The Cheviot (NT909205)

The author conquers The Cheviot in 2007

The summit of the region’s highest mountain, The Cheviot, is an uninspiring affair. Its whaleback form covers a huge area – big enough, it was once said, to hold an army. Covered by a sticky peak bog, it has recently been made more accessible by the laying of large flags which guide one to the hefty trig point. Still, though, it’s worth a climb – if only to say you’ve done it.

• Location: North Northumberland, about 1 mile from the Scottish border to the west
• At 815m (2,674ft) it is the highest peak in the Cheviot Hills
• Outside of Cumbria, it is England’s highest mountain (if one includes Cumbria it is No.35 on the list)
• Most northerly major peak of the Pennine Way (via a slight detour)
• It forms part of a long-extinct volcano, created between 360-480 million years ago
• The present, giant summit marker is the third of of its kind – the previous two having sunk into the mire
• It is officially designated as a ‘Marilyn’
• Protected as part of the Northumberland National Park

The Cheviot Memorial (NT888252)

© Copyright Russel Wills and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

© Copyright Russel Wills and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

In the College Valley a little to the north of Cheviot summit lies a beautifully maintained WWII memorial. It is surely the most remote item of its kind in the UK, being kept company only by the sober and modest 1960s creation that is Cuddystone Hall. It was unveiled as recently as 1995 (the 50^th anniversary of VE Day), being a tribute to the Allied airmen who lost their lives in the hills thereabouts during 1939-45.

The front of the polished slate monument reads:

In

Memory

of

the Allied

Airmen

who lost their

lives on the

Cheviots

1939-45

Per Ardua Ad Astra

The Latin line is the RAF’s motto and means ‘Through adversity to the stars’. It was erected in a long overdue acknowledgement of not only the loss of the men involved in the thirteen individual incidents, but also of the brave efforts of those who ventured out into the hills on rescue missions in search of survivors. A map is inscribed on the top of the monolith showing the sites of the crashes, in which 30-odd men perished.

The 1995 ceremony was conducted in the presence of the Duke of Gloucester, as well as other dignitaries and those with connections to the airmen killed. It was restored in 2005.

Note: A German aircraft also met its fate in the Cheviots during WWII.

Mysteries of the Hurl Stone (NU039247)

 © Copyright Russel Wills and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

In the middle of a farmer’s field a couple of miles to the SW of Chillingham stands the Hurl Stone, a ten-foot high rough-hewn obelisk of unknown origin yet steeped in myth and legend. Hard facts are difficult to come by, but who needs ‘em?

First of all there is its name. Some speculate that it is derived from the ‘Earl’s Stone’ – though the identity of the gentleman in question is not known. It may have been an ancient standing stone (or cross) at one point, possibly relocated to its present spot by someone or other. Everyone’s  favourite theory, though, is that it was literally ‘hurled’ there by the Devil himself, who, when perched high upon the Cheviot, saw pesky St.Cuthbert going about his pious wanderings in the distance and threw the stone at him in anger.

The Hurl Stone is supposed to be the haunt of fairies, too. An underground passage some sixteen miles in length is supposed to pass under the stone (linking Cateran Hole in the east to Henhole in the west), which, when it was once explored in times of old, revealed evidence of underground fairy-like activity immediately beneath the stone. The adventurers didn’t hang around long enough to investigate further and scarpered sharp-ish.

Sorry to disappoint, but chances are that the Hurl Stone was once a medieval Christian cross which lost its top and was then recycled as a folly (of sorts) by someone with nothing better to do. Some attribute the act to a Mr Jobson, a local farmer, and that a bolt of lightning accounted for the missing couple of foot or so. 

Would you like to write a post for the 'North-East History Tour'? 

Click here for further details.

Don't be shy!

St.Cuthbert’s Cave (NU060352)

A famous local landmark, St.Cuthbert’s Cave is a large, natural sandstone feature 3½ miles west of Belford. It is not really a cave at all, but more of a rocky overhang – the sort of place where a couple of dozen ramblers could shelter from the rain without getting a splash on their cagoules.

(© Copyright pam fray and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence )

Indeed, for the walking enthusiasts of the region it is something of a must-have; like the summit of Cheviot or the Simonside Ridge. Reachable by any number of ways from almost any direction, it does, however, require a little more than pulling up in a car park and wandering across the tarmac. Belford, with its close proximity to the A1, provides as good a launch pad as any, with a pleasant eight-mile round trip on foot easily negotiated along the dotted lines of your trusty OS map.

Its claim to fame, of course, is that it is reputed to have been a resting place for the monks of Lindisfarne as they fled with the mortal remains of the revered saint from the Viking invaders in the late 870s. They wandered for several years until finding a home at Chester-le-Street – the saintly bits finding their way, eventually, to Durham, of course. Now the cave lies on the course of the aptly-named ‘St.Cuthbert’s Way’, a 62-mile footpath linking Melrose to Lindisfarne, so is never short of company. Not that it ever has, judging by the age of the graffiti etched into the rocks thereabouts.