If you were to cross the River Tyne on the Scotswood Bridge and then head west you might find yourself heading towards Ryton, Crawcrook or Prudhoe, or further west towards Stocksfield and Riding Mill. If you went south you might find the smaller villages of Greenside, High Spen or Chopwell and a little further south and west the village of Whittonstall.

This area consists of large urban areas with small villages and farms dotted between. In the past this area was mainly farmland but coal, lead and steel slowly took over and in doing so created the need for housing to cope with the ever increasing numbers of people required to work in these industries. This industry has mostly gone now but it has left behind multitude of minor roads and footpaths through this area.

It is these roads and footpaths we are going to use on the way to Whittonstall.  The A695 road is the one closest to the river on the south side of the Tyne and this is the route we are using as the start of all the walks. The first to start is the 10.5-mile route which begins just south of Crawcrook at Low Greenside. Further west along this road but before Prudhoe the 9.5 and 8.5-mile walks both start. All the routes then begin to make their way south and slightly west to the finish at Whittonstall.

All these routes are going to pass through places that you have probably never heard of and yet are only a few miles from the center of Newcastle. Have a look at the routes below and if you would like to join us for these walks you can get in touch with us from our Contact Page, you can also download the walk descriptions here and the GPS routes here.

As we have not finished at Whittonstall before the picture for this post was taken on our walk two weeks ago to Brampton. One of the groups are making their way along Hadrian's Wall Path towards Brampton.