Out and about in Upper Teesdale (From Living Northeast)

Out and about in Upper Teesdale

12:23pm Monday 29th March 2010 in

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County Durham is a delight to explore and Charlie Emett and Ron Dodsworth have done just that in great detail in their informative new guide to the region. The following extracts focus on Upper Teesdale.

1 COW GREEN RESERVOIR on Widdybank Fell, near the head of Teesdale COW Green belongs to one of England’s largest nature reserves. It is situated near the head of the River Tees. Some 6,000 years ago Cow Green was covered in pine forest and today rare Teesdale sedges, characteristic species of pine woods, still grow on the local sugar limestone.

Upper Teesdale is renowned for the uniqueness and richness of its flora, so when it was proposed to build a water reservoir at Cow Green to meet growing industrial and domestic needs on Teesside, the objections, particularly from horrified botanists, were formidable. Nevertheless, Cow Green Reservoir was built, and made a significant change to this part of Upper Teesdale.

The dam was completed in 1970, and in 1972, the first overflow from the reservoir took place. Since then the flow of the Tees has to a large extent been controlled by the reservoir.

Before Cow Green Reservoir was built, the indigenous trout were small, and few and far between. Since the reservoir’s construction, trout numbers have increased sufficiently to make the reservoir a viable sporting fishery.

2 HIGH FORCE On the River Tees, five miles downstream (east) of Cauldron Snout AT High Force the River Tees is at its very best. Flowing across a vast area of quartz dolerite, the lively young river gathers pace as it approaches a sudden drop of 70ft into a deep basin at the head of a magnificent gorge.

Quartz dolerite is very hard and resistant to erosion, and it forms spectacular cliffs, as seen at High Force waterfall, which is the highest above-ground waterfall in England.

The thunder of the water can be heard long before it is seen; and to see it is a must, for no other waterfall has so dramatic and so beautiful a setting. There is nothing graceful about the way the Tees pours over the rock.

The fury of its fall is what makes it so memorable a sight.

The northern bank of the gorge below High Force is clothed in deciduous trees, while the southern cliffs are overhung with foliage and topped with juniper bushes.

3 LOW FORCE On the River Tees, 1½ miles downstream (east) of High Force A THICK layer of igneous dolerite rock, known locally as whinstone, is what makes the Upper Teesdale National Nature Reserve, of which Low Force is a part, so spectacular. The hardness of this igneous rock gives it a slow rate of weathering and this, combined with the high rainfall of Upper Teesdale, allows acid, peaty humus to accumulate so that heather and bilberry usually dominate the ledges.

Several clusters of Alpine penny-cress have become established at Low Force. They are usually restricted to old lead mine spoil heaps, so to find them growing alongside the River Tees at Low Force is rare.

About 150,000 people visit High and LowForce each year, attracted by their natural beauty and an increasing interest in the scenery and flora. It is to be hoped that the numbers of people visiting Low Force do not spoil what drew them there in the first place.

4 WYNCH BRIDGE On the Tees, 1½ miles downstream (east) of High Force waterfall IN 1704 a flimsy bridge was erected across a steep-sided narrow channel along which the River Tees squeezes.

The bridge, said to be the first of its kind in England, was built to enable lead miners to cross the Tees to and from the mines near Holwick village, where they worked. Crossing the shaky structure was hazardous, because it had a handrail on one side only. In 1803 the main chain broke while a group of miners was crossing, and one man was drowned. In 1830, the present suspension bridge was opened to replaced the original one.

Today two stone sheep on a nearby wall guard the Wynch Bridge.

5 RED GROOVES HUSH Hardberry Hill, one mile north-east of Newbiggin IN the 17th Century, lead mining became an established industry around the head of Teesdale, where rich veins of galena, or lead ore, were to be found along fault lines.

A favoured means of exposing the galena was hushing.

This involved building an earth dam at the uppermost end of the fault line. When sufficient water had collected, the dam was breached to allow the water to pour along the fault, washing away topsoil and stones, and eventually exposing the galena. These man-made channels ran down the hillsides, or sometimes across them almost horizontally.

The great Red Grooves hush is still very prominent.

It appears from a distance as a long gash in the hillside that cuts through a watershed at its midpoint. When the blasting and the water had done their work the lead miners took over.

6 ST ROMALD’S CHURCH On the eastern side of Romaldkirk village ST Romald was probably the son of a Northumberland king. He spent his life in Italy, working with hermit monks. The beautiful church that bears his name is so large that it is known as the “Cathedral of the Dales”.

The original church was Saxon. It was sacked on two occasions, first by marauding Normans and then, in 1070, by Malcolm and his Scottish army. The present church was begun in about 1155 and added to in 1280, with further additions in 1860. It has a walled-up north doorway known as the Devil’s Door, because it was thought that the devil was living on the north side of it.

There is an effigy here of Hugh Fitz Henry, Lord of Bedale, Ravensworth and Cotherstone who, following a distinguished military career, was wounded fighting the Scottish army of Edward I in 1305. He was brought to Barwick-on-Tees, near Darlington, where he died of his wounds on March 12, 1305. He was buried at Romaldkirk, rather than at Jervaulx Abbey where other members of his family are buried, on March 22, 1305.

