Christopher Somerville

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window


If the River Gelt got its name from the old Irish geilt, meaning ‘madman’, that wouldn’t be surprising. When swollen with rain, the Gelt roars and dashes itself against the confining rocks of its sandstone gorge like a wild thing as it hurtles down to meet the River Irthing near Brampton. Today, in a spell of settled weather, it went bubbling and twisting under Low Gelt Bridge.

The path skirted the edge of an enormous quarry, screened away behind gorse and broom. The air was full of the rich scent of sun-warmed bracken and the snap of broom pods releasing their seeds. Suddenly the trees thinned and the view opened westward across the peachy-orange sand diggings to a line of far-off low hills along the Scottish border.

A lovely afternoon was unfolding as we climbed the flank of Watch Hill, with sunlight striking down through the beech leaves. More westward prospects shaped themselves in the distance – a gleaming finger of water that was the Solway Firth with the blue hump of Criffel mountain beyond, and then a crumple of high country, the north-easternmost fells of the Lake District.

Two labradoodles came bounding up, grimy and ecstatic after a plunge in the stickiest, blackest bog they could find. Beyond Tow Top we crossed a railway in a deep cutting; then, reaching Greenwell, we reunited with the Gelt and turned back to follow it home.

On the steep grassy river bank we paused to munch green apples and look for dippers on the stones that the Gelt had mounded up in vigorous floods. Alder, rowan with scarlet berries and huge old crack willows grew along the banks. Once more we crossed the river at Middle Gelt in the shadow of a tall railway viaduct, built as long ago as 1835, one of the first skew or slanted bridges ever constructed. The contractor, John McKay, assembled a model made out of pieces of turnip, which he whittled and reshaped until he was certain the design would actually stand up.

We walked homeward at the river’s brink under cliffs of sandstone where ancient quarry faces stood a hundred feet tall. Roman soldiers excavating stone in 207 AD for repairs to nearby Hadrian’s Wall had left graffiti in the rocks, we’d been told – cartoon faces, and the name of their overseers, Agricola and Mercatius. We failed to find these imprints from the past, but enjoyed marvelling at the patterned incisions made by the saws and chisels of two millennia of sandstone quarrying above the ‘mad river’.

How hard is it? 6 miles; moderate; riverside paths. NB some slippery steps and stumbly tree roots in Gelt Woods, muddy in parts.

Start: Low Gelt Bridge car park, near Brampton, Cumbria CA8 1SZ approx. (OS ref NY 520591)

Getting there:
Road: From A69/A689 roundabout just south of Brampton, head south on A69. In ½ mile cross River Gelt; in 100m sharp left to Low Gelt Bridge. Right across river; right into car park.

Walk (OS Explorer 315): Back across bridge; left; in 150m left (521589, fingerpost ‘Tow Top’). Follow path and ‘Tow Top’ signs for 1½ miles to road at Tow Top (528571). Left; in 100m, right (‘bridleway, Greenwell’) across railway (530570). At road junction, ahead (532569, ‘No Through Road’). In ½ mile at Greenwell, left (536565, step stile/gate) on riverside path. In ½ mile at road (533572), right; under viaduct. Right across river; left (533573) on path beside river (fingerpost ‘Gelt Woods’) for 1⅔ miles back to car park.

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: Howard Arms Hotel, Front Street, Brampton CA8 1NG (01697-742758, howardarms.co.uk)

Info: edenriverstrust.org.uk

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window


A rich scent hung over Arnside, the smell of the sea and of new mown hay. They were raking the fields on one side of the station, while on the other the tide was going out along the Kent Estuary towards the sandy immensities of Morecambe Bay.

We climbed up a walled lane away from the little resort town, peaceful green paths leading into Red Hills Wood. ‘Beautiful bluebells here in spring,’ confided the dog-walking lady we met on the path, ‘and you should just see the wild daffodils down at Far Arnside.’

From the crest of Arnside Knott we got a most sensational view. Huge sprawling sands were uncovering themselves as they slid free of the sea’s grey blanket, the River Kent a sinuous coil of silver, its seaward movement seen as a writhing snake among the tan and mauve sandbanks. To the north and west, beyond a green apron of marshland fringing the estuary, stood the rugged profiles of the Furness Fells and the outlying fells of south Lakeland. The fingers of other peninsulas reached their long tips out into the margin of the great sands.

