The Kirkby Stephen Viaduct Trail & Croglam Castle 27/05/12

A mini heatwave descended for the end of May, to neatly coincide with me taking my spring holiday in Kirkby Stephen with my parents. I chose Kirkby Stephen as it's a useful gateway to the north-western corner of the Yorkshire Dales and would be straight-forwardly accessible if I'd been forced to travel alone, and the week of choice neatly coincided with two FOSCL walks in the immediate area. So we travelled up on Saturday, the 26th, directing my parents over the A66 and the splendid bleakness of Stainmore, to take up our week's residence at Manor Lodge, which was all you could want for in a holiday home (apart from a lack of wi-fi), and to take stock of the town. To me it feels like a town lacking a constituency, in that other towns around the Dales, like Settle, Ilkley, Richmond and Leyburn attract tourists from the major conurbations nearby, but Kirkby Stephen has no major populations to draw from, and Cumbrians are more likely to hit The Lakes than the Dales or the Eden Valley. I characterise the town as 'hanging in there' because it feels like its peak has passed but still seems to have life left in it, and has plenty going for it if you are willing to invest time in the area. I should become an advocate for the upper Eden Valley, because it really is quite wonderful, and this town has its best face on in this week, dolled up for the Jubilee and basking in spring sunshine.

Enough chatter though, on to Sunday, and Walking!

Spring Jollies: Day One

The Kirkby Stephen Viaduct Trail & Croglam Castle.  4.6 miles.


Podgill Viaduct

A ridiculously early start for my first day, leaving the house at 8am, to the bemusement of my parents, so that I might get my exercise in before we spend the rest of the day doing other holiday activities. Bright sunshine and long shadows accompany this early start, and even on a Sunday out in the country, I'm not the earliest starter on the paths, and head south along the A685, before hitting the fields by some oddly Italianate holiday homes and then going down the Nateby Road to Stenkrith Bridge, where the River Eden churns away beneath us. Here is the start of the Northern Viaduct trail, established in 2000 by the Northern Viaduct Trust, and occupying the trackbed of the former South Durham & Lancashire Union Railway, built to transport coal and iron between Teesside and Furness in the 1860s. The section from Appleby to Hartley endured until 1974, and the last mile of that section is now available for walkers and cyclists to enjoy, and enjoy is exactly what I'll be doing, taking in the leafiness and surprise views, spotting the over bridges and absorbing the information boards hidden away in the plate-layers' huts. Additionally, we get our first fortification of the day, the impressive Peel (fortified farmhouse) at Hartley Castle, and also for our entertainment, Viaducts, hence the name of the trail, the eleven-arched Podgill and the nine-arched Merrygill, both built single tracked but later doubled, originally engineered by Thomas Bouch, famous for the Tay Bridge of 1879 Disaster infamy. Trot off the trail at Podgill down to Ladthwaite Beck to get pics, but there's no such point at Merrygill and its location makes it feel strangely unphotographable.


Stenkrith Park

Merrygill Viaduct

The Trail ends at Birkett Lane, but it's tempting to see where the trackbed leads going north-east to the sadly absent Belah viaduct and the Stainmore Summit, the highest in England! I can't go wandering into the unknown though, I head down Hartley Beck and then back toward the town and follow the high path back towards Stenkrith Park in the hope that a view of Merrygill Viaduct might be apparent, but sadly not without trespass, and I'm not going to challenge a farmer on his quad-bike. Down to the Riverside, and do my good deed for the day, as a passing jogger and I have to use all our guile to rescue a lamb that had gotten its head stuck through a wire fence, then cross over to regain the trail from two weeks ago, down to Stenkrith Park, and it's an even better looking place on a sunny day with the Eden roaring over its 290 million year-old river bed. Pause to soak up the atmosphere and lament that many of the poetry stones are rendered unreadable by a mix of script style and moss growth, and leave via looks down to the Devil's Grinding Mill and the Millennium bridge.

Kirkby Stephen East

Croglam Castle

Away along Station Road to take the long route back to base, over the A685 again to look over the site of Kirkby Stephen East station where the Stainmore Railway trust have recently set up to start the ambitious scheme of getting the line to Appleby re-opened, and then walk all the ways around their site to take a look at Croglam Castle, our second fortification of the day, this being an ancient Iron Age hillfort, an imposing hill that is frustratingly hard to photograph. I choose not to ascend it, as we are on farmland and the local sheep and cattle view me with appropriate suspicion as I wander through their field. The wall climb to Croglam Lane is probably the hardest part of the day, and then its a short run down to get back to Manor Lodge after 10am, so that we still have sufficient morning to all go take a closer look at the shenanigans at Kirkby Stephen East, and then go on for the afternoon with the radio hams and overly chipper enthusiasts at the Eden Valley Railway, and taking in impressive North Pennines scenery and the final fortification of the day at Brough Castle.

To Be Continued...

1,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 143.1 miles