Bill's Walks

Sanctuary Way Stage 2 – Beamish to Wardles Bridge

Filed under: Sanctuary Way

Distance: 12 miles

Start: Eden Place Picnic Site, Beamish

Click to view start position on Google Maps

The village of Beamish is a relatively new creation, like many of the villages near here, being formed in 1873. Formerley Beamish referred to the lands surrounding Beamish Hall and was a parish of Tanfield. The new Beamish parish consisted of Stanley, Shield Row, Kip Hill, Ox Hill, East Kyo, East Stanley and Beamish Stables. At this time the population was expanding rapidly due to the opening of three coal mines where the coal seams could be up to 40 feet thick. Mines were opened at West Stanley in 1833, Air pit in 1849 and the Beamish Mary in 1883 – the latter lasting until1960. There was a fourth pit known as Chophill or Beamish No 2 and a row of houses were built to house some of the miners. This was known as Eden Row and was situated close to the Stanhope and Tyne railway. Eden Place where you are now standing and Eden Square were then built a little further to the North and the village then consisted of 70 houses, a school and a chapel. The winding house of this colliery still exists as it is the one rebuilt at Beamish Museum. The school had a capacity of 400 with an average attendance of 274. The village lasted until recent times when it was demolished to make way for the new road following the closure of Consett Steelworks.

Beamish Hall was the home of two prominent Durham families which were the Shafto family (Bobby Shaftoe) and The Eden family from which Sir Anthony Eden the former PM was descended. The name Beamish is derived from Old English – Bew Mys meaning beautiful mansions.

We leave Eden Place and go to the pub called the Shepherd and Shepherdess where there is an interesting story. The pub takes its name from the statues of a shepherd and shepherdess above the entrance. During the Napoleonic Wars there was a blockade on Britain and lead for arms was scarce. Lead was sometimes smuggled into the country in disguise and these statues arrived as lead for the war effort. They came under the ownership of the local squire and were not melted down but on a stormy night,  when one of the statues of an accompanying dog was destroyed, he tripped over one of them and gave them to the pub which obviously then changed its name!

We enter the wood at the top of the bank in the direction of Kibblesworth and head down through the wood to the old Pelaw to Consett Railway (now part of the Coast to Coast walk) and cross by the new bridge which l believe formerly served on the A167 in Low Fell to arrive at Peggys Wicket. We take the old road back towards Beamish Village and come to the memorial to those killed in the bombing of May 1st 1942. This raid has attracted a lot more interest recently as it was one of the biggest in the north east, killing 32 people – 11 at Wallsend, 6 at Longbenton and 6 at Beamish including the son of the Deputy Regional Commissioner. The most heavily bombed area was the Derwent Valley near Rowlands Gill where over 60 large bombs were dropped but the question is asked, why there? Indeed there were decoy sites at Gibside and Beamish but witnesses testify that the fires were not lit there that morning. It is widely thought that the target was Durham and the raid was a Baedeker Raid. These were retaliatory raids by the Germans after the destruction of some of their cathedrals and in the previous week Exeter, Bath and York had been attacked followed by Canterbury and Norwich the next week. That morning Durham City was covered by a layer of white mist and it is thought that in the dark the Germans mistook the bend in the Derwent River and the nearby viaduct as Durham and bombed it. The Beamish bombs were probably aimed at the railway to Consett.

We cross the A693 and enter Edenhill Plantation passing the cone statue of Colin Rose to arrive at the west end of West Pelton. Just along the road to the west was situated Twizell Colliery (1850-1934 ) which employed 400 people. The buildings here were demolished with only the Jingling Gate pub, now in disrepair, left to indicate the activity here. Twizell occurs several times in the north east and means a fork in the river (twist?). Other Twizells are near Ponteland and on the Till near Wooler where there is a famous bridge. We walk towards Twizell Hall and just before the entrance take a stile on the left to pass in front of the hall. After an awkward stile we cross the next field diagonally to the south-west to arrive at a gate and stile. We follow the edge of the next field to the bottom to drop into a dene and cross Twizell Burn by a footbridge. A steep ascent brings us into Craghead. Like most of these villages this was a quiet agricultural village until the mines opened. Some of the earliest Durham mines were in this area and Craghead opened in 1839 closing in 1969. A memorial to the mine gives the dates plus “Lest We Forget”. The mine employed 1500 people and a lot more information on Craghead can be found in the recent publication “Craghead Past and Present” by D. Rand and G. Nairn.

We go to the west end of Craghead and take the clear path to Hag Wood which we go through and continue in the same direction to Warland. Just down the road to the east is Holmside which is the oldest settlement here, being mentioned in the Boldon Book of 1183. Holmside is named after Holme which means “a plain grassy ground upon watersides or in the water” and was the ancient seat of the Tempests and Whittinghams. At a later date it became an estate of the Umfravilles. We proceed up Holmside Lane (however, at the time of writing in 2014,  there is a Permissive Path at the end of the first field after exiting Hag Wood which heads west and arrives at the minor road to Holmside Hall at Peartree Terrace which eliminates some road walking) turning right at Peartree Terrace to Holmside Hall where there is ancient and modern to be found. This is an old manor house and has a moat whilst the modern is the seven wind turbines nearby. Good cross country paths take us back to Craghead over land passed earlier and which has evidently been subject to open cast mining. We go through the back of Craghead where some of the old mine buildings serve as scrapyards and come to the site of the old tip. Here there is excellent and extensive tree planting which has masked this tip to create a mixed wood with walkers paths through it. We emerge on the road close to where the colliery line crossed the road and then enter the Woodland Trust Fox and Parrot Wood which is 33 acres of newly created woodland. We now recross the Twizell Burn and follow the footpath downstream to arrive at the Grange Villa road which is immediately crossed to another footpath which takes us to the east of the village via a small park. Heading north we pass houses on our left to come to Roseberry Grange Municipal Golf Course. This was built on the site of West Pelton Colliery which was another significant mine in the area. Old maps show the highest point here as Roseberry Topping, identical to the well known one in the Cleveland Hills. The name is Viking and comes from Viking “Odens Beorg” (Odins Hill) and the nearby Ousborough Wood passed on Stage 1 indicates early Viking settlement here.

We now go under the A693 to Handenhold which used to be Handenhowl meaning hollow in the dene and drop down to the Consett to Sunderland Railway Path which is followed west back to the start, noting the gradient that the heavy goods trains taking ore to Consett had to climb.