Up the Incline

About trip

Distance: 8.5 miles, Minnimum Time: 2hrs, Difficulty: Hard, Description: Rookhope - its name means ‘valley of the rooks’ - is today a small, remote Weardale village, but it has a long and fascinating history. By 1153, when King Stephen granted a licence to mine for lead and iron, it was known as Rykhup. In the 14th century the local farmers combined agriculture with searching out the lead on the stream banks. The Rookhope farmers were generally free from the cattle raids that plagued their counterparts further north, but a famous raid of 1569 into Weardale ended with the raiders cornered in the Rookhope Valley, where a pitched battle resulted in victory for the Weardale men. Their exploits were recorded in the 24-verse ballad Rookhope Ryde. A Bustling Town. Rookhope in the 19th century was a great contrast to the rest of its history. Under the influence of the Blackett family, the Weardale Iron Company, then the Weardale Lead Company, Rookhope became a bustling, noisy, industrial town, dedicated to winning minerals out of the ground in the surrounding hills. In its heyday its population approached 1,000, with ten shops, several churches and chapels, an Institute and generous-sized sports fields. The mine owners maintained a paternal but benevolent eye on their workforce. There were still mines operating in the Rookhope area into the 1990s, mainly for fluorspar. There are still many reminders of Rookhope’s industrial past in the area - and the most expressive is the great arch near the start of the walk. It is the only surviving fragment of a row of six such arches that carried the 2-mile (3.2km) flue, known as Rookhope Chimney, from the smelt works at Lintzgarth across the valley. After crossing the river, the flue ran for 1 mile (1.6km) underground and 0.5 mile (800m) up the hillside. Its purpose was to cool the gases from the smelting floor, in which there was much vaporised lead. The lead was deposited on the walls of the flue, and was either scraped off or washed away with water flowing along the tunnel into special ‘fume tanks’. The car park is the site of one of them. While you're there: Frosterley, down the valley from Stanhope, is an industrial village with rows of terraced houses. Quarrying has been carried out here since at least the Middle Ages for black limestone, rich in fossils, that will take high polish. Known as Frosterley Marble, it was used inside many great churches in the north, including Durham Cathedral and the chapel at Auckland Castle. What to look out for: From Rookhope to Smailsburn farm the walk follows the route of a former railway line built by the Weardale Coal and Iron Company. The route continues beyond Smailsburn for another 3 miles (4.8km) to Westgate where it originally joined the Wear Valley line. According to a late 19th-century survey, the line was ‘used for the conveyance of coal, limestone, lead, andc. Coal for the village, smelt-mill, and Westgate; limestone from the quarry of the Weardale Coal and Iron Company to their ironworks, and lead from the mines to the smelt-mill, and thence to the market.’ The mines also had their own branches, some smaller gauge. Where to eat and drink: The Rookhope Inn has real ale and home-cooked food, as well as teas and coffees. There are ancient implements and old prints to examine, and usually a welcoming fire. Dogs and children are welcome. Directions: Walk toward Rookhope. Opposite the Blanchland road go right, over a stile and footbridge. Go ahead, bending left when past the white building, then right on a track. Go through a gate, and left, uphill. After a cattle grid bear left when the track divides. Go through two metal gates to a white house. Just beyond, take a path left, then descend and go through a gate in the wall on your right. Cross the field to a stile, then on through a gate towards a stile by farm buildings. Pass in front of them to a wooden stile. Head downhill towards the village, to a ladder stile. After the stile, walk past buildings and turn right along the track for 0.75 mile (1.2km), going through three gates, then through a farmyard with two more. Follow the track beyond, uphill, to where it bends left. Turn left. As the track disappears, continue downhill to a stile. Turn left along the road. Just after a small lay-by, go right over a stile, signed ‘Weardale Way’. Cross the footbridge and climb the path opposite, bearing right. Walk through the field, go over a stile, then uphill to a stile on the ridge. Cross the lane and go through a kissing gate. Stay on the righthand side up the field, but in the next field, as you approach some old mine spoil, aim off left towards a gate by a static caravan next to a farmhouse. Continue between the house and the barn to a kissing gate on the far side of the yard. Cross the next field in line with the transmission poles. At the next buildings - Chestergarth House - go though the gate and bear right, along the back of the farm to a pair of gates on the far side by a shed. Take the left-hand gate and walk out into the field beyond a communications mast. Now drop steeply down to the bottom right corner of the field to meet the road. Turn right, then right again at the junction into Rookhope. Opposite Rookhope Post Office turn right on the signed uphill track. This is Boltslaw Incline, constructed in 1846. It linked the plant of the Wearside Lead Company on the hillside to the railway line. Wagons were hauled up the incline by a stationary steam engine - you will pass the remains of the engine house at the top of the rise, where it joined the line that looped east towards Consett - once England’s highest standard-gauge line. Follow the track past Lead Mining Trail and C2C National Cycle Network markers. This 140-mile (225km) route links the Irish and North seas. Starting on the Lake District coast, it crosses the North Pennines and ends at Sunderland or on Tyneside. Where the track bends left, follow the signs towards Consett and Sunderland. Go through a metal gate, still following the C2C cycleway. Continue through spoil heaps as the path levels out, passing ruins on your left. About 0.5 mile (800m) beyond, before a sheepfold, turn left across moorland.