Bishop Auckland is in County Durham and while we have finished at several places in the county we have never finished in Bishop Auckland before. There are three walks setting out from the start around Sunderland Bridge and fortunately Sunderland Bridge is just south of Durham City and not Sunderland so that saves us quite mileage.

The routes all tend to go roughly the same way within a sort of triangle with the point of the triangle on Sunderland Bridge. On the left hand side is the River Wear and the A167 and A688 roads form the right hand side. There is plenty of room for the routes to go their separate ways but initially they start off roughly together.

The 10 and 8-mile routes start just north of Sunderland Bridge and come through Coldstream Woods, heading towards Whitworth Park. Here, the 10-mile route turns north on Whitworth Road and crosses Page Bank Bridge to walk along the Weardale Way. Just north of Bishop Auckland the route joins a disused railway path which brings it directly into the town.

The 8-mile route goes south on Whitworth Road and joins another disused railway path that takes it to Auckland Park and Auckland Castle which is the Bishop of Durham’s official residence in Bishop Auckland.

The 9-mile route starts just south of Sunderland Bridge and also goes through Coldstream Wood but takes a different route to Whitworth Park and a different route again to join the 8-mile route along the disused railway path to Bishop Auckland.

If you haven’t been to Bishop Auckland before then now is your chance. So if fancy doing one of these routes you can get in touch with us from our Contact Page, you can also download the walk descriptions  here and the GPS route here.

We have no images available for Bishop Auckland so the image for this post was taken on our last walk from Keswick to Braithwaite.