On Cotherstone Moor

About trip

Distance: 8.5 miles, Minnimum Time: 5hrs, Difficulty: Hard, Description: Goldsborough, visited on Walk 48, gives an insight into Cotherstone’s lonely Pennine outposts, but this route takes you higher for longer. Here you tramp the heather and see even wider hillscapes. For much of the time you will be following the Pennine Way, both the main route and the Bowes Loop alternative. While you're there: Visit Bowes, a historic village in the nearby Greta Valley. The Romans built a fort, Lavatrae, to guard their Carlisle to York road and the approaches to the Stainmore Pass. In 1970 the fort was excavated and the archaeologists found an inscription that told of the fort’s damage after a rebellion of AD 197. What to look out for: You may well see the song thrush in or around Hannah’s Meadow. Populations of this fine speckled-breasted member of the blackbird family are rapidly declining due to the destruction of its favoured habitats. The larger mistle thrush is also present. Recognise this by its slightly greyer colour and flash of white on the tail. Where to eat and drink: The Fox and Hounds at Cotherstone is an 18thcentury coaching inn in the village where Hannah Hauxwell retired. Very tasty meals, including vegetarian options, are available at lunch times and evenings. Beers include Black Sheep and John Smiths. Directions: Walk across the Balderhead Dam causeway to the south side of the reservoir. Double back left on the stony track descending past the former youth hostel at Blackton Grange. Beyond this a grass track leads down towards the Blackton Reservoir where it meets the Pennine Way track beyond a gate. It’s worth detouring left from here to visit the wetlands on the north-west shores before returning to this point. Turn right along the track and climb past Clove Lodge. On the road above Clove Lodge ignore the first signed bridleway, but take the Pennine Way path a few paces further on. The path climbs south over the mosses of Cotherstone Moor, with the rounded Burners Hills to the left and the rocky knoll of Shacklesborough capping the sombre hillscape to the right. The path reaches its high point at Race Yate Rigg (Point A) where there’s a gate and stile at the intersection of ridge fence and ridge wall. About 100yds (91m) or so south of this, turn left through a gate to follow a bridleway westwards across Great Allotment. The track, sketchy at first, is always a little below the watershed. Below on your right, the bleak hollow of Deep Dale leads the eye to the brighter hues of distant woodland and separates Cotherstone Moor from the darker heather moors of Ravock. Just a few paces short of a north- south fence and wall on Ladyfold Rigg, leave the track for a grassy path on the left (the Bowes Loop Pennine Way alternative). Though you often suspect this faded path will disappear into the grasses it never deserts you, but weaves north over undulating moorland, staying close to the fence and later a wall. On the other side you’ll see the warning notices of the military firing range. Note the dead pines. Some crags over that wall look inviting, and it’s a shame that the figure on the top of them is no climber, but a soldier! North of Hare Sike, take the left of two gates beyond which the path veers half-left across rushy moorland towards the rocky summit of Goldsborough. The Pennine Way path skirts the west side of the little peak, but it’s a simple trackless climb to the top of the rocks). From here follow the main route back down to the road and along the northern shores of the Hury and Blackton reservoirs. Just beyond Willoughby Hall, double back left along the Northumbrian Water access track, then turn right off it along the grassy causeway to the north of the reservoir. A path veers left above the north shore and climbs above the Blackton Dam to a pair of gates. Through these, turn immediately right through another gate and head for further gate in the north-west field corner. The path veers right alongside a line of hawthorns, then turns left alongside more hawthorn trees. Past an old barn, walls to the right at first, then to the left, guide the route to the footbridge across Blind Beck. Waymarking arrows now aid route-finding. The footpath now crosses two fields, parallel with the reservoir’s shoreline. In a third field, follow the dry-stone wall half-left down towards Low Birk Hat, then pass in front of the farmhouse to an access road. The house is private and it would be discourteous to pause too long here. Turn right on the access road and climb out of the valley, past Hannah’s Meadow and High Birk Hat to a higher road. Turn left then take the next turning on the left, a tarmac lane leads back to the car park.