Northumberland: A Week in Border Country

It was a given that sooner or later we’d be back in Northumberland, one of our favourite parts of the UK. Before now we’ve always visited in winter or early spring, so it was fantastic to see this beautiful county with its ‘summer clothes’ on! Our intention was to use the longer days to get out into the Cheviots to do some more exploring: we’d barely scratched the surface on earlier trips, and to really get into the middle of nowhere, we needed more daylight hours.

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Budle Bay

No trip to Northumberland is completely without a trip to the coast, and we stopped off to explore a new stretch of coastline on our way up to our cottage. Budle Bay is a quiet cove across the sea from Lindisfarne, and much less frequented than the bustling beach just to the south at Bamburgh. We did a circular walk of around 4 and a half miles which we found in our Pocket Mountains guide, starting from the large pay and display car park in Bamburgh before picking up the coast path.

The trail is gently undulating, with a mix of narrow tracks snaking through sandy dunes, easy ambles along the beach and scrambling over rocky outcrops (although maybe we’d gone the wrong way for that last part). As you make your way along the bay, look across the water to catch a glimpse of Holy Island in the distance. When you leave the coast to return to Bamburgh there is a reasonable stretch along a quiet road before picking up field tracks for the last stretch.

We absolutely loved this walk: the sun was out and the sea was about six different shades of blue. The wind was up and we enjoyed watching a group of kite surfers bobbing up and down in the bay: when we could look up without getting half the beach blown into our eyes!

Dog friendly rating: 5/5. The beach here is dog friendly year round and ours absolutely loved it here, especially as it was almost totally deserted: we had it virtually to ourselves. The road stretches were very quiet and there was no livestock in any of the fields we crossed, just keep leads on when you cross through Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve. There was one stile on the inland return, but the dogs were able to wriggle underneath the wire without too much difficulty – if you were really worried about stiles though you could do a lovely linear walk back down the coast.

Shillhope Law

The real reason we were in Northumberland this time was to get out in the Cheviots. Therefore on our first full day we set out from Alwinton, a gateway to many places in the national park, with the intention of climbing Shillhope Law. Despite the fact it was the first day of half term we didn’t see a single other person for the whole walk, apart from a farmer rounding up his sheep – just the way we like it!

The route we followed was an eleven mile circular route from our Cicerone guide to the Scottish Borders. I can’t find an equivalent route online for this so you’ll have to buy the book!

I’d say this was the toughest walk we did all week: starting from the national park car park in Alwinton, there are a few long slogs uphill and the path is faint and grassy at best, non-existent and tussocky at worst. Navigation skills are required, as well as a sense of adventure – you’ll need to cross a burn with no stepping stones or bridges, so be prepared for wet feet too!

This walk provided total peace and quiet with a sense of utter tranquility. The views, both generally and from the summit of Shillhope Law itself, are far reaching and excellent. We even managed to avoid the notorious Cheviot bogs (although that might just be the time of year!).

Dog friendly rating: 3/5. The best things about this walk for dog owners are the fact that there are no stiles or road walking, and that there are a few river crossings deep enough for water loving dogs to have a paddle (but there are long dry stretches so carry extra water for your dog). Expect the see livestock at any point (we saw sheep and cows), but there were long periods with none around where Coal could have some calm off lead time.

Rothbury Terraces

We were pretty knackered after our trek up Shillhope Law, and therefore decided to have a slightly easier day to recover. I settled on a walk from our Cicerone guide to Northumberland, starting in Rothbury to gently climb above the town for panoramic views of the surrounding countryside. Again I’ve struggled to find this route online.

We parked in the free car park at Cow Haugh, crossing the river to pass through Rothbury, picking up a bridleway to climb up through woodland. This was our favourite part of the walk: the woods were bursting with colour, with rhododendrons in full bloom and a million different shades of green thanks to the mix of tree species growing here. There were a few places where we needed to scramble over fallen trees (we saw plenty of evidence of Storm Arwen even 6 months later) but this didn’t put us off at all.

