Forest enterprise Exploring the wild byways of Slaley and beyond

If you go down to the woods today

There aren’t many places in Britain where the landscape makes you feel like you’re in another continent altogether. But for a few magical moments, we found in the unlikeliest of locations – just a few miles west of Consett…

Words: Olly Sack Pictures: Richard Hair

We’re on our own, just us and our truck. There’s not a sign of anyone close by, not a soul. No shortage of wildlife, no doubt, but the next human being could be fi fty miles away. In every direction, it’s nothing but trees, thousands, maybe millions of towering conifers blanketing the hillsides that roll off into the distance as far as the eye can see. The trail we’re following, its bumpy, sandy surface leading off into the distance, is the only break in the unrelenting greenery.

We could be out here in the vast boreal forests of Norway or Canada, ascending the slopes of some lush Alpine range or pushing eastward through the bleakening Steppes of the near east. Those trees could conceal lynx, caribou, timber wolves, even grizzlies…

And then a foxhound trots past. It turns its head briefl y to give me an inquisitive glance as I lean out my window to look at it then carries on in the direction of whatever scent it’s following.

Oh yes. It’s easy to let your imagination run free in a landscape like this, even if in truth the vision of a genuine wilderness only comes in fl eeting glances. But right now, we’re only about fi ve miles south of

Hexham, and scarcely further west of Consett.

Slaley Forest is wonderful. Covering 1250 acres on the border of Northumberland and County Durham, it’s regarded as a place where you can lose yourself amid the tranquillity of a natural landscape – yet in reality, it’s about as natural as the steelworks for which the aforementioned town of Consett was famous. Where once, its hills would have been covered in native broadleaves, today it’s comprised mainly of Sitka spruce – a North American native whose value as a timber crop has made it one of the world’s most successful invasive species. This is, very much, a commercial plantation.

Forestry England has a longterm plan to create a more diverse forest in Slaley, in terms of both the trees themselves and the wildlife that lives among them. For now, though, it’s a breeding site for nightjars and home to a population of red squirrels, though no SSSIs or Scheduled Ancient Monuments exist within it.

Perfect, then, for people to freely enjoy just being in the great outdoors. It’s a factory, basically, albeit one whose product is created by the process of growing trees – and, therefore, one whose

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landscape is beautiful, peaceful and perfect for exploring.

As Forestry England says, there’s little in the way of formal provision for recreation in Slaley. There are, however, a good many rights of way – almost all of which, very unusually indeed, are Byways Open to All Traffic. In addition, walkers, cyclists and horse riders enjoy open public access: 4x4 drivers and trail bikers are of course allowed only on the byways, or they would be if more than half of these hadn’t been closed so that only walkers, cyclists and horse riders are allowed to use them. Finally, something familiar enough to seem natural.

I’ll say it again, though. Slaley is wonderful. There are forests which have made a big effort to market themselves and ended up feeling more like theme parks with their mountain bike trails, woodland sculptures, visitor centres and the inevitable High Ropes. All of which are fine things but you just know that if rights of way exist, the forest’s management will see them not as an amenity to visitors but as a threat to their bottom line. I once drove into Dalby Forest on one of the green lanes that link up with the toll road running through it and when I stopped at the visitor centre to pay for my ticket, the people there practically told me off for sneaking in through the back door.

Anyway, while it’s great to bring more people into forests, everything that goes with doing so makes them that much less natural. The good thing about Slaley is that you don’t go there to be entertained, or educated, or active (in dramatic lettering and with a swooshing noise as you say the word); you go there just to be. No, it’s not a natural environment, but it’s no less beautiful or peaceful for all that.

You could say the same about many of the places where green laning is popular, of course. So much of Wales, Yorkshire and the Lake District were once, in their natural state, covered in vast tracts of oak and ash, elm, yew and maple; all are now very much the result of human activity in the way their landscapes appear, but we love them not one bit less for it. And Slaley is the same. So what if it’s a commercial plantation? It’s a great place to take life at a crawl and that’s enough.

Not that the foxhound was taking life at a crawl. Quite how it had become so hopelessly separated from the rest of its pack, I don’t

Peth Foot is a series of climbs and descents which are best taken in low range if you have it. At the bottom of the valley it crosses, a fairly wide, bumpily bottomed ford takes you across the somewhat dramatically named Devil’s Water

know, but later on we were to learn that there was indeed a hunt going on in the area. We never did see them, but a clutch of local hunt followers waiting at a junction in the middle of the forest came over while I was looking at my map to ask if we knew where they were (then grumble gently about green lane users, which I thought was a bit rich).

The carnage among the lanes in Slaley has been varied. There are basically two main rides running west-to-east across the forest, one running north-to-south down its western flank and another along the same alignment right down the middle of it. Slight simplification, but you get the idea. Some sections have been closed altogether; some are summertime only, though even then just for motorbikes; one has been subject to a temporary closure; and another has simply disappeared under all the trees, which appear to have been planted without any reference at all