As freshly minted English Heritage members, we’re very excited to get out and explore some new local places which we’ve not yet discovered, being too stingy to pay the individual entry prices (I’ve clearly been living in Yorkshire for too long). When we were at Middleham Castle a few weeks ago, they were giving out some handy (free) maps of all the different English Heritage sites around the country, so we picked one of these up and it now lives on our fridge door for perusal at out convenience. There are quite a few local sites managed by English Heritage which we’ve not been to before, so on a sunny Sunday at the end of February we hopped in the car to visit Bowes Castle, just a short drive away down the A66.
Bowes Castle is actually free to visit (English Heritage member or not), so I’m not sure why we’ve never made it over for a visit before. There’s a small village car park by the village hall in Bowes, or you can park (considerately) for free along the main road. The castle itself is fairly small, consisting of the ruins of the main keep, with not too much else to see. Originally constructed in the 12th century, the castle was locally important during the late Medieval warring with Scotland (including being besieged by the Scots), but was ultimately deemed ‘of little use’ by the 16th century, and was stripped for parts from this time onwards.
The castle was built in the corner of and using materials from a previous Roman fort, which today is no more visible than as some lumps and bumps in the ground. While it was such a lovely sunny day we decided to have a wander through the countryside around Bowes while we were there, following this 2 mile circular route from the OS maps app.
The route starts by the castle, where we picked up the Pennine Way to head West along muddy field tracks until we reached a bridge over the river. It’s a nice high bridge which was a relief, as with all the rain we’d had beforehand I was a little worried it was going to be submerged and we’d be wading across! Soon after this we left the Pennine Way to follow a metalled track nearly all the way back to Bowes, with a final short stint through a rather muddy woodland. The wild garlic popping up all along the banks made up for the mud though, although I feel like we’re due another cold snap before Spring truly arrives!
Overall, this was a nice short walk to get some fresh air and countryside, while still having plenty of the day left to get on with other things which needed doing at home. There aren’t any mind blowing views, but it was a nice local wander which was also very quiet. It’s generally pretty flat, with just a few very short ascents/descents. Pretty much everyone should be able to get around this walk without too much trouble.
Dog friendly rating: 3/5. This is a lovely quiet dog walk, where we only bumped into 1 or 2 other people. There are a few stiles which need to be crossed, but these are either easily manageable step stiles, or have a dog gate which you can use to let your dog through. You will however need to keep your dog on a lead for most of this walk – there are sheep throughout all of the fields, and chickens roaming freely on the lanes on the return.
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