We left the woods and crossed over a stretch of moor before re-entering a small woodland. There were signs up saying the wood was closed due to storm damage but the main paths were clear, which was all we needed. We re-emerged from the woods a final time to get great views towards the Cheviots and Simonside Hills, making use of a good track to descend back into Rothbury.

Given that it was half term and we were starting from such a popular location, we were really surprised by how quiet the walk was: just the odd person here and there. Northumberland really is an undiscovered gem.

Dog friendly rating: 4/5. This is a brilliant dog walk: from the start by the river where dogs can have a swim, to the woodland wanders where your dog can have a wonderful time off lead. There is one stile to navigate (as well as the fallen trees), but this has a dog gate and ours loved scrambling over the trees on the path – parkour! We put leads on for the moorland sections as there were signs up warning that there are ponies and livestock grazing, but we didn’t see anything other than a lone deer bounding through the heather.

Norham Castle

We had a few rainy days in the middle of the week, and rather than drag ourselves up a hill in the pouring rain we went for shorter walks or quick stop offs where we could easily dash back to the car. One place that I’d wanted to visit for a while was Norham Castle, a historic fortress on the river Tweed, perched on the border between England and Scotland.

Norham has a fascinating history and has been besieged at least 13 times throughout its history, during the long and bloody border fighting between England and Scotland, including being besieged by Robert the Bruce for over a year. The last time it came under siege was in 1513, when it was captured by James IV shortly before his defeat at Flodden.

There are a number of river side paths which you can pick up from the castle: our original intention was to do a 6 mile figure of eight loop along the river, however the heavens opened and we decided that we’d rather do it in better weather when we were more likely to enjoy it!

Dog friendly rating: 4/5. Dogs on leads are welcome at the site, which is spacious enough to ensure you have plenty of room (at least it was when we visited in half term, admittedly the weather forecast may have put a lot of other people off). The river being nearby is a great opportunity to extend your day and most dogs will appreciate the chance to pop into the river for a swim.

Great Hetha and Ring Chesters

After a few days of slightly unpredictable weather which had confined us to lower down walks, the sun came out (for about 2 hours) and the rain eased off long enough for us to head back out into the Cheviots. We were staying close to the College Valley, where there are many choices for the keen walker, but we opted for the 8 mile route in our Cicerone guide which took us up the hillforts of Great Hetha and Ring Chesters. There is a vaguely similar route on the Northumberland National Park website but this omits most of the first half of the walk we did.

We started from the free national park car park in Hethpool and my lungs were soon burning as I dragged myself up the steep track to the summit of Great Hetha (thankfully this was over reasonably quickly). While there are a few other sections of ascent, this was the only one that had me fairly out of breath (with the only exception being a gradual hill I practically ran up as there were some cows hanging around nearby!).

This walk took us right up to the border with Scotland: all we’d have to do to cross the border would be hop over a fence line. We resisted the temptation (knowing we were heading north the following day) and stuck to our planned route, but this didn’t stop us enjoying some cracking views of the Scottish lowlands – we could even see the Eildon Hills in the distance. We stopped for lunch at the summit of Ring Chesters which, according to our Cicerone guide, is the best preserved Iron Age settlement in the Cheviot Hills (although to the untrained eye it just looks like a few piles of stones). Again we saw hardly anyone on this walk, and we were the first car in the car park despite arriving at 10.30am in half term.

Dog friendly rating: 3/5. Like many walks in the Cheviots, expect to come across sheep and cows at any time. We saw both – the first group of cows we walked past with no issues, the second and third groups we detoured to avoid as they had very young calves. There were a few places where there wasn’t any livestock and here we were able to let Coal off safely, although Merry stayed on his lead – his recall isn’t anywhere near good enough to trust him in the hills.

A big plus was the fact that all the stiles could be avoided with gates or had little doggy doors for the dogs to pop through. What made my day though was seeing the Royal Mail van driving down the road as we dropped back down into the College Valley at the end – the post man saw us and stopped to give the dogs a biscuit each! I think this would be their favourite walk for that reason alone!