We crossed the grassy top of Arnside Knott among juniper, yew, gorse and brambles. A solitary walker inched like an ant far below, dwarfed by the sands he was striding on. A topograph gave further clues about the distant peaks and ridges to the north – Helvellyn and Striding Edge, Skiddaw and Bowfell, Coniston Old Man and the westward hump of Black Combe – all these in view from the Knott’s modest elevation of 770 ft.

Down at Park Point we found a slanting ledge of rock from which to scramble down onto the shore. Jane went barefoot on the ribbed sand while I clambered over the limestone rubble in boots, looking for fossils. Rounding Blackstone Point we found the outgoing Kent’s channel suddenly near at hand, with a fine view up the estuary to the centipede legs of Arnside’s railway viaduct.

We reached the resort in time for an ice cream with the tide still ebbing. Arnside was a busy port till the 1850s, when the building of the viaduct caused the harbour to silt up. Then tourism took over, a new source prosperity for the little town with the mighty views.

How hard is it? 6½ miles; moderate; woodland and shore paths

Start: Arnside railway station, Cumbria LA5 OHJ (OS ref SD 461788)

Getting there: Rail to Arnside. Bus 551 (Kirkby Lonsdale).
Road: Arnside (B5282) is signed from Milnthorpe on A6 (M6, Jct 36)

Walk (OS Explorer OL7): From station, left along road. Pass Milnthorpe turn; in 100m, right (‘Silverdale Road’ fingerpost). Right at Silverdale Road (459783). In 200m left (457784, ‘Arnside Knott’). In 150m, left (456784, ‘High Knott Road’); bend left by ‘Windrush’; in 250m, right (457783, ‘The Knott’) through Red Hills Wood. Through kissing gate onto open ground (456780); head uphill to bench and gate (456776). Follow main path to another bench and on, soon descending. Round sharp left bend (452772); down through gate in wall (452770). Ahead on path outside trees. At Hollins Farm, right (451766, ‘Far Arnside’). At road, right (450764, ‘Park Point’); ahead through holiday park. At Shore Close fork right (‘Bridleway); at Knott Drive fork left. Follow woodland path back to Arnside.
Low tide option: Descend to shore just north of Park Point (437769); shore path back to Arnside.

Conditions: Woodland path from holiday park is stony and stumbly; shore option is for low or falling tide.

Lunch/Accommodation: Fighting Cocks, The Promenade, Arnside LA5 0HD (01524-761203, fightingcocksarnside.co.uk)

Info: Arnside AONB Centre (01524-761034)

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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The village of Dent is wholly charming, all cobbled streets, narrow ways, stone-built houses and cosy, welcoming pubs. Sunk in its green dale below the Cumbrian fells, it’s a natural magnet for walkers on the long-distance Dales Way and the field paths and walled lanes that swoop up and down the hillsides.

A road past whitewashed cottages led us to the village green and the foot of Flinter Gill. A stony lane rose steeply under trees, its stream bouncing down to sluice across the Dancing Flags. This pavement of square flagstones was set in the streambed by the village weavers of times past; they would lay out their cloth here and stamp it to thicken the fabric.

Just above stood the twisted hollow trunk of a wishing tree – three times ‘deiseal’ or clockwise through the hole and you would gain your heart’s desire, but woe betide anyone foolish enough to pass through ‘widdershins’, the other way about.

Higher up, the lane passed High Ground Barn. Here in the cool and quiet of the old barn we found a collection of venerable farm and household implements – chaff cutter, horse rake, tilt cart, mangold slicer. Alongside hung black and white photos of the backbreaking work of the old-time farms – forking hay, washing and shearing sheep, stone walling, peat cutting.

Up at the crest of the fell we joined Occupation Lane, a perfect example of a Pennine walled lane, its rutted course ribboning up and down across the fellsides. From here we had a majestic view – across Dentdale to the great dun-coloured whaleback of Aye Gill Pike, the valley rising gently in beautiful lowland green pasture to the flattened pyramid of Great Knoutberry closing the eastern sky line.

Ahead rose the long back of Middleton Fell. A thousand feet higher than us, a shepherd on a quad bike steered for the ridge. As we neared the Barbondale road we could hear him yelping commands to his dog, high and clear on the windy air.

We descended a field track past Combe House with its carefully tended garden, then on down to the Dales Way in the dale bottom. Following it back to Dent, we saw a kingfisher streak along the water, a momentary scintillation of blue and orange above the peat-brown river.

