Castles, chapel and cathedral. Life could be good as a bishop.................March 22nd


Yet again a trip to the Lake District was postponed because of the weather. Snow this time, which could have made the journey difficult. Some gadgies, with gadgettes, were away so the three of us who were left to keep the flag flying opted for a real gadgie walk, by bus.
Vm. mm, and bm caught the 10.05 X21 from the famous Eldon Square bus station and stayed on it all the way to Bishop Auckland, with the intention of walking back to Durham and busing home.
This walk is along another County Durham railway line, the Brandon Bishop Auckland Railway Path. It is very easy to follow but should you require a map OS305 (Bishop Auckland) and OS308 (Durham) cover the whole of the walk.

Continuing a series on car parks and bus stations, this is Bishop Auckland. The tall building, quite out of character with the town is called Vinovium House after the nearby Roman fort.
 ,It was a very cold day with the wind, having arrived from Siberia, adding several degrees to the actual temperature but in the negative direction so we decided to forego the usual bacon butty and get on with the job.
But first a bit about Bishop Auckland.
A pretty Durham town on the old Roman road Dere street. The Romans had a look-out post where the town now stands and a cavalry camp at Vinovia (Now Binchester) in the Wear Valley, foundations still to be seen but they look like most other Roman fort foundations. The camp was on the supply route to Hadrian's Wall.  Long after the Romans went  home the local Saxons built a church but the town really came to prominence in the 11th century when the Bishop of Durham thought it was a good place for a palace as the local forest provided some excellent hunting. Hence the word Bishop in the  town's name. The town is situated at the confluence of the rivers Wear and Gaunless (Gaunless being Norse for Useless. cf that great Yorkshire word gormless meaning silly, accident prone or not very intelligent.) It has been suggested that Auckland compares to the Scots Allt Clud almost as in Clyde.
Like many Durham towns Bishop Auckland prospered in the days of coal and has suffered some decline with the loss of that industry.
To return to the Bishop; he built a palace here, now the castle, and a chapel. The castle was used in preference to the bishop's residence in Durham Castle, much more convenient for the cathedral though it was! Durham Castle was given by the church to the new University of Durham in the mid 19th century.
The walk, at last.
We left the bus station in the north west corner and headed down the A689 to Newton Cap viaduct. Once a railway bridge, when Beeching swung his axe it was converted to a road bridge, and a fine one too.

                                                  Newton Cap Viaduct, click to enlarge.

                                      The River Wear from the viaduct. The Wearside Walk is another path to 
                                       be taken one day, at least as far as Durham.
Having crossed the viaduct we easily found the small blue sign that pointed us on our way down the old railway line to Durham. This first section of the walk is probably the most picturesque as it looks down on the river (and the local sewage works!) For about three miles we walked at a fair pace, to keep warm, chatting about the usual inconsequential things and, strangely, singing one or two Frank Sinatra standards. Amazing what cold weather can do to a body.
The path goes through the town of Willington, another old mining community hit hard by closures,  passing allotment gardens, untended because of the weather. Normally they would have been a hive of activity. Just beyond Willington is a large old building. We couldn't decide what it produced, but it seemed busy.

                                               If you know what it produces, pass it on please.
Between Willington and Brancepeth the walk passes through open country but as it is well loined with trees it is a bit difficult to see and admire. Near Brancepeth we made a Herbie stop, utilising a bench that offered little view but some comfort. Pieless and chocolateless we made a hurried meal, glad to be on our way because of the cold.

                                                 A winter's day, in a deep and dark March.
Not too far from Brancepeth the railway walk took us alongside a fairly new housing estate as we entered  Brandon, another ex mining town.. The area that had been Brandon pit had been transformed into a smart sports ground and if you look at the map carefully you will see that the path took us round three sides of the cricket ground!

                                            Brandon cricket ground. It was very cold today,
                                             the season starts in a couple of weeks.
                                                        Ah! The English summer game.

                                               The information board at Brandon Pit.
                                      The area is called the Ponderosa but here was no
                                  sign of Ben, his young bride or grown up sons Little Joe,
                                               Adam or Big Hoss. Out rustling ?
Not far from Brandon, near Langley Hall Farm, the footpath leaves the railway track and goes down a steep path on the right, crosses the River Deerness by a footbridge and then climbs steeply to join the Deerness Valley Walk. There are even signs to tell you the path is steep! Soon we joined the Lanchester Valley Walk, but only for a short distance. Turning right at a rather elaborate signpost saying Durham1 mile we went through a farmyard at Baxter Wood, across a field and across the River Brownie.

