Teesdale Way - Middleton-in-Teesdale to Barnard Castle (★★★☆☆)

Today's walk is a fairly short one - that will take me along the Teesdale Way, from Middleton-in-Teesdale down to Barnard Castle.

This walk starts on the very edge of the North Pennines - and then follows the valley cut through the landscape by the River Tees, as the river starts to transition between Upper and Lower Teesdale.

But to do this walk, we must first reach Middleton-in-Teesdale - and this is done by taking one of the regular buses out from Darlington to Barnard Castle - and then changing over to a less regular service, that runs out to Middleton itself.

And with this fairly smooth journey complete, we can head down to the river - and start following it in an easterly direction.

Heading down to the river (with the cattle market behind)

Here we find a path that runs close by the River Tees. When we walked in a westerly direction from here, we walked through open fields (while walking from Middleton to Appleby), but this time we are walking through the trees that line the river in this direction.

We do still get good views of the river - and we are following a shallow but fast flowing river, as we push on and head past the camp site near Leekworth Farm.

Early view of the river

Whilst passing the camp site

Beyond the camp site, the path heads up and down a series of steps - before we break out the trees into sheep fields,  nd then start to pull away from the river, and head towards Egglesburn.

Looking towards Lune Moor

And moving away from the river on our way to Egglesburn

Egglesburn is one of a number of Eggles- that can be found along the Tees - with another coming up shortly at Eggleston - and with the oldest part of Yarm taking the name Egglescliffe.

Egglesburn effectively means church stream, with Eggles being of Celtic origin - but with the suffix of burn instead being of Saxon origin. 

And here we see evidence not only of the original Celtic (Brigantes) inhabitants of the area (as with Tees which derives from the Celtic words for boiling river), but also of a heavy linguistic mix of names in the area.

At Middleton we started our journey in a town with a name of Saxon origin - and just on the opposite side of the river to Eggleston, we have Romaldkirk - which is a name of northern Scandinavian origin (but also referring to the Anglo-Saxon saint St Rumwald).

And whilst it would seem that the Norse were more active in Upper Teesdale, the Saxons more focused on agricultural settlements - and that Celtic references tend to be more focused on natural geographic features - when all combined together, it does all feels remarkably multi-cultural, as words with different origins get mixed together.

But this is the nature of this area, which saw heavy migration, but limited settlement - and with Egglesburn behind us, we continue on past what is thought to be an old saddle house (that stored spare saddles for the packhorses transporting material down from the lead mines).

The apparent saddle house

It's accompanying sign

From here we drop down, and cross over first Eggleston Burn, and then Blackton Beck - before continuing on into Eggleston.

View on the way into Eggleston

Having made it into the village, the next section of the walk continues alongside roads (albeit with pavements) - and it is only after we pass Eggleston Hall that we leave these behind, and return to some quieter walking.

And here we have a choice of path - with paths now running on both the north and south side of the river - but here I opt to follow on the northern side, following a farm drive that heads round towards a set of horse fields - before we cut up onto the ridge above, and continue on across the fields.

Heading across the fields (with Goldsborough visible in the distance)

By this point it is visibly raining on those walking along the Pennine Way in the distance - but it is clear that it will stay dry over here, as we pass numerous sheep - before we start to move back towards the River Tees.

Looking back towards rain developing over Middleton

Here we start to follow along the top of Shipley Wood - but we do eventually drop down through Marwood Caravan Park (with the path not being as indicated on the map) to reach the river side.

And here we once again have a route decision to make, for a bridge offers us the choice to either stay on the north side, or switch over to the southern side.

In the end, after a period of deliberation, I opt to switch over to the southern side - crossing over the River Balder, and on past the (fairly limited) remains of Cotherstone Castle.

The River Tees from the bridge

The bridge from the far side

The site of Cotherstone Castle is very visible - being on a very pronounced mound - but you cannot access the site, and little remains of the castle now.

It was originally built as a motte and bailey castle in 1090 (not too long after the Norman Conquest), before being upgraded to stone at the start of the 13th century.

This is supposed to be the remaining bit of wall, but I don't know for sure if it is

There isn't a whole lot of information out there about this castle, but it is believed that it was destroyed by the Scots, indicating that it didn't exactly serve it's original purpose with aplomb. 

But it was unlikely to have been a particularly large castle - with some of the 'castles' in this area being embarrassingly small, and really just fortified manor houses.

And having passed this disappointment of a castle, we continue on - mostly walking above the river, getting the occasional view down to the river below.

A more open section that is managed as wild meadow

The path along the northern side (which we opted not to follow) does appear to run much closer to the rivers edge - and so in that sense may be the superior route. 

Without having done both, it is hard to know if this is true or not - but both can easily be done in a loop starting and ending at Barnard Castle - and it seems unlikely that one route is notably better than the other.

On this side of the river, we increasingly pass through the fields above the river - before we eventually meet up with the former route of the railway, as it prepared to head across the River Tees.

Remains of the old railway

As we reach this structure, we get diverted off down onto lower ground - and here we drop onto a path that comes across from the Tees Railway Path - which is an alternate route between Middleton and Barnard Castle that runs along the old trackbed.

And this section of tarmacked path takes us on towards Barnard Castle itself.

A tarmac path towards Barnard Castle

But soon we move off this path, and head over a footbridge across the river - before our route climbs up onto the ridge on the far side, and on round to the castle.

And here we turn off - leaving behind the Teesdale Way, just as it prepares to head down past the castle, and on towards Darlington.

Looking upstream from the bridge

And towards the castle looking downstream

The next section of the path is reasonably high on my to-do-list of walks - but at this point in time I am waiting for them to finish rebuilding Whorlton Bridge (in theory it will be finished this summer).

Once that is done we will return, and continue on past the castle - and on towards Darlington.

But for now the regular bus service ensures that we have an easy trip back to Darlington - and on home.

Total Distance: 10.8 miles

Total Ascent: 1,165 feet

Enjoyment Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ ★ ★ / 5

It's certainly not a bad walk - there is nothing spectacular about it, or anything particularly exciting about it - but it is one I'd been happy enough to do again

Click for a walk along the Pennine Way / Teesdale Way from Middleton-in-Teesdale to Appleby.

Click for a walk along the Pennine Way from Bowes to Middleton-in-Teesdale.

Disclaimer: This writeup provides a narrative of what to expect rather than a route guide to follow. The route is covered by the 92 OS Landranger map - while there is also a Teesdale Way guidebook which includes OS mapping (links redirect to Amazon). The route is in general well way-marked, but the GPS arrow from OS Maps helps when crossing some of the fields