Start: St Andrew’s Church, Dent LA10 5QL (OS ref SD 705870)

Getting there: Bus S1, S3, S4, S5 (Dent-Sedburgh); westerndalesbus.co.uk
Road: Dent is signed from Sedbergh, on A684 (M6, Jct 37)

Walk (7 miles, field paths and hill tracks, OS Explorer OL2): From south door of church, ahead down alley. Pass George & Dragon on your left; opposite Mill Cottage, right to village green. Left (704869, ‘Flinter Gill’) up lane. In ¾ mile pass bench; right (698859, ‘Keldishaw’) along Occupation Lane walled lane. In 1½ miles, right along road (680862); in ¼ mile, left (683864, ‘Underwood’) on green track across fields (occasional yellow arrows/YA). In 2nd field, path swings left to run below trees. On past Combe House (681875); follow YAs across beck to Tofts farm (682879). Down drive. In 200m, where concrete gives way to stone, sharp left (685879, YA below). Diagonally down field past ruin; down track to field bottom and road at Raw Bank (684883). Left; in ¼ mile, right (681885, ‘Dales Way’); right along river on Dales Way for 2¼ miles to Church Bridge (707872); right into Dent.

Conditions: Dales Way slippery and stumbly with tree roots in places.

Lunch/Accommodation: George & Dragon, Dent LA10 5QL (01539-625256, georgeanddragondent.co.uk) – cosy, friendly village inn.

Info: Kendal TIC (01539-735891); visitcumbria.com
satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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The handsome old Cumbrian coastal town of Silloth has re-invented itself a few times down the years – busy port, seaside resort, genteel retirement haven, nice quiet place to bring up young families.

Vestiges of all those incarnations were on display as we set out along the promenade – big boxy silos around the still-working port area, a Victorian pagoda-style pavilion perched high for the view across the Solway Firth to the Scottish mountains, and people out for exercise pushing into the strong sea breeze with hair and scarves a-stream.

The Solway shore was a bracing, blusterous place to be walking today. Too much rain and wind in the forecast for the Lake District mountains, we’d felt, but this was perfect for a thorough blow-through. Across the firth the low-lying hills of Dumfriesshire gleamed as though oiled and burnished by short-lived sun splashes, then dulled under sweeping rainclouds.

The wind moaned and drummed in the cast-iron bracing of Cote lighthouse, causing the tall white skeleton shape on the shore to tremble like a frightened giraffe. Gulls blew overhead. A squadron of oystercatchers went by on downcurved wings like little fighter planes, making their characteristic sharp pic! pic! calls.

At Skinburness a row of houses faced the sea behind a protective barrier of rough-hewn rock. It must be wonderfully exhilarating to live here on such a day, and frightening too, as you watch the hungry sea in the knowledge that its levels are rising year by year.

Beyond Skinburness the houses fell away along with the concrete steps of the promenade. Now the path followed a shore of multicoloured pebbles of sandstone and quartz with little scatterings of coarse-grained, dark pink sand. An oak leaf, blackened and weightless, raced us along the beach, pattering and bouncing across the sand, drawing gradually away until the wind flicked it head over heels into the waves.

Out at Grune Point, turnstones pattered busily on the tideline. A spread of brackish marsh pools showed where the sea was encroaching on the heathy terrain of the peninsula.

A circular pillbox lay among gorse bushes, its walls built of concrete sandbags, topped by a pyramidal seamark of stone. Inside a central pillar held up the roof, like some Neolithic tomb abandoned and forgotten. Built during the Second World War to ward off the German invasion that never came, the pillbox gloried in a most exalted title – the ‘Cumberland Machine-Gun and Anti-Tank Rifle Emplacement’.

We turned for home along the wide channel of Skinburness Creek, whose waters were already ebbing seaward. From the rain-darkened prairie of Skinburness marsh across the creek came curlew bubbles, wigeon whistles and the excited piping of many waders as the receding tide uncovered the mud flats once more, a well-stocked larder for all these wintering birds.

Start: Sea View car park, Silloth, Cumbria CA7 4AW (OS ref NY 106537)

Getting there:
Bus 400 from Carlisle; 60E (Skinburness-Maryport)
Road – from Carlisle, A595, A596 to Wigton; B5302 to Silloth

Walk (7¼ miles, easy, OS Explorer 314): Follow Promenade, then sea wall path north-east for 3½ miles to Grune Point (144569). Clockwise round tip of peninsula; follow path/track back along south side. At first houses of Skinburnessbank, right (129560, fingerpost) up green lane to north side of peninsula; turn left for 2¼ miles back to Silloth.