                                          Turn right for Durham.
 Once over the river we turned right, following the sign for Neville's Cross Battle.

                                              Head for the battlefield...............

                                          .......................along the River Brownie.
We followed the path, turned right up the lane and emerged at the footbridge built to commemorate the famous battle.

                      Somewhere near here, on October 17th 1346 the Scots lost away to the English

                                           How the teams lined up for the battle.
Once across the bridge we headed towards Durham, finding the footpath between the houses that took us down to the bus station.

                   Another railway viaduct, in use too. It carries the main line between
                                                  London and Edinburgh

                                           Couldn't resist it. Isn't it magnificent.
                We caught the first bus heading to Newcastle and went to The Five Swans,  a Wetherspoons hostelry close to the centre of the city and offering, among a few others, London Pride and Abbot. I suffered a couple of  Abbot and caught the bus home..
   Matrix MMCCVI
                                                             steps                           miles
ASDAPED                                         23566                            11.07

Higear                                                 23355                            11.046   (right trousers today)

Dave's ASDAped                               23162                            11.11
LIDLUSB                                          22976                             11.24
OUTDOORGPS                                                                       11.62
Measured by Dave                                                                    11.4
Measured by me                                                                       11 .3
Pretty good eh!

 

 Bird of the blog: we saw kestrels, crows, families of finches and families of tits, nut the winner today is the jay

Jay

 

                                                             Still having problems enlarging photographs

Seven Golden Gadgies go walking up the Schil
March 15th

The forecast was for rain in the west again so the proposed trip to the Lake District was postponed again and we decided to stay on the drier east side of the country and walk the Schil from Hethpool.
To get to Hethpool take the A1 north, turn onto the A697 at Morpeth, turn left onto the B6351 at Akeld north of Wooler and watch out for a signpost pointing left for Hethpool. Follow this road for a couple of miles and just past the row of cottages cross the cattle grid and use the car park on the left.
This car park is at the entrance to the College Valley which is private and accessible bycar only with a pass (twelve vehicles a day) obtainable from John Sales in Wooler for a fee of £10. In the lambing season, which is probably now passes are not available.

Of course we stopped in Wooler for breakfast at the Terrace cafe where we were welcomed as old friends. Still worth five flitches +T. (New category, the T means the cafe has a toilet, useful information for Dave in particular.)
There are seven out today, pm, vm, km, mm, rm, hm and bm. A map is advisable, OL16 The Cheviot Hills covers the whole walk and the car park is at NT894280

                                Yet another in my growing collection of car park photographs.
Hethpool's main claim to fame is that the hall was at one time occupied by Admiral Lord Collingwood, Nelson's second in command at Trafalgar. He can't have lived there long as he spent most of his adult life at sea. He has a huge memorial statue at Tynemouth. The name Hethpool probably means "heathery pool" but some experts think it could be connected to Hertha, a goddess.
There are several hillforts in the area, one called Great Hetha and one called Little Hetha and there is a hillfort trail for another day.
From the car park we walked back past the row of cottages and the pond outside Hethpool House.
After a short walk along the road we turned left on the track that leads to Elsdonburn Farm, a small, isolated settlement. The path continues round the farm on St. Cuthbert's Way and across fields before entering a small plantation.

                                             Rows of conifers, I hate them, give me a good old
                                          English deciduous wood.
The next part of the walk took us over rough moorland. Dave (vm) said he had pulled a muscle in his calf. Brian (pm) said he should get a bottle of calf medicine. He's a one that lad.
This part of the walk took us briefly, across the border into Scotland. We had a good view of the bivallate hill fort on Green Humbleton, a hill east of Kirk Yetholm. We have often walked to the Schil from this town. It is also the northern end of the Pennine Way, the long distance path that starts in Derbyshire. You are entitled to a free glass of beer at the Kirk Yetholm pub when you have finished the walk. You deserve it.

