Viaducts

Yesterdays's Guardian Country Diary described a walk around the Cumbrian market town of Kirkby Stephen. All the pictures below enlarge if you double-click on them.

This path out of the town takes you through the village of Hartley and then onto the disused South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway, where freight trains once hauled coal from the Durham coalfields and haematite ore from Cumbria across the notorious Stainmore Summit - the highest railway line in England. Now the section of the track bed that passes through Kirkby Stephen is a popular public footpath through wonderful scenery.

The line and its viaducts was engineered by Sir Thomas Bouch and three of his fine viaducts, including the Merrigill viaduct and the Podgill viaduct (above), are now in the care of the Northern Viaducts Trust. They seem to be as sound as they were on the day that they were built, unlike Bouch's Tay bridge which collapsed, taking a train and 75 passengers with it and inspiring what is often described as the worst poem in the English language, The Tay Bridge Disaster by William McGonagall

The line was originally single track but was eventually doubled - when you stand under the viaduct you can see where it was widened - the size of the blocks and their patterns of construction are different.

This is the view down from the Podgill viaduct into the valley cut by Ladthwaite beck, on a fine spring day earlier this year.

The viaduct casts an imposing shadow...

...... and provides a kestrel's-eye fine view to the north of distant Cumbrian fells, in between showers and rainbows.

It's a shame that these rural railways have gone but the old track beds are a superb legacy, providing rural walks with gentle gradients that accessible to all.

Part of this route forms part of a poetry path, with verses carved into local sandstone and limestone at intervals along the route.

This is the view towards the fells to the south as the path nears Kirkby Stephen.

At this point you can choose to walk on, to reach the finest of the three viaducts at Smardale Gill, or you can cross the river Eden where it forms a series of waterfalls at the Millenium Bridge.

From there the route back into Kirkby Stephen follows foot-worn paths through farmland and woodland where you can sometimes see red squirrels and which have fine displays of wild flowers in spring.

The route back involves recrossing the river Eden at this point, where it's shallow and stony and is a perfect spot for watching dippers all year-round. There are often herons here too ....

... which is why the last of the twelve  poems carved in stone, on across three rocks, reads as follows:

"There sails the heron / drawing behind him a long / wake of solitude"

On cue, just as we reached these stones, a heron did indeed rise from the Eden further downstream.

You can find more information about the viaducts and footpath maps at the Northern Viaducts Trust website and also in their downloadable brochure

Wee, sleekit, cowran, tim'rous beastie....

Unlike the animal in Robert Burns' famous poem To a Mouse, this character is a wee, cunning, devious, cocky beastie because it's taken me four days to catch it. On three separate nights it managed to take the bait from the live mammal trap without tripping the trap door, but last night it finally put a foot wrong and imprisoned itself.

Many of the threats to a mouse come from overhead, from kestrels and owls, and you can see here how well those bulging, upward pointing eyes and ears are disposed for detecting any threatening movements from above. That's a fine set of whiskers too, capable of detecting the slightest vibration and helping their owner to find its way around in darkness.

It was living in the cupboard under our stairs but this Houdini mouse has now been relocated to a local woodland, where wood mice belong. No more freeloading on sultana and peanut bait.

It seems to have been doing well on its luxury diet, judging from that fine, glossy coat - which it will need tonight; more snow forecast.

For more info on wood mice, click here

Kirkby Stephen Poetry Path

If you are ever in the Cumbrian town of Kirkby Stephen, it's well worth taking time to follow the delightful Poetry Path. You'll find large boulders, set at twelve locations, each representing a month in the farming year, each with an inscribed poem on the flat rock surface. The poems are by Meg Peacocke and the beautifully-carved  stone inscriptions were executed by Pip Hall.

This is July:

Silage tractor incises the first green furrow. 

Skilful geometrician, the driver judges

an arc of weather

August, with the poem inscribed on both flat faces of this rock:

Crab apples tart on the tongue,

hazelnuts milky,

rosehips cool in the hand,

thistledown silky,

squirrel is speaking his mind,

knapweed purples the banks,

for touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing

I give thanks

The December poem is inscribed across each face of these three stones, lying in a pasture:

There sails the heron,drawing behind him, a long wake of solitude


You can read more about the Poetry Path by clicking here and you can listen to a commentary and to the poems read out loud by clicking here