A-Walking: Stanhope to St John's Chapel via Bolt's Law

Despite the inclement weather on Saturday night and early Sunday morning, our three walks in Weardale on the 18th August went ahead as planned. Both the A-Walk and the B-Walk started in Stanhope while the C-Walk set off a little further west from Eastgate. All of the walks finished in St John's Chapel.
 
The A-Walk was led by Jane Thompson - pictured below. There were seven walkers in the group; the distance covered was 15.2 miles.

From our drop-off point near the Town Hall in Stanhope, we followed a northerly path that took us up along Stanhope Burn. Much to Jane's delight, we sighted two herons wading in, and flying about, the beck. We left Stanhope Burn at its junction with West Whiteley Burn and continued north (on our first climb) to Steward Shield Meadow and onwards to the disused railway track at {NY 983 443} near Meadows Edge. Turning left, we followed the route of the railway in a westerly direction to reach our lunch-stop location at {NY 953 450} - in a sheep-fold near Hope Head.
 
Following lunch, we made our way up to the trig point and cairn on Bolt's Law. We now followed a south-westerly bearing in order to reach the minor road near Packlet's Gate. After a short spell on the road we turned left onto open moorland and made our way on a south-easterly bearing to reach Rookhope. Leaving Rookhope in a south-westerly direction, we started our second climb. This took us over Lintzgarth Common to Scarsike Head. From here we had a good down-hill section that took us to Middlehope Burn where we stopped for a pleasant tea-stop.
 
We left the tea-stop location in a southerly direction and followed the route of Middlehope Burn until we reached the village of Westgate. Turning right along the A689 road, we joined the Weardale Way and followed this in a westerly direction in order to reach Daddry Shield and our final destination in St John's Chapel.
 
Many thanks to Jane for leading a splendid walk.
 
A selection of some of the photos that we took during today's walking expedition can be seen by clicking on the pink button below:

Credits:
Many thanks to Jane Thompson and Phil Barker for taking the photographs.
 

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