                                                 Green Humbleton plus hill fort.
So far we have been heading generally west but at this point the path joins the "upper" Pennine Way* and turns south east then south. There are a number of earth works and cairns along the route as it follows the border fence. Walking alone at the time I was unable to ask archaeologist Dave which bumps were definitely cairns but this could be one.

                                                Beneath this bump there lie remains
                                                Of  a long dead chieftainor some thanes.

The Pennine Way here is a series of ups and downs, seems like more ups, but the views are worth the effort and it wasn't a particularly clear day. To the east the sea, to the south the Schil and the Cheviot  to the west the area round Carter Bar and to the north west the border hills round Jedburgh.

                                                    Looking towards The Schil.
Thye path leaves the border fence for a short while with Black Hag on the left. Fear not, hags in the case means the peaty bogs that abound and are messy enough in dry weather, never mind a day like today following a fall of snow.
A stile brought us back into England and we settled down behind the sheltering wall for a Herbie Stop. Still no pies, Dave is taking this warning about processed meat far too seriously. Thank Ben for the ginger biscuits and Aldi for the chocolate. We chatted gaily, in the old fashioned sense, teased Dave for his inflatable cushion and told stories that are not for a family publication. Meanwhile Harry (rm but also snapmeister) set up his tripod and took another team photograph which will be added when it arrives.

                               Meanwhile, the photographer photographed to coin a phrase.
Lunch over we made the final climb, which is steep and rocky to the top of the Schill. Three of us went to play on the rocky summit.

 

 

 

                                                 The rocky top of the Schil
I love this walk because of the views, down the College Valley and over to the Hen Hole on the Cheviot. Quite independently Ben and I thought that in today's conditions and with some snow remaining the Hen Hole looked like one of Wainwright's** sketches.

                                                         The Hen Hole on the Cheviot.
I have tried to find a meaning for Schil but have failed. Harry suggested it could be similar to the Scottish mountain Schiehallion but this means "the fairy hill of the Caledonians" from Gaelic. "The Skelligs" are a group of jagged rocks of the Irish coast and the word comes from the Gaelic Na Scealaga meaning "the splinters".  There is a group of jagged rocks on the summit of the Schil.
Harry and I were enjoying playing on the top we didn't notice the other five had left to go downhill. We decided to head due east down the steep side of the hill towards the delightfully named Mounthooly.  We eventually saw the others who had continued a short way along the border fence before also heading down. We all met up at the Mounthooly  Youth Hostel which must be one of the more isolated hostels. We should stay sometime.

                                              Harry's hand and Mounthooly.

 From here the path back follows the road in the bottom of the valley. As a rule gadgies do not like walking on metalled roads but this valley is so beautiful nobody minds. Nothing to do with education the name College Valley refers to the marshy "letch" or stream that runs north in the valley bottom.

                                                     A view of The Bizzle on the Cheviot.
 The next farm along the road has the interesting name Fleehope!
Beyond this is the memorial to allied airmen killed in crashes in the area during World War II

                                                                 The war memorial

                                                            Reverse side

                                                          General view

                                                           The Valley Hall near the memorial.

                                                  Side stream entering the valley.

                                                 And three general views of the College Valley
Back at the cars and changed we headed home, calling at the Anglers Arms for refreshment, Timothy Taylor's, Jennings Bitter or Directors. Of course it gets three barrels.
Not the best of days for the keen ornithologists among us. Jackdaws, crows and a few small birds, but we spotted three kestrels.

                                                      Kestrel, bird of the day.

Matrix MCMLDIV

Dave, who did a slightly longer walk

                                                             steps                     miles                 stride (inches)

ASDAPED                                       27684                       12.18                      28
LIDLUSB                                        27252                        12.03                      28

Me
ASDAPED                                       20190                        10                            30   Wrong
Higear                                               20276                        9.59                         30   trousers

Brian's GPS said 12.1 and so did the Ben bragometer.
 OUTDOORGPS gave 11.2 miles for the route Harry and I took and I measured it as 11.1
Dave has measured his route as 12.1 miles. Pretty good apart from my peds.

                                                       AMBULO ERGO SUM
 * At this point the Pennine Way offers two routes for a while,one at a higher level and one down a valley.
** Alfred Wainwright author of guide books on Lakeland walking, illustrated by line drawings.

