Newcastle City Centre to Wylam, 10 miles

Having broken the first stage yesterday, we enjoyed the luxury of a leisurely breakfast at the Hotel Indigo. It was excellent, both in terms of the quality of the food and the level of service – something you don’t always expect in a chain hotel. Before heading out on the trail, we had to make a stop at LD Mountain Sports for some shopping. Nick needed new boots and hadn’t been able to get quite what he wanted before we left home, so we spent half an hour or so getting his feet sorted out before heading on down to the river. 

Our first mile was down through the Quayside, the Tyne bridges looking splendid in the morning sunshine. Newcastle is famous for its bridges and there are, in total, seven bridges over the Tyne between Newcastle and Gateshead. The Romans built the first ones, but none of those have survived, being replaced many times over the centuries. One of the most impressive structurally is the High Level Bridge carrying both road and rail with its tall columns looking like a Roman viaduct from the town side. Next to that is the Swing Bridge which was built in 1873.

The first part of the walk was a contrast between the industrial heritage of the city and the unexpected pleasure of seeing a host of wildlife. Oystercatchers piped noisily along the mudflats, curlews called out mournfully, a heron fished for his breakfast, picking his way through the mud with prehistoric elegance. Gulls wheeled overhead and lapwings fought in the shallows. It was a lovely reminder that nature has a remarkable way of reclaiming places once dominated by heavy industry.

The industry, though, is never far away. Every bend in the river seems to tell another chapter in Newcastle’s story. Shipbuilding, coal exports, engineering and the countless industries that made the Tyne famous have largely disappeared, but their legacy remains in old staiths, riverside cranes, brick warehouses and fragments of railway infrastructure. It was fascinating to read all about the lives of people involved in this industry at the many heritage boards along the trail. At one point, we stood on the site of Elswick Shipyard, looking across at the remnants of Dunston Staiths, a wooden structure three-quarters of a mile long built in 1893 that once would have been a frenetic, noisy, loading dock for coal wagons carried along rail lines from the Durham pits. In the 1920s, 140,000 tons of coal per week were loaded from these staiths onto waiting ships, and even up until the 1970s the cranes were still in use until Dunston Staiths were finally closed and partially dismantled in 1980.

Shortly after this point, the trail comes away from the river and follows a tarmac path through Scotswood. The walking itself, if we’re being honest, wasn’t that exciting. It was mostly along a fairly narrow path through scrubland. The tarmac made for easy walking underfoot but in the heat it seemed relentless and a bit of variation would have been appreciated. The scenery changes slowly and there’s only so much excitement you can extract from another perfectly smooth cycle path.

From Lemington we joined the old Waggonway towards Newburn, following the course of a former industrial railway which used to carry coal. It just carried us on our feet today though, strolling along on yet more tarmac. 

Next we came to the Tyne Riverside Country Park, it’s arrival heralded first by the Tyne Rowing Club but we saw no rowers out on the river today. The park is also the site of The Battle of Newburn Ford (1640) which was the scene of a bloody battle between the English and the Scots and was the only battle fought in the Bishops Wars.

We had an interesting fifteen minutes or so soaking up the history from the interpretive boards and discovering that the river here could be forded back in those days, long before it was dredged and cleared,  before finding an ice cream van for a ‘99’

From the open vistas of the country park we turned inland again to pick up the dismantled railway line that runs into Wylam. This again has lots of interesting history to it and it wasn’t long before we came across the birthplace of George Stevenson, civil and mechanical engineer, known as the ‘father of the railways’ for his passionate pursuit of technology and the introduction of rail transport in the 19^th century. If you are on the trail, take the time to read the interpretive boards all along this section to get a feel for how important his influence was. 

We passed the turn for Heddon-on-the-Wall, but ignored that for now and carried on our walk as far as the pretty village of Wylam. It’s a charming village with a proud railway heritage, and felt like a fitting place to finish a day that has been influenced so heavily by the region’s industrial past. 

Check out the Relive video we’ve made for this walk: Hadrian’s Wall Day 2