townhouse in Hexham. On the first evening, I walked round the town with Dad, starting higher up near the Abbey, park with the bandstand. When we saw chimneys steaming down the hill, it put Dad off heading down to the Tyne. “I think you're in for a disappointment.”. Back then, our images of the Tyne and NE England were still shaped by depressing news reports from the early Thatcher era and a film I'd seen at school as a seven year old about the “polluted” River Tyne. By then, though, the Tyne was much cleaner, with salmon. If it hadn’t been for the guy spotting us dithering on the pavement outside his house (well-spoken southern, not local), asking if he could help, we might not have been introduced. The factory is still there, with a particularly prominent chimney “steaming”, with a plume visible from Hadrian’s Wall at Once Brewed. It is a chipboard factory, owned by an Austrian company, EGGER. Most of Hexham's shoppers gravitate to the retail park down the hill, with Tesco, Waitrose, Next etc. My Cycling-Literary Man was pleased to see the independent bookshop, still in the high street up the hill.

Hexham Bridge Club (Constantius Bridge, A69)

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 Sunday 9th September – walked the classic section of Hadrian’s Wall between Once Brewed and Housesteads Roman Fort, where the Wall passes over the Whin Sill. The sun shining through broken cloud made for ever changing light. Most of the showers stayed to the south, but a couple of heavy ones during the afternoon. We got wet during the second one, but quickly dried out as it was very breezy and mild.  Since our last visit, they’d built a swanky new visitor centre at Once Brewed, called The Sill, after the Whin Sill. Other than rebuilding YHA Once Brewed and car park / car flap control, not clear what it was for; the interior having an overly corporate feel and lacking in content.




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Monday 10th September – Weardale


Ashes Quarry, Stanhope
An interesting, if steep and fiddly drive up to about 2000ft and down again into Weardale. We went to Stanhope first, parking outside the Durham Dales Centre and walking up the hill to follow the Geotrail around Ashes Quarry. There, for seventy years until the late 1940s, they quarried the Great Limestone, part of the Carboniferous strata making up the Pennines. Before they could get to that, they had to dig out overburden, many metres deep. There was some machinery, such as a compressor, but most of the digging was by hand. Hard back breaking work, “hellish in a hot summer”. 
The quarry was now reverting back to nature. The mounds of overburden now grassed / grown over forming an interesting abstract pattern of ridges and slopes. There was also a mile long hole where limestone quarried out the limestone. Hole now partially filled with ponds, where there were herons and vegetation.
Views down to Stanhope, across Weardale, to the hills separating it from Teesdale. Mine works. 

The quarry extended up to Crawley Ledge and further down the hill nearer the village, with a tunnel under East Lane, with a couple of houses precariously close to another big hole and sheer limestone cliff.


River Wear, Stanhope
We then went down to the River Wear, which until now I'd only seen in Durham. Here we were well up river – various streams feed into Wearhead, further up the dale; and also the Becks and sikes around Killhope further up again. The water was low and shallow, filling only half of the riverbed in places. Either flowing around banks of boulders, or wider and shallow. 
Ford and stepping stones, Stanhope
The ford near the stepping stones just beyond the showground barely covered. The depth marker sign barely registered, but could reach at least four feet. My impression is the Wear is less notorious for rising and flooding than the Tees or Tyne, but it would still respond very quickly to any rainfall. This week, a day, or rather Monday night, would have made a difference. Stanhope showground. 

This September's  show just finished, but there were still signs up directing any terriers and lurchers looking for somewhere to park and corralling Judges and Officials straight ahead, Dogs, furs and feather off to the left. Followed the road along the river north out of the town. A railway track. Gypsy caravan parked on the river bank near stone bridge. Their horses chained up in the semi-wooded area near a quarry pond and another sheer cliff of limestone. The river here was narrower and flowing through a small gorge.


Quarry lake (with "tidemark" near the Wear above Stanhope.


Killhope Lead Mining Museum


Visited on the way back, close to the main road. We had a cuppa in the cafe and then looked round the lower part of the site, with the 33ft water wheel. This was fed by Becks, sikes and lazy rivers channelled to it from further up the hill, where there was a reservoir. It powered the machinery used to progressively sort and separate the lead ore from the waste. Because the rain was setting in, we didn’t get to the areas higher up, with the red squirrel hide, but we had a good look round the indoor displays. Spar boxes, some very elaborate, made by anonymous miners. A good geology display, with cabinets containing various crystalline boulders from the North Pennines area. Sopwith laminated wood models made in 1841, to illustrate folding, faulting etc. The ore mined at Killhope was lead sulphide, galena. This crystallised out of water circulating in joints in the Carboniferous strata, forming mineral veins. Beneath the  Carboniferous strata, the Weardale granite which intruded about 400Ma BP and heated the overlying strata / circulating water as it cooled slowly deep in the crust. Various other mines around the North Pennines, including Nenthead nearer Alston. Other minerals mined from the mineral veins were siderite (iron carbonate) and baryte (barium sulphide). Killhope operated until WW1. As with the quarrying, it was back breaking work, involving child labour and miners were lucky to get to 45. Apparently, there were more deaths from TB than mining accidents. Living conditions were appalling as well, as the mock-up form above the blacksmith showed, with four to a bed. Though conditions improved dramatically in Britain and the western world postwar, a sobering display in the Buddle House, showing not the case all over the world, e.g. Congo, the Philippines, Bolivia. Child labour still goes on, sometimes involving kids as young as five. In Bolivia, miners lucky to get to 40. Viewing these displays both in our fifties, was sobering food for thought. Another of those days making me think, boy don’t we have it easy now – shut up and stop whinging. Environmentally not brilliant in many parts of the world either. Mention particularly of a big toxic dump in the Carpathian Mountains in Romania during the communist Ceausescu regime. Well after the regime collapsed (1989), it still posed big problems, with a series of cyanide and heavy metal spills into the River Tisza, killing all the fish and affecting at least three countries.


