A Path Not Taken – Until Now!

In my last blog I said we’d been out to Barnard Castle for a short walk. Now, our regular short walk from Barney is down the left bank of the River Tees to Abbey Bridge and then back on the other side of the river passing Egglestone Abbey (see blogs passim).

On the old path

Looking back to Barney

Lovely old gate fastening

And a delightful little walk it is, just a few miles, mostly on the level, with some quite stunning river scenery and a medieval abbey along the journey – and still plenty of time to explore Barney afterwards – assuming you are early in the day.

Egglestone Abbey

We usually follow the splendid Teesdale Way – one of the least used long-distance paths in the country, and which passes through some stunning countryside until it gets down to what used to be the industrial towns.

Now, I’ve always been aware that, on the outward journey to Abbey Bridge, there was a parallel footpath, running north of the Teesdale Way, which follows the river, but – like in the famous poem by Robert Frost – it was always the “road not taken”.

But as we were higher up in the town than usual, Annie suggested that we take the path instead. And I’m glad we did. As you may have gathered, I’m very interested in the history of our old paths, why they are there and so on? And I came to the conclusion that this beautiful path is probably older that the path that now follows the river itself.

My theory – and it’s just that, a theory – is that what is now the Teesdale Way river path is the younger of the two paths, once it passes what used to be the river mills. This higher path was, I suspect, the swifter way to travel between Barney and the Abbey Bridge, for anyone not using what is the present road.

The Way Back

A lovely path it is, with grand views over the countryside of County Durham – though it all used to be in Yorkshire before the ill-advised county boundary changes, which the new government would reverse if it had any sense (don’t hold your breath!)

And as you walk through these pleasant meadows, you not only look down on the Tees itself, but across to the ruins of Egglestone Abbey. The views reminded me of M.R. James’ famous ghost story A View From the Hill, in which an abbey is glimpsed from some distance away – a more sinister abbey. James was a beautiful describer of landscapes, the finest medievalist of his time and an expert of abbeys – he wrote a good book about them.

Not a long path this one, scarce more than a mile, and as worth walking as its riparian counterparts. It eventually hits the tarmacced highway to the bridge but, passing through a gate, the line of the right of way descends to the Tees, joining the Teesdale Way as it runs through a stretch of woodland.

We crossed the Abbey Bridge, following the Teesdale Way back past Egglestone Abbey, a delightful old bridge that is hundreds of years old, across more fields and back along the river to Barney.

Paths worth taking indeed…