The walk follows a quiet, tree-lined lane along Shildon Burn. In early summer, the sides of the lane are thick with cow parsley, germander speedwell, greater stitchwort, meadow cranesbill, and creeping buttercup, and the woods are full of the songs of wren, chaffinch, blackbird, and goldcrest.
Shildon is a small hamlet lying near the ruins of an old smelt mill chimney dating from the lead-mining days of the 19th century. Behind Shildon are spoil heaps, bare of vegetation — an interesting reminder that lead was mined in Northumberland from Roman times right up to the 1920s.
North-west of Shildon, the route passes a plantation of Sitka spruce and Scots pine before emerging onto open pastureland. Northern marsh orchid, fairy flax, bird's-foot trefoil, and lady's mantle grow here in summer, when the beautiful plaintive call of curlews can be heard (in winter, these birds return to coastal feeding grounds).
Just before Pennypie House, the route crosses Shildon Burn and heads south on a rough track through heather moorland where lapwings nest in summer and give spectacular tumbling flight displays. There are superb views in all directions over the moors before the route descends steeply to the hamlet of Baybridge, then follows the River Derwent back to Blanchland.
The mellow, grey stone houses in the centre of Blanchland are grouped snugly around an open square that was once the outer courtyard of Blanchland Abbey, founded in the 12th century by Walter de Bolbec for the Premonstratensians Canons originating from Normandy (the village was named Blanchland, meaning 'white land', after the white habits worn by the monks).
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1534, Blanchland passed into private ownership. Lord Crewe, a former Bishop of Durham who owned the Blanchland estates, died in 1721 and left his property and lands to trustees who rebuilt the village to house lead miners. The medieval gatehouse dominating the village square was once the entrance to the abbey precincts and now houses the village shop and post office with an unusual Victorian post box.
The present church was built in 1752 from parts of the old abbey church, while the building that is today the Lord Crewe Arms Hotel was originally the Abbot's lodge, guesthouse, and abbey kitchens (the lawn at the back used to be the site of the abbey's cloister).
Lord Crewe married Dorothy Forster in 1699, and when her brother became involved in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715, she helped him escape from imprisonment in London and hid him in the Lord Crewe Arms Hotel. She was later immortalised in the novel 'Dorothy Forster' by Walter Besant, and her ghost is said to haunt a bedroom at the hotel and roam the lonely moors.
Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.
