A  walk on the waggonways of North Tyneside.

March 8th

When south east Northumberland and Tyneside were coal mining areas miles of waggonways were built to move coal from outlying mines to the river for export.  Since the mines closed many of the waggonways have been converted onto footpaths/cycle paths.

Today, Brian, Margaret and I are walking from Killingworth to Dinnington and back, making use of some of the waggonways.. We met at the small car park at the west end of Killingworth Lake.

The walk is covered by map OS Explorer 316 Newcastle upon Tyne although most of the walk is well signed.

            The car park at Killingworth. (free) Very popular with swans and geese as many people bring food for them.

We left the car park  and headed north on the road towards Burradon. At the first roundabout we crossed the road and headed west on a footpath next to the factory fence and well off the road. When we came to the East Coast railway line we turned south and after a couple of hundred yards crossed the track. There is a phone to call the signalman if you want but the section of track is straight and has good views both ways so we hurried across it on the footpath.

Over the line we turned right and walked a path alongside the track before walking beneath the A189.

          Top is possibly a view of the old Weetslade pit, the bottom is graffiti.

Following the waggonway we arrived at Weetslade Country park, built over the old pit heap. Very popular with local dog walkers, and non dog walkers. We walked round the hill and then climbed to the top to admire the three columns placed there. The point is one of the "Three Peaks" of North Tyneside, the others being in the Rising Sun country park (another old pit) and some point in Cobalt industrial park.

                     Badly focussed photo of the peak of Weetslade

From Weetslade we took the waggonway to Seaton Burn, crossed what used to be the A1, and continued on the old line, crossing the new A1, the only climb of the day as Brian remarked.

Turning left at a gate that had a sign post for Big Waters we soon arrived at the nature reserve. In a field there were three deer.  Big Waters is a large pond or small lake caused by mining subsidence. Today it is home to : swans, cormorants, moorhens, golden eye ducks ,grebes ,tufted ducks, mallard ducks and black headed gulls.

                          Big Waters

We watched for a while before moving on west across fairly muddy fields to the village of Dinnington where we stopped for a Herbie in St. Matthew's churchyard; Titans, savoury flapjack and cake from Mrs A. We chatted to an off duty policewoman too. She didn't book us for any perceived anti lockdown offence.

                     St Matthew's, Dinnington.

Lunch over we walked to the village centre, turned right and at the well signposted entrance to the waggonway turned right to follow it. It took us back to Seaton Burn where we chatted to two ladies out gathering litter in the area. 

We continued on the waggonway back over the old A1 to Weetslade country park and on to Burradon where we had a short rest in a Millennium park before finishing the last mile back to the cars and home.

Contains OS data, copyright. Crown copyright and database right 2021

The walk is just over 12 miles, muddy in places but flat and easy going.