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Tuesday 11th September – Teesdale



One of those days when it seemed the water spirits were with me, timing the weather just right for what I wanted to see. The barn where were were staying was detached and situated fairly high up above Alston, meaning we heard the wind and rain much more than usual. On Monday night, lots of it and it sounded heavy. Tuesday, though dry, mild and increasingly sunny for our walk in Teesdale. As noted above and seen before when we've been in the north, Pennine rivers notorious for their rapid response to rainfall, transforming within a few hours from low and slow like the Wear at Stanhope into frothing torrents the colour of Theakston's Old Peculiar / brown ale. Then dropping back equally quickly after the rain stops. Today's was a typical short-lived spate, affecting rivers throughout the North Pennines and at the northern Lake District. The peak of the spate on the South Tyne and Tees was early on Tuesday morning, according to the Environment Agency's Rivers and Sea Levels pages. Glimpsing the South Tyne when we crossed it at Alston bridge, it had transformed completely and subsequently dropped after a sharp spike on the hydrograph. Things looked good for high Tees at High Force.
Low Force

But for the bit between the Tees and YHA Langdon Beck, we essentially did the walk my other half had done the Thursday before, but in the reverse direction. We started and finished at the car park near the Bowlees Visitor Centre. Crossed the Bowlees Beck; a white breasted dipper, like the one pictured on the Teesdale Way signs. Then across the road past the VC into the woods on the left bank of the Tees close to Low Force. 


Here some very reflective obelisks and figures cast in stainless steel. This was an art installation by  Rob Mulholland. More about him in the catalogue at the VC café over a cuppa at the end of our walk. Similar installations in southern France and in Scotland, on the theme of people as part of a landscape through time. Designed by catch the light and reflect the surrounding trees etc. These here best appreciated when no other people about. Busier on our way back, so as well we got it in early.
We crossed the one-at-a-time suspension footbridge and followed the path along the right bank of the Tees past Lower Force. This in itself was impressive with the raised water level. Cycling Man said there'd been nothing much to see here during the more subdued flow last week. 

High Force was about a mile upstream beyond the footbridge to the hotel. A slightly tucked away, easily missed view point on the right bank. The water plunging down the main falls on our left was the colour of froth on top of beer. More unusually, but not exceptionally, a more slender stream of water on the right. Cycling Man said only the main one last week and even that had been much more subdued. 
High Force

The falls are formed as the Tees crosses over the Whin Sill and cuts down into the less resistant sandstone and limestone beds beneath it. From the right back, the distinction between the sill and sediment, the first much paler and more thickly layered, was clearer than on the left bank when I looked during my OU Geology summer school week in 2002. The left bank view (fee to pay) is lower down. It was a duller, wetter day than today and the main fall was further from the bank. The falls now were even more impressive when viewed from the top (video above).

We carried on upstream, amid the noise of the fast flowing Tees and machinery in Force Garth Quarry across the water, where they were quarrying and crushing the Whin Sill for roadstone. Lorry movements.
Force Garth Quarry
Packed lunch near a tributary beck, Blea Beck coming out opposite the quarry, with its own waterfall. Continued across two more Becks joining the Tees in quick succession, then up the hill past a meander round the quarry rock. Quieter here, upwind of the quarry and the upper slopes of it blocking the noise. 




Down hill again past a farm, to a footbridge taking the Pennine Way over the Tees. That was just downstream of the confluence of the Tees with the Harwood Beck, on our near side. A derelict farmhouse set back from the rivers. The Tees came in on the far side, round the crag dark against the light. Beyond that and out of view, were the Cauldron Snout cascade and the Cow Green Reservoir.