                                                                                                   DD, Ben, John

                       СНОВА В РОССИЯ 
                   
                               PART TWO

               Я ЛОБЛИО  САИНKT ПЕТЕРБУРГ


  When we were kids in the late forties and fifties anybody who had been abroad was considered pretty posh. This of course excluded fathers, uncles neighbours and teachers who had travelled in North Africa, Italy, France, Germany and the far east.  Come to think of It anybody with a phone was doing pretty well, and cars were few and far between on our street.
  since then I have managed to visit quite a few of the world's cities including most European capitals.
Of the cities I have seen I can't decide which of St. Petersburg and Prague is the most beautiful. Prague is much older than the Russian city and fortunately escaped being damaged in WWII, but St. Petersburg has been fascinating since my first visit when it was still Leningrad.
 So when daughter Kate suggested we have a week of culture in the former Russian capital I agreed immediately. One day in April we flew from Heathrow in a small Russian built aircraft, a Tupelev as I remember. The accommodation was fairly basic and we were the the only English people on board. We were made very welcome. After touchdown the plane taxied close to the terminal and we disembarked and walked through the glass doors which were immediately closed and locked, ours was the last flight of the day.  Once through customs (stared at from a glass booth again) we looked for a taxi. The fare was fifty dollars, take it or find a bus and the rank was organised by a very large man in a leather coat. We took the taxi to our hotel, The Moskva, a Soviet style building at the far end of Nevsky Prospect, the main street in the city. The rooms were fairly basic  but the shower was hot, the TV got BBC World but only during the day and the view was of the River Neva and a tram stop.

                                              Гостиница  Москва  Moscow Hotel.
A VERY BRIEF HISTORY
Peter the Great, the man who had worked as a carpenter in Chatham Docks, ordered the construction of a fortress on Hare Island near the right bank of the Neva in 1703. Its purpose was to defend the area from the Swedes, can you really imagine those nice Scandinavians wanting to invade Russia ?
They did. The Peter and Paul Fortress is now a museum,complete with a cathedral,the resting place of several Tsars, including Nicholas II.
Peter decided to build his capital on Vasilyevsky Island and it housed the the University and several Academies.
The centre of the city on the left bank of the Neva also started as a fortress, to defend the Admiralty shipyard. From this beginning the city grew, rapidly, and also at the cost of a lot of workmen forced to labour on the marshy land. The Winter Palace was started in 1754, the Hermitage in 1764, followed by a host of minor palaces for the aristocracy and a series of royal palaces several miles out of the city.
 The government of Russia was moved to the new capital and of course the city was at the centre of the Boshevik revolution. The communists moved the government back to the Kremlin in Moscow and renamed Peter's city Leningrad. During the Second World War (Great Patriotic War) the German army laid siege to the city for approximately 900 days and damaged much of it with bombs and artillery.  With the collapse of the Soviet Union the city was renamed St. Petersburg.
Back to
Across the road from the Moskva is the Saint Alexander Nevsky Monastery which is one of the few lavras (major monastery) in Russia. Named for Alexander Nevsky who defeated those invading Swedes in 1240 and was canonised for his efforts.

                                             St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

And across the road from the Lavra is a cemetery containing,amongst others, Tchaikovsky.

The week of culture began next day and where else but at the Hermitage/Winter Palace Museum. The palace was the home of the Tsars and defies description. The state rooms drip opulence, the corridors themselves are art galleries. The palace was designed by Francesco Bartelemeo Rastrelli and built between 1754 and 1762. The Small Hermitage was added between 1764 and 1765 and the the Old Hermitage between 1771 and 1787. The date of the founding of the museum is considered to be 1764 when Catherine the Great acquired paintings from Western Europe. I don't know if she let the peasants in but no wonder the Bolsheviks were gobsmacked when they stormed it. It has been said that the company of revolutionaries who found the royal wine cellars drank for a week, and hardly made an impact on the Romanovs' collection.

The throne room.

But it contains not only art, there are collections of artifacts from all over the ancient world, Egypt, Greece, Rome and other civilisations.(Including some from Britain)

                                                     Outside the palace

                                                             and inside.