Kirk Yetholm and the Schill

Flicking through our guide books the night before our last day presented us with some difficult choices – there were just too many walks we wanted to squeeze in! However, there was a 10 mile circular in our Cicerone guide to the Scottish Borders which had caught both of our eyes, and we settled on this as our farewell (for now) to Northumberland – which felt a bit odd as we were actually crossing the border into Scotland. There is a similar route on WalkHighlands, but the outward leg is different to the one we followed.

The walk started from a free parking area a short drive out of Kirk Yetholm, where the Pennine Way stops being surfaced and becomes a footpath. There is A LOT of ascent and descent on this walk: I think we did something like 8 hills, all of which we descended at least partially before moving on to the next one – I don’t think there was that much ridge walking!

The views were pretty epic on this walk, and a lot of the time we could look back on where we’d been, which I always find very satisfying. This part of the Cheviots is just as wild and remote as the rest, and we only started seeing other walkers when we joined the Pennine Way to return to Kirk Yetholm. Despite this though I would say navigation was more straight forward than we are used to around here, as while the paths are often grassy and faint, a lot of the time was spent walking alongside a wall or fence – which makes it much harder to go wrong!

Dog friendly rating – 3/5. This gets the same score as the Great Hetha walk for nearly all the same reasons: expect to see livestock, well behaved dogs may be able to enjoy some time off lead when there is no livestock around, all stiles can be avoided with gates. This is a long exposed walk with no water, so take extra for your dog: ours drank nearly 4 litres between them on a moderately warm day (16-17 degrees).

Cochrane Pike

In what felt like next to no time it was our last morning and we were packing up the car to come home (squeezing in one last walk on the way of course). Cue a warning light coming on in the car to tell us that we had low tyre pressure in one of the tyres. A quick inspection revealed a stone lodged in the tread – just what you want on a bank holiday Friday! I was fully expecting to have to try and pump it up with some air and resign ourselves to eventually getting a flat tyre on the way home, but Red Path Tyres in Wooler were open and had us sorted and on our way in less than an hour with the tyre repaired – panic over!

We love the Breamish Valley (Sam especially for his fond memories of the Cheviot Goat ultra) and we decided to head here to walk up Cochrane Pike – not before stopping at the dog friendly Ingram Cafe for a bacon butty to start the day and recover from our stressful morning! There are a number of interconnecting paths here which make a hillfort trail, which you can make as long or as short as you want – we ended up doing about 4.5 miles, taking in Wether Hill as well as Cochrane Pike.

The climb up from Ingram was fairly steady, but nothing like some of the other ascents we’d done earlier in the week. The paths are grassy and indistinct in places, but there are lots of helpful way markers – just make sure you know which ones you want to follow.

This is a great walk for history lovers: as well as hillforts, there are some really well preserved cultivation terraces (which I’m guessing I’m in a minority to be excited about!). The Breamish Valley is probably one of the more popular places we’ve been to in the national park, but when it’s this beautiful, we can’t really blame them! And it’s still got nothing on busy places in other popular beauty spots.

Dog friendly rating: 3/5. Similar to the previous walks, expect to find sheep and/or cows grazing on the hills here. There were two stiles which we needed to clamber over, but the dogs managed to squeeze under the fence nearby (this was tight for Coal though). Ours loved their visit to the Ingram Cafe, which is dog friendly and even has a covered area outside where you can shelter from the rain or sun (whichever is out!).

Where we stayed

We stayed at Longknowe Barn, a recently done up barn conversion straddling the border between England and Scotland. The cottage is in an absolutely amazing location for getting out in the hills – it’s a 7 mile walk straight across the Cheviots to the Border Hotel at Kirk Yetholm, with no road walking! The cottage was nothing short of luxurious and had everything we needed for a wonderful stay. We booked through cottages.com, which we’ve used for lots of different Northumberland cottages. I’d definitely recommend Longknowe Barn as a base if you’re wanting to explore some of the wilder parts of Northumberland.

Dog friendly rating: 4/5. The open plan living area is so spacious and not remotely cluttered, perfect if you have two busy dogs like we do. The outside space is enormous and enclosed – secure enough for Coal but there were gaps Merry would have been able to squeeze through. The garden is shared with the neighbouring cottage, which is currently only used by the owners, so we had it to ourselves for 6 nights out of the 7.

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