Despite being frequent visitors to Northumberland, we’ve never made it to the county top. Standing at 815 metres, The Cheviot is one of the most remote hills you could wish to climb, and before now, the stars have never quite aligned for us to attempt it. It’s been on my list for years though – climbing to a county’s highest point always feels like a must do for me. Finally, after many years of waiting for the right combination of weather, daylight and energetic-ness, we managed to get up there at the start of June.
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Walk summary: The Cheviot
- Distance: 9 miles
- Route type: Hill
- Time: 5 hours
- Parking: Roadside in Harthope Valley, ///scrambles.dockers.surround
- Dog friendly: 2.5/5
- Difficulty: Moderate to strenuous
The Cheviot Hills make for some of the wildest and remotest walking you’ll find in England. They are also notoriously boggy. We always play it safe and choose an established route when venturing into these hills! The Northumberland National Park website has lots of routes available for free, but we usually use our Cicerone guidebook.
One of the tricky things about hiking in the Cheviots is that much of the access land is subject to dog restrictions. Generally, this means we can only follow routes which use 100% public rights of way with the dogs. Happily on this occasion our Cicerone guide route fit the bill – nine miles all on public footpaths. There’s a similar route online on the Bald Hiker website.
A long walk in
There are a few places for cars to park at the end of the road into the Harthope Valley (look out for the small sign which marks the end of the parking options). We got there bright and early on a Monday in June (around 9am) and we were the first ones there. No parking madness like you find in the Lake District! The walk starts off with a lengthy trek down the Harthope Valley. At first it’s a metalled road, which eventually becomes a grassy track. The further you go, the remoter it feels. I can’t image the cottage at the end of the track has the option for Tesco deliveries…
Following the course of the burn, it’s a pretty valley which was a vibrant green wherever we looked. Harthope Linn waterfall was a highlight – the cluster of trees and ferns around it gave it a somewhat jungle-like vibe. Eventually though, somewhere around the five kilometre mark, we started to get a bit bored. It does climb steadily as you go, but the scenery starts to feel a little unchanging. Look out for small channels in the ground as you criss-cross the burn with increasing frequency: I made a mental note to point these out as a trip hazard and promptly tripped over one. Keep your wits about you!
Bogs, peat & paving stones
After nearly two hours, a short climb and the appearance of a fence line signalled our exit from the valley. The next ascent up to the top of Cairn Hill is the toughest part of the walk. Steep on weary legs, it is however over very quickly, and you get some marvellous views of the Cheviots. At the top, the gradient eases but the bog increases: I was exceptionally glad for the paving stones traversing the peat hags. I cannot believe that people used to battle their way through the utter bog fest without them! No, thank you. While we stuck to the paving, Coal did not, and he found himself momentarily marooned in a chest deep bog until we could rescue him. Of course, that didn’t put him off further bog diving.
We soon reached The Cheviot itself after an easy-ish stroll of around a kilometre. Fun fact: the trig point is situated on a concrete plinth because the previous ones kept sinking in the peat. It’s that bad! After so much anticipation, it actually felt a bit anticlimactic. Unfortunately we couldn’t see masses other than the surrounding peat hags. There are however many other lovely views on other parts of the walk, so it’s still worth doing.
This part of the route runs along the Pennine Way and we were hoping to see some Spine runners out on course. We had a great time ‘spectating’ the Northern Traverse when it passed through Gunnerside Gill: it’s great lunchtime entertainment. Alas, we were possibly a day too early, and we saw a total of zero runners. In fact, we only saw a grand total of five people all day. An average of one an hour isn’t shabby at all!
Our peaty journey
I was feeling a significant amount of trepidation about leaving the Pennine Way and continuing our ‘peaty journey’, as our guide book put it, but it was actually not too bad. Definitely aim for a dry spell for this one and you should be OK! The views, previously obscured by peat hags, get better as you descend. Hedgehope Hill and the Harthope Valley make a fine vista to the right. Reputedly you can see the Lakes and even Edinburgh from the summit of The Cheviot, however, we couldn’t make them out. I did have a minor panic at one point when I got my contour lines muddled on the map and thought we had to descend The Cheviot and then traverse Hedgehope Hill to get back to the car, however, that was fortunately a false alarm.
Descending doesn’t feel like such a long walk as the outward journey. The views evolve as you go and a little more navigation is required, making it a bit more interesting. Not much navigation though, as there’s handy fence line which serves as a useful point of reference. It was joyful walking through beautiful, quiet hills, with just us, the dogs and the sound of the curlews calling. It doesn’t get better than that if you ask me.
Five hours flew by – it didn’t feel like a trudge at all. However, it would’ve been a different story had the weather been anything other than fine! In the finest sense of the word. We made it nearly all the way to the end with what I’d term an ‘easy’ descent, before we had to navigate across a gully which my tired legs detested. At least it wasn’t far back to the car after that…
Dog friendly rating: The Cheviot
Dog friendly rating: 2.5/5. This is a hike you can do with your dog rather than a dog walk. For a fit adult dog the route shouldn’t pose too many problems – just make sure you stick to public rights of way. There were three stiles to cross: two ‘normal’ and one ladder. Fortunately, the fence by the ladder stile is so dilapidated that you can simply step over it. Unfortunately, the other two stiles are in excellent condition. Needs must lift over if you don’t have a bouncy dog!
There’s plenty of water at the start in the Harthope Valley, but less once you’re on the hill, and our dogs were grateful for the extra water I’d taken for them. There were sheep for the majority of this walk. You may also come across cows – we saw some ‘evidence’ at the start, but no cows themselves. Keep an eye out for the Cheviot Goats who roam the hills – we’ve only come across them once (on Windy Gyle) and Merry was thoroughly spooked by them, so I wouldn’t trust him around them at all!
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