7 THE ANCIENT UNICORN On the north side of the road through Bowes, midway through the village IN Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens described the Ancient Unicorn as the place where the coach carrying schoolboys destined for the notorious Dotheboys Hall stopped. Dickens himself stayed there while researching the book. The Ancient Unicorn was built in the 16th Century as a coaching inn, and for several hundred years it has been haunted. One owner had a daughter, Martha, who was in love with a local lad called Rodger Wrightson.

Martha’s parents disapproved of the couple’s friendship, so they met secretly on Bowes Moor. One wild night Martha and Rodger arranged to meet, but Martha’s father forbade her to leave the inn. Rodger waited in vain, got wet through, caught pneumonia and died. Heartbroken, Martha lost the will to live and died also. The two were buried in one grave in St Giles’s churchyard, Bowes. Years later, the tragedy was immortalised in a poem in which the names were changed to Emma and Edwin. It is Martha’s ghost that haunts the Unicorn today and the landlady Linda has formed an affinity with this friendly spirit. Her dogs are not so sure. Every time Martha appears their hackles rise.

8 COUNTY BRIDGE, BARNARD CASTLE Crossing the River Tees on the west side of the castle at Barnard Castle.

MENTION is made of a bridge across the River Tees at Barnard Castle as early as 1327, before which time people depended on fords for crossing the river. It is thought that this first bridge was superseded by the present twin-arched Gothic structure, bearing the date 1596. The date is thought to be incorrect: it should be 1569, which is the date when the bridge was repaired, shortly after the Great Northern Rebellion of 1569.

In the 18th Century there was a chapel on the bridge, where illicit marriages were performed.

9 BERNARD’S CASTLE The Castle is on the west side of Barnard Castle, between Market Place and the River Tees.

ANYONElooking at Bernard’s Castle (Barnard Castle), a vast pile, proudly perched on a cliff 80ft above the River Tees, would find it difficult to equate it with small, palisaded earthwork from which is grew. Yet that is how it all began, as the earthwork was built to guard a ford that carried a Roman road across the Tees. The castle was constructed in 1093 by Guy de Balliol on land given to him by a grateful King William II (William Rufus), in recognition of Guy’s loyalty to William I, the Conqueror.

When Guy de Balliol died he was succeeded by his son, Bernard, and his nephew, also called Bernard. It was these two men who were responsible for the rebuilding of the castle, which was named after Bernard, the son of Guy. The name was later changed to Barnard. Barnard Castle is now maintained by English Heritage.

10 BLAGRAVES HOUSE Near the north end of The Bank in Barnard Castle, on the eastern side of the road.

INNKEEPER Binkes Blagraves ensured that he would be remembered by naming his house after himself and then willing it to his eldest son. Now a well-established restaurant, 17th Century Blagraves House has three mullioned windows, outside steps leading to an 18th Century doorway, another doorway to the right of the steps that is thought to be Tudor and a medieval cellar that, until about 1700, was a dungeon. There is a row of ancient-looking carved musicians on a projecting bracket above the first story, but they are fairly recent, having been placed there in the 1920s. Oliver Cromwell visited Barnard Castle in 1648 and it is thought that he was entertained at Blagraves House.

11 BOWES MUSEUM On the north side of Westwick Road, towards the east end of Barnard Castle.

DESIGNED by the Parisian Jules Pellechet, BowesMuseum was built like a sumptuous French chateau for Josephine and John Bowes. Because John Bowes was born illegitimate in 1810, he was not accepted as the Strathmore heir, although he did inherit his father’s estates.

The rejection caused him to live mostly in Paris, where he owned a theatre. There he met French actress Josephine Benoite, whom he married in 1852. Josephine was a talented painter who shared John’s love of the arts. Their passion for collecting artwork grew to such an extent that, at Josephine’s suggestion, they built Bowes Museum to house the expanding collection. Construction began in 1869 but was not completed until 1892, by which time both Josephine and John had died.

12 PICKWICK PAPERS CAPERS South of the River Tees, three miles south of Barnard Castle.

WAS there ever such a setting for a mural? Was there ever such a mural for a setting? Charles Dickens inspired it, and the world-famous Guinness toucan artist, John Gilroy, painted it.

In February 1946, while staying at the Morritt Arms, Gilroy found himself without sufficient funds to settle his bill. So he struck a bargain with mine host in order to clear his debt. Pointing to a ground-floor room overlooking the garden, he said, “Shut me in there, leave food and drink for me outside the door and do not attempt to enter until I say so”. Gilroy’s instructions were carried out to the letter, and on February 11, 1946, he opened the door of the room where he had spent the last few days and invited his host inside.

The full length of the long wall behind the fireplace was completely covered by a magnificent mural ofmembers of the Pickwick Club, gleefully prancing in carefree abandon. A mural on a side wall depicted passengers watching the festivities from the rear window of a stagecoach – and the face of each passenger was a representation of a regular customer at the Morritt Arms.

The proprietor was completely bowled over, and there and then cancelled Gilroy’s debt.

The famous mural remains a major attraction and the room, now the intimate Dickens Bar, also contains several of Gilroy’s Guinness paintings. Dickensian evenings at the Morritt Arms, where everything is of the highest quality, are not to be missed.

■ Discovering County Durham and Teesside by Charlie Emett and Ron Dodsworth (Sutton Publishing, £12.99).