Northumberland - Cheviots
by Derek Houghton
It has to be the Cheviots (pronounced CHEEVIOT), Clennell Street and I know, why not the Wheel Causey or The Street or The Salters' Road. Everyone has their favourites and this is mine. The word 'Clennell' means open grassland without any under wood, but the overspreading forestry works of the twentieth century belie this. Commencement is at Aiwinton, variously spelt in past centuries Allanton or Allenton in the cavalier way writers had. The parish of Alwinton is around 1800 twelfth century, it has been altered and repaired every hundred years or so culminating in the almost total rebuilding by the Victorian architect, G.Pickering, around 1851. The Victorians had a passion for "restoring" and sometimes they did not know when to leave well alone.
Sustenance can be obtained at the "Rose and Thistle" and a campsite is next to the pub. There were two pubs at one time, "Red Lion" being the other one, but now closed. After all this is really only a hamlet, not a village. Public transport is sparse if not indeed non-existent despite edicts by Mr Prescott on rural bus services. But you have two wheels, or three. I have not any record of a trike traversing Clennell Street, but it is certainly feasible. Parking is at the western end of the village.
Fed and watered, over the Hosedon Burn by a footbridge following to the right of Castle Hills, which is an iron age fort and settlement. Further on, and for the next mile and a bit, there are various settlements of medieval date on each side of the track. Only mounds remain, however, but they indicate that this valley must have been more heavily populated in the early middle ages. You will pass cross dyke, built ostensibly to delay cattle raiders in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, although it is hard to see how such a dyke cold have been much of a deterrent.
Moving further on the track bears left and divides, either will do as they rejoin shortly after. Before you plunge into the forestry by Wholehope Knowe you will pass a sad sight, the ex youth hostel of Wholehope, and all that remains of it is a bit gable end and wall. It was open from 1950 to 1965 on a self-wardening basis and most probably prior to that as a shepherd's cottage. Through the forestry and out again, skirting the trees on your right and looking to the south-west with various heights looking like slumbering whales.
Shortly after entering the forest again at Drummer's Well the track bears left and re-emerges at Well Cleugh, and on to the Clapham Junction of tracks, no fewer than six, where you cross the forestry road that leads up to Uswayford Farm.
Go northwards up the Hazely Slack below the Law of the same name. Careful here for the track is a bit rough, and take the right one (you have got a map haven't you?) which leads you between the two forests, and coming out to the summit ridge to the right is another crossing, The Salters' Road. This one is tough, at least I think so, and does require a lot of time.
A pause here on the Border Ridge at what is known as the Border Gate. Time for a snap/piece/bait/lunch - or luncheon if anyone is from the chattering classes of Hampstead or Highgate. Rest here a while for you have earned it. This is an area which is farmed for sheep and a small amount for cattle in the Croquet Valley. It has been said that nothing spoils the landscape more than too much money spent on it. This is not the case here; to keep communications open and farming operations ticking over, needs a modest amount. At this point, having arrived on the Border Ridge, you can, if you must, "do" the Cheviot. Beware, although only about 2 miles or so distant, the trig point is quite often inaccessible due to bogs and peat hags. You have been warned! Height, for the record, is 2676 ft. Into Scotland, down to Cocklawfoot is about two and a quarter miles, the way being twisty but unmistakable, passing various dykes of defensive nature.
Clennell Street is forgotten for the Scottish side and it is called Hexpeth Gate, gate meaning way or track, but I do not know the origin of Hexpeth.
From the start at Alwinton to the Border Fence you have been on a track with the status of a bridleway. From the fence, although used for centuries by packmen, farmers, cattle thieves, drovers and shepherds, the exact legal status is not clear but nobody challenges passage. Is there a minister of roads, paths and bridleways in the new, very expensive Parliament in Edinburgh? If not, there ought to be. Get prodding, Scottish RSF members.
You will find beyond Outer Cock Law and in between and around Haythorpe Know and White Know, medieval cultivation terraces known as lynchets, a plough's width on a slope most probably used for growing oats: certainly they took a lot of making.
The whole of the route is on O.S. Landranger No. 80, Cheviot Hills and Kielder Forest Area. Kirk Yetholm Y.H. is approachable via the Bowmont Water; but you are on your own on the English side, unless camping at Alwinton. You could, of course, sweetheart somebody to pick you up at your finishing end.