Near Langdon Beck
Turned round where the path ran close to the bank. The level of the Tees was falling noticeably by now. Back at High Force, water was still pouring down the lesser right channel, but less than this morning.
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Wednesday 12th September – River Tees walk, Barnard Castle


A fine, mild day for our circular walk along the Tees. Out along the left bank for about three miles to the footbridge near the Balder confluence; and back along the right bank.
About an hour’s drive from Alston, along Teesdale, past High Force and through Middleton-in-Teesdale. Passed a café called Tees Pot. Came into Barnard Castle from the east, passing the Castle on the sandstone cliffs above the Tees. Crossed the bridge and parked in the town centre up the hill.
We started our walk at the Castle, turning right along a path running above the river. Past some benches with stone carvings about drownings in the Tees. Until the Cow Green Reservoir killed it, or rather slowed the rate of propagation of spates downstream, a wave of water  up to 2m high would race down the Tees after heavy rainfall. This was the notorious Tees Roll. In 1942, seven soldiers drowned and dead sheep would regularly be washed downstream. According to the local graffiti, things had moved on from river issues to dogs cutting their paws on broken glass bottles.
Today the Tees was benign and flowing relatively gently, but well. The reservoirs probably help maintain would maintain healthier flows during summers like this last one, too.
Footbridge near the Castle and Deepdale Beck on the far side, closed, with big blue water pipe snaking over it. That was what the roadworks on our way in, and following the road in again at the end of our walk were about. A flow gauge. Rebuilt in 2014, with a fish ladder in the middle.






The path ran through woodland beneath cliffs of sandstone, with trees growing precariously close to the edges, some had tumbled down. We then came out in a field on the inner bend of a meander. Here we went down to the boulder water’s edge. An interesting froth eddy between the main current flowing over a shallower rocky shoal and deeper area nearer the bank, the current doubling back beneath a cliff.







Then back into the woods, steeply up the hill, clearing the trees; contouring above the river through farmland. Past a farmhouse, sheep being rounded up by sheepdog.

Lunch overlooking the river on the hillside just before Cotherstone (top photo, this section). Down from there and across the footbridge near the inflow of the River Balder on the right bank. That came in fairly steeply and seemed to be adding quite a bit of water to the main flow as it flowed around an islet.
Metal sculpture mimicking nature on both sides of the bridge: a branch on the wall just across it, and a leaf filled with rainwater up hill from the River Balder.
Up hill from there to more farmland, path skirting round the corners of fields. Then down again into woodland. As on the other side, sandstone cliffs, with precarious trees.




Lost the Teesdale Way dipper signposts for a while, missing a turning through tedious pinewood and old railway route; but found it again nearing the town. Crossed the bridge benefits the Castle and headed up into town for a cuppa.

 Barnard Castle


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Thursday 13th  September
South Tyne, Alston, near heritage railway
A fairly easy day at the cottage, before heading home tomorrow. Weather not brilliant, either, with rain and heavy showers during the afternoon. Before the rain started, though, I got a sketch in outside, Justin the other side of the drystone wall opposite the cottage driveway, then finished off in our bit of garden at the back. We then walked into Alston, along the road past the cottage, which now wasn’t too busy. Footway along the main road to the bridge over the South Tyne. Though the flow had dropped considerably during the past couple of days, it was still running well. Bouldery gravel banks, particularly on the insides of bends. Info about the South Tyne Trail, which goes up to the source not that far from here. Sculpture work marking the spot. It’s regarded as the primary source of the Tyne, that of the North Tyne being the secondary one.



South Tyne from railway bridge near the station
The junction of the South Tyne and the Nent (top left)
Followed busy road round to the restored old railway station and the associated heritage and trail. The line used to go to Haltwhistle, serving mainly the local lead mining industry. The station was close to the junction of the South Tyne and the River Nent. Mining at Nenthead. Reinforced stone railway embankment along the main river. Caravan park, perhaps unadvisedly located near the junction. Road works on the Nent bridge near the station, still making repairs after Storm Desmond. 

This weekend btw, the 50th anniversary of the great southeast England floods of 1968. Still the biggest flood in living memory, in much of the area, most notably along the Mole and Wey. Though not as bad as Storm Desmond in the north, bad enough; certainly for what has always been a densely populated area. Earlier that year, in the March, bad flooding in the north, including Carlisle, where the flow of the Eden hit over 1300 cumecs, prompting the building of the Carlisle flood banks, but of course not enough to contain the floods of 2015 or 2005. Photo on Wikipedia of the Tees in full force over High Force; the river pouring not only round both sides of central cliff, but over it as well. The same happened again during the Storm Desmond rains, even with Cow Green Reservoir (1971) holding back some of the flow. Back at the Nent bridge in Alston, I don’t know what repairs involved, but temporary traffic lights an unusual selection of vans, including diamond drill cutting and diving services.
From the old station, followed the trail past the signal box and signals, the line running roughly parallel to the South Tyne. Past the metal remnants of a steam engine. Both got talking to a couple from Cornwall, out walking their dog. Crossed the bridge over the river; with shallow rapids on the far side of the track and slower deeper water flowing in pools beneath a rocky platform. Turned round shortly after that and walked up the steep, cobbly, busy high street. The High Plaice fish and chips opposite a gallery selling ceramics inspired by the surrounding fells and rivers. Post Office near here as well, where Cycling Man said he posted a whole load of OS maps home to lighten the load during his 1986 End-to-End cycle ride. He'd stayed at YHA Langdon Beck the night before and was descending Alston’s steep hill, before pedalling on into Scotland.

With the rain setting in and getting heavy, we headed back to the cottage around midday. An afternoon of artwork and packing. Started a MM picture of High Force, but felt constrained by not being able to splash paint around / having to watch no spillages etc. No hair dryer to dry paint quickly either.