Sunday 16th April 2023 With the knowledge that there are years of change facing the final few miles of the Teesdale Way I’d been thinking for some time about doing an ‘official’ review of the situation. So on a quiet Sunday with nothing better to do, and with the weather set fair, I packed my …
Sunday 26th March 2023 On the day the clocks went forward, with spring very much in the air, we decided to drive over to Teesdale to visit High Force, England’s largest waterfall. Primarily, it was in the hope of photographing the Tees spilling into the secondary, northern, falls – an event that has so far …
Mothering Sunday, 19th March 2023 For those who may not know (and I recently counted myself as such) John Martin was a popular painter and polymath of the early c19th (1789-1854) who led an impressively productive life among contemporaries such as Turner, Constable and Ruskin. He lies buried in Douglas, on the Isle of Man, …
11th June 2022 Route map for NYM 2-Abbey Tour (Day 1) by Durham Cow on plotaroute.com With 40 mph winds suddenly and unexpectedly forecast for the Cheviots in Northern England, Diane and I made a quick decision to abandon our planned camping trip to Wooler, in Northumberland, and drive the short distance back home for …
Monday, 21st September 2020 This afternoon, as part of my long-term, casual project to record the fortifications of Northern England and the Scottish border, I paid a quick visit to Staward Peel which, between 1272 and 1384, during the Scottish Wars of Independence and much of the Hundred Years War, was a virtually impregnable tower …
Saturday 5th September 2020 Historically, the counties and shires along the border between England and Scotland have seen their fair share of conflict. Never more so than during the medieval period when for several centuries, national armies and predatory familial bands known as Reivers would decimate those individuals or communities unfortunate enough to fall within …