                                              Alexander Square from the palace.
There are two prices for entering museums and galleries in Russia, a lower one for locals and a higher one for foreign tourists. The Yorkshire blood immediately recognised the challenge and we asked for two tickets at the kiosk for locals, only to be directed to the one for tourists. Even so the Hermitage is worth every penny or kopek. Somebody has come up with one of those ridiculous statistics that if you spent one hour in each room or gallery it would take you 43 years to see every exhibit. Not having 43 years we wandered the art galleries for several hours.
A good way to see some of the museum without going there is to watch the film The Russian Ark, a strange film taking you through some Russian history and filmed all in one take.
Outside again we finished the day by admiring "The Bronze Horseman", a statue of Peter the Great erected by Catherine the Great. The statue is after a model by a Frenchman, Etienne Falconet  It is supposedly the first equine statue to successfully show a horse reared on its hind legs.
The statue is inscribed in Latin and Russian; "To Peter the First from Catherine the First".



The Bronze Horseman.

Unseen in the picture is the serpent beneath the horse's hooves.



Next day we visited the Museum of Ethnography, (failing to pass the entrance test and paying full price) which displayed the lives of the various peoples who made up the Russian Empire from the Baltic to the Pacific.

                                            The  Museum of Ethnography.

Although it is nearly always interesting to see the lifestyles of other people the real highlight of this fascinating museum for me was the yurt.

The world's greatest Standard 2 teacher, Mrs Whitehead, who filled our 9 year old heads with tales of Eskimos, (whoops, Inuits), Africans who rode British made bicycles around The Gold Coast as it then was, also introduced us to the yurt, the portable home of the peoples of Asia.

And here, in St. Petersburg, was the first one I had ever clapped eyes on. Magic.

                                                  Obviously not the museum yurt. This is a Mongolian yurt.

It is currently fashionable in the United Kingdom to holiday in a yurt on a campsite. Naturally they have all mod cons and you probably don't share the site with sheep or camels.

The evening's entertainment was either the ballet or a rock concert. The rock concert was brilliant. I think the group was called Aquarius but will be pleased if somebody can correct me on this. They performed for two hours at least. I didn't understand a word but they were terrific and I think I can claim to have been the oldest person in the audience.

No visit to St. Petersburg would be complete without a visit to the point where it all started, the Peter and Paul Fortress on Hare Island. The fort has never been involved in battle, in Tsarist days its dungeons were used by political prisoners and the Peter and Paul Cathedral within the walls is the resting place of the Tsars. (including now the remains of Nicholas II and his family.)

During the seige  in World War II its gilded spire was painted over so as not to act as a beacon for German bombers. In a trap door in the spire workers found a note written by by their 19th century counterparts complaining about low pay and hard conditions. Nothing changes.

                                             Interior of Peter and Paul Cathedral

  

                                               The spire of the cathedral.

 Another modern history lesson

Britons of my age were brought up to believe that the Empire, with a little help from the Americans, defeated the Nazis in Europe. It is only as you get older you realise that the major sufferers and contributors to the defeat of Germany were the Russians. The city of Leningrad was beseiged for 900 days, thousands left the city, thousands stayed and died, many of the buildings, especially the palaces outside the city were badly damaged. Not surprisingly therefore, and quite rightly there are memorials and museums dedicated to the seige. We visited the small Museum of the Seige and to be honest it had its amusing moment. Having paid our entrance fee (Full price!) we entered the first room which had a display of German uniforms and equipment. The lady keeping an eye on the display, and us, began to lecture us on the things we had done to her city. She got quite irate. When we pointed out we were Britiah she changed immediately and gave us a personal conducted tour of the whole museum. The most moving part is the display of a single slice of bread, the daily adult ration at the height of the seige.* But we got an egg a week!

                                               Museum of the Defence of Leningrad.

                                  The guns have been added since we were there.

Memorial to the Defence of Leningrad.

Memorial to Partisans

                                               Cemetry of Victims of the seige.

Its museums like this make me realise that we are the luckiest generation for a long, long time.

Requiring something a little less depressing the following day we took a hydrofoil a short distance to the Great Palace at Peterhof. Begun in 1710 as a mere two storey palace it was demolished and rebuilt in 1745. As we approached the palace a small orchestra, dressed in 18th century clothes struck up the British National anthem for us. (How did they know?) Thanking them as only polite Britons do we walked on only to be chased by one member of the orchestra who asked, in English, if we knew where a small group of people approaching came from. They sounded Italian, we told them, so they got the Italian anthem.

