A foray into Northumberland: Long Crag and Ros Hill

22 and 23 August 2012.

Participants - Neil and Ben

Where - Long Crag, 319m/1,047', Sub-2k Marilyn, Map 81, NU 062069 and Ros Hill, 315m/1,033', Sub-2k Marilyn, Map 81, NU 081253

I find hill walking in Scotland in August a bit dicey; it's usually hot and sticky, frequently wet, and of course its the height of the midge season. So, for a change, I headed to.....

Northumberland is a part of the country that I've never really explored. Dawson's book said that there were a number of Marilyns in the north-east part of the county, the weather forecasters said that that was the part of the country that was likely to get most sunshine and least showers so my mind was made up. The quickest way to get there was over to Edinburgh, round the by-pass and down to Coldstream, then on to Wooler south and east of where there were a number of low lying hill ranges which contained some Marilyns.

Long Crag was my first objective. It is the highest point above some extensive forestry (Thrunton woods) north of Rothbury, where I had booked in for the night. There appeared to be a number of routes through the forest to the open moor. I didn't see a great deal of point in a long walk through trees so I took the shortest route, the most southerly of the forest tracks, starting at 092072. There was space to park three cars at the start; however bad parking by the two cars already there meant that I had to park on the verge. It was really pleasant walking through the forest.....

The track ended after about 1.5 miles but continued as a rough path on to the moor above where it emerged between Coe Crags and Long Crag and close to this boundary stone.....

I presume that the "S" and the "A" on the opposite side refer to old parishes but I've no idea what they were. The heather was in full bloom, the path meandered up at a gentle angle, the sun was shining....what more could I want?

 It wasn't far to the trig, where I took the obligatory pic of Ben. It's looking north with the Cheviot in the background.....

And this is looking south to the Simonside group of hills, south of Rothbury.....

The only downside to using this route was that I didn't see the crags that give the hill its name, they were below us to the north. I wandered on to a cairn on a slightly lower west top that looked as though it might give a view of the crags but I could only see the top of them from there This is looking back at the trig with the top of the crags on the left and the North Sea in the distance.....

A few showers were hitting nearby hills but we escaped them all. However, when I reached Rothbury the rain came down in earnest for about an hour so I had to hang about before I could get a wander round the town....

The following day started a bit dull. The objective was Ros Hill, south east of Wooler. It is the highest point of the Chillingham hills and is in the care of the National Trust as it has a 3,000 year old Iron Age hill fort at its summit. This is one of the easiest of the sub-2k's; from the highest point of the minor road that crosses Hepburn Moor this is all that is left to climb.....

And there is a path up! So in about 20 minutes, we were at the trig.....

The plaque on it reads.....

What it does have is an unusual toposcope built into low walls which had been constructed as an extension to the stone dyke that crosses the hill. Unfortunately, it was a bit dull so the views were not as good as they might have been. This is looking towards the coast (I could make out the castles at Bamburgh, Lindesfarne and Alnwick in the distance).....

and this one is to the Cheviot (slightly zoomed).....

The cloud on the Cheviot was starting to lift as we got back to the car.....

 and it brightened up on the drive home, where Ben went straight into the shower as he had found a particularly disgusting muddy pool on the way back down the hill!