The walk starts from a car park just a little north-west of the village, where there is a Northumberland Wildlife Trust Information Centre. A track leads up the hill through the trees to the open moorland of Harbottle Crags Nature Reserve, which covers 160 acres. The hillside is covered by a mixture of heather and bracken, along with patches of bilberry, sweet gale (bog myrtle), and tormentil.
In summer you may hear the song of the willow warbler as you climb towards Drake Stone on the horizon. A few silver birches grow beside the path, and new seedlings are allowed to take root now that the reserve is no longer grazed by sheep, alongside boggy areas where sphagnum and hair moss flourish with cotton grass and sundew (whose sticky leaves trap and digest insects), while wheatears and grouse are often seen amongst the rocks.
Drake Stone is named from the Anglo-Saxon name for 'dragon' and is the county's largest isolated boulder. The broad ridge of Fell Sandstone it stands on was laid down 280 million years ago in an ancient estuary, with layers showing how irregularly sand was deposited in piles on the sea floor (‘cross-bedding’).
The rock around Drake Stone was scoured away by glaciers in the last Ice Age, leaving lines called 'striae' gouged into the rock. Millstones were once cut from the hard rocks here and taken downhill on horse-drawn sledges. The magnificent views span the Cheviot Hills, the Coquet Valley east to Rothbury, Alnwick Moors, and the Simonside Hills, with Harbottle village clearly visible in the valley below.
Beyond Drake Stone is Harbottle Lake with its swampy fringe of rushes and sedges. The route follows the edge of the lake, turns right through a forest to join a track on the far side leading to the Harbottle-to-Alwinton road, and turning north soon crosses the River Coquet (where otters are present but rarely seen).
At Low Alwinton the route follows a narrow road past a fine limekiln and up to Park House. Cutting on a path north from the track before reaching Park House will lead to the beautiful St Michael and All Angels Church (track back once you have enjoyed the visit). After passing Park House, a rough track across pastureland yields fine views across to the Harbottle Hills and Drake Stone. After descending through woodland, the route follows the banks of the Coquet to a footbridge and crosses the river to the present Harbottle Castle, built in 1829.
From here you walk through Harbottle, which consists of a single street lined with neat cottages mostly dating from the early 19th century. The village — whose historic name 'Hir Botle' meant Army Station — originated in Saxon times and was occupied by the Umfreville barons after the Norman Conquest. Henry II built a stone castle on the site of the original Norman fortification following the transference of Northumberland from Scotland to England in 1159.
Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.