Lunch: Fairydust Emporium, Eden Street, Silloth (01697-331787, facebook.com/fairydusthq) – truly delightful café/restaurant

Accommodation: Golf Hotel, 4 Criffel Street, Silloth CQ7 4AB (01697-331438, golfhotelsilloth.co.uk)

Info: Silloth TIC, Solway Discovery Centre, Liddle Street CA7 4DD (01697-331944), golakes.co.uk; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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The Lyth Valley was seething with moisture, in the air and on the meadows. The River Lyth ran within the confines of its banks, but only just. The hills were wet and misted. There had been rain over South Cumbria – a lot of it – and there was going to be a lot more.

It wasn’t really the morning to leave the light and warmth of the Lyth Valley Inn, if any morning ever is. But we thought we saw a chink of better weather in the offing, and plunged out waterproofed to the nines.

The upland of Whitbarrow, walled with ramparts of pale grey crags, rises between the valleys of Lyth and Winster. You can get up there from the cart road that curves round the northern snout of Whitbarrow. The limestone cobbles of the old track were skiddy this morning, and carpeted with black and gold hazel leaves. The view over the stone walls was of lumpy green sheep pastures patched with bracken the colour of damp fox fur.

Past Fell Edge Farm the track began to rise, snaking to and fro among the outcrops until it slipped over the top by way of a wall stile. Up here the wind blew strong and cold from the north-west. A patch of sea in Morecambe Bay gleamed like tarnished silver under a momentary smear of sunlight.

Whitbarrow’s broad back was dotted with clumps of low-growing juniper. A pinch of the hard green berries released savours of gin that clung to the fingers. We sniffed the damp wind and the harsh chalky smell of wet limestone. There was a sense of freedom and exhilaration up here on our own, the landscape veiled, the Lakeland mountains shut away from sight in the north but rising like waves in the mind’s eye.

At the cairn on Lord’s Seat we had a wind-whipped moment or two, watching the rain draw a milky sheet across the sea. Off the crags and down a slippery path into the stone-walled pastures at Row, where the ewes all stared as though they had never seen a human being before.

It was just beginning to freckle with rain as we descended the path to the Lyth Valley Inn. That chink of opportunity for a walk had proved just exactly wide enough.

Start: Lyth Valley Inn, Lyth, Kendal, Cumbria LA8 8DB (OS ref SD 453896)

Getting there: M6, Jct 36; A6 towards Kendal; A590 towards Barrow; in 2½ miles, left on A5074 for 3 miles to Lyth Valley Inn. Please park opposite.

Walk (5½ miles, moderate, OS Explorer OL7): Up track opposite Lyth Valley Inn. In 150m fork right; in 250m, right at junction (449895, ‘Whitbarrow’). Follow byway for 1 mile to gate (436895) where byway turns right; keep ahead here (blue arrow). Past Fell Edge Farm path begins to climb, zigzagging up crags to wall at top.

Cross step stile (438886, yellow arrow/YA) onto Whitbarrow upland. Follow discernible path south past silver birch trees, aiming for large round boulder on skyline (437883), then for three conical cairns. Path bears left here (SE) to reach plantation wall (440879). Left along wall for 100m; right over ladder stile; ahead with wall on left for 450m to wall stile (443875; don’t cross yet!), where path trends away right past notice board to reach cairn on Lord’s Seat (442870).

Return to cross wall stile; follow path through trees. In 150m, left (YA) for 700m to gate (448880, YA). Left to go through small wall gate; on for 400m through Township Plantation to go over path crossing (450885, YA). Follow main track through wood, ignoring side turnings, curving gradually left for 300m to meet wall (449888). Follow it left to gate into fields (448888). Follow wall on right down to Row. Through gate (450893); lane down to road; turn right. In 150m, left (452892) up lane to return to Lyth Valley Inn.

Conditions: Paths can be slippery after rain

Lunch/Accommodation: Lyth Valley Inn (01539-568295; lythvalley.com) – really comfortable and friendly; lovely food

Info: Kendal TIC (01539-735891); golakes.co.uk.

visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk