A HIDDEN TRIBUTARY OF THE TEES.
By Anthony Toole.
The source of Hudeshope Beck lies somewhere on the high watershed that divides the Tees from the Wear. Fed by boggy springs, it cuts a valley southward, past outcrops of limestone and grit, to flow into the Tees at Middleton. Despite its proximity to this popular tourist centre, it has something of an air of inaccessibility. A narrow road that one might easily miss, leads north out of the town, and after rising for a mile, contours to a point half way along the valley, where it performs a right-angled turn. A short distance farther, it bends back again, and returns to Middleton along the opposite slope. Around its most northerly reaches lie the abandoned relics of one of the major mining complexes in the North Pennines.
At 7.30 on one of the hottest mornings of summer, I left the car at the northernmost limit of the road, just west of a large quarry. The sky was clear, the sun dazzled as I walked toward it, and the dew had not yet cleared from the grass. Where the road turned sharply to cross a bridge over a narrow gorge, I took the public footpath steeply uphill, then the zig-zag track through the quarry spoil heaps. I paused occasionally to look back at the derelict structures of the Coldberry Mine, on the far side of the valley, and the deep gash of Coldberry gutter, which cut into the skyline above.
A gate in a dry stone wall led to open hillside and a gentler rise to the pass. Dozens of newly shorn sheep cropped the moor grass. A flock of lapwings flew overhead. Two small tarns, more than half dried to mud, marked the top of the pass. Beyond these, the land rose to the summit of Monk’s Moor, while across the slope marched a line of shooting butts.
I moved off in the opposite direction, to the retaining wall of what had once been a pond, probably feeding water to one of the mining hushes lower down. In this method of mining, water at high pressure was pumped onto the land to wash away soil and lighter rock, leaving the denser lead ore exposed for collection. Though this procedure was employed extensively in the area, it proved inefficient, and devastated the land on the lower slopes. It was abandoned in 1840. The pond is now dry and its wall serves only as a rabbit warren, or perhaps a shelter for the curlews, oystercatchers and golden plovers that populated the slopes.
I continued through purple patches of Erica, and ling that was not yet in flower, and over a low wire fence linking stretches of wall. Cross Fell and Great Dun Fell made their first appearance over the hills to the west. The slope was rough and tussocky, but eased where the peat had been washed away to bedrock. Heather was replaced by cloudberry. Areas of peat hag were made less arduous by the dry, cracked nature of the mud. This would not be a walk to tackle on a wet day, and route-finding would be difficult in misty conditions, particularly if one’s map-and-compass skills were wanting.
The tentative tracks of a vehicle brought me past a fir tree that stood alone in this boggy wilderness, where it had no right to survive. As the terrain levelled out, I reached the fence that crossed Outberry Plain. The summit, marked by a half-hearted cairn, was too broad and flat to be spectacular, but it stretched away to the north before dipping into Weardale, the higher slopes of which just peered over the rim.
I followed the fence westward along a track broken by hollow and peat hag. Then a wooden causeway joined me up the slope from the south. It looked to weak to support a vehicle, and the desiccated bark on the logs crackled underfoot. Yet a short gap, past the trig point of the next summit, was filled with wheel tracks.
I turned south from this summit, over more rough ground, and through channels between head-high peat hags. These open onto a long grassy slope leading down to a wall, which I followed through deep bracken, past a small limestone crag and across Hudeshope Beck to a track that brought me back to the road.
A week later, I was back to look at the more southerly parts of the valley, which were not only more accessible but appeared to be more interesting. Again, it was early in the morning when I left Snaisgill, on the eastern side, about a mile out of Middleton. A public footpath led across a field to a stile over a wall. Beyond this, the path became confused by numerous sheep tracks, but came eventually to a gate that opened onto moorland. The track continued alongside the wall, then followed a series of shooting butts past a ruined, metal-walled shed and across a heather plateau to the summit of Monk’s Moor. The ascent from Snaisgill had taken me less than an hour.
The summit was ringed by a boulder scarp that resembled a collapsed crag. Indeed, small though they are, these boulders have been used as a training venue for a small number of rock climbers. I picked a way through the boulders, around a network of sheep folds and past the ruined shed to re-join the track to the valley.
By the time I reached the car, the previously overcast sky had cleared and the day promised to be hot. In twenty minutes, I was parked by the rubble road that led to the Coldberry mines.
The mines date back to the 1730s, though it was the nineteenth century that saw their greatest prosperity. The buildings are well preserved and stand amid the spoil heaps that scar the hillsides. I spent some time wandering around some of the multitude of tracks that snaked between the numerous drift mines, looking for the occasional nugget of galena, then continued up to Coldberry Gutter.
This proved to be amazing. It is visible from much of Hudeshope valley and from parts of Teesdale. It cuts such a deep gash, just below the summit of Hardberry Hill, that one feels that it must be natural, despite its incongruity. In fact, it is entirely man-made, being the largest mining hush in the north of England. Its walls are steep, with a craggy rim, on which birds can nest undisturbed. Above and to the north, and still full, is the dammed reservoir, which once provided the water that scoured this huge cleft. From the southern rim, the view takes in almost the length of Teesdale, and is of a finer quality altogether than those to be seen from the higher and more remote summits around the head of Hudeshope Beck.
I sat in the depths of the hush to drink a cup of tea from my flask, and casually picked up a few more pieces of galena before making a leisurely descent. When I reached the car, it was still not yet noon.