The Duchess of Northumberland built a garden at Alnwick Castle, including a staircase of fountains. It's good but not a patch on......................

The Grand Palace

                                                     Side view

                                                    Samson gets to grips with the lion.

Not satisfied with a single Great Palace the parklands around it boast the Palace of Marlay, the Monplaisir Palace and the Cottage Palace, (quite small, OK for a weekend) and the Hermitage Pavillion. The palaces and grounds were badly damaged in "The Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 but soon after its end a rebuilding and restoration programme was started. This I think says a lot about a country that was devasted.  On the other hand, seeing all these palaces I'm not surprised there was a revolution!

Not having had enough of palaces the next day we took a bus out to Tsarskoye Selo (Tsar's Village) to take in the Great Catherine Palace and Alexander Palace, conveniently nearby in case there were extra guests. Nicholas II and his family were kept in the latter for a while before being shipped out to Ekaterinburg where, eventually, they were executed, apart from Anastasia of course.

                                                  The Great Catherine Palace.

Like the palaces at Peterhof these buildings were severely damaged but have been lovingly restored.

Inside is the famous amber room, the walls of which were removed and taken to Germany.Much of it has been found and restored.

                                      You can't do that with Dulux: The Amber Room

At the back end of the seventies a West Indian group called Boney M had several hits including one called "Rasputin"  which included the lines

                                                                   Ra Ra Rasputin

                                                          Lover of the Russian Queen.

My eight year old liked it but I had given up on popular music about 1972.

 It is doubtful that the monk Grigory Rasputin was the Tsarina's lover although he is supposed to have been more than friendly with several ladies, and men, of the court. He had certainly gained the confidence of the Royal Household, was said to be able to help the haemophiliac son of the Tsar, but the aristocracy feared he had begun to influence the running of the war (World War I) which wasn't going too well for the Russian team. In December 1916 Prince Felix Yusopov, one of the nations richest men led a small group of like minded aristos who failed to poison Rasputin so shot him and dumped his body in the Neva. It didn't do the war effort much good as events the following year showed.

However it made our trip round the Yusopov Palace that bit more interesting. We joined a guided tour but as a non Russian speaker I was given a walkman with a commentary in English to listen to as we wandered the corridors and apartments of the palace. It was of course magnificent and even had its own theatre.

Felix was put under house arrest for the murder and after the abdication of NicholasII he wisely took his family, plus a few jewels off to Yalta where a British warship took them to Malta. Eventually the family settled in Paris and Felix lived until 1967.

He successfully sued a film company for misrepresentation in a film Rasputin and the Empress.  If he had lived another10 ytears or so he could have sued Boney M for a lousy song.

Nice palace though.

                                                    The Yusopov  Palace

The city has a number of cathedrals, several built in the western classical style, one being St. Isaacs.

                                                         St. Isaacs cathedral

and one being the splendid Kazan Cathedral, under the Soviet regime it was a museum of atheism!





The Kazan Cathedral

Built between 1801 and 1811 and modelled on St. Peter's in Rome it has amemorial to Marshal Kutuzov, the military chief who engineered the victory against Napoleon in 1812.

Having been brought up in aprotestant country I don't like icons or the idea behind them but this particular cathedral has an icon deicated to Our Lady Of Kazan one for St. Nicholas the miracle worker and one for Our Lady of the Enduring Cup.

                                                       Our Lady of Kazan.

There are also cathedrals in the more traditional style similar to St. Basil's in Moscow with the familiar onion domes. The most famous being the Cathedral of the Resurrection (Our Saviour on the spilt Blood). This was built between 1883 and 1907 on the spot where Tsar Alexander II was mortally wounded by a terrorist in 1881.

                                                Cathedral of the Resuurection.

It would not do to write about this city without a brief mention of the man who gave his name to it for so many years, Vladimir Lenin, nee Ulyanov. After all the city is the birthplace of the revolution that produced a state and a system that lasted about 80 years .

                                                     Here he is, pointing as usual outside the Smolny Institute, the school for the daughters of gentlefolk that became the headquarters of the Bolsheviks for a time.

I could go on, but this is meant to be a taster so I'll leave it there.

* A good book on the siege:

The 900 days The Siege of Leningrad  by Harrison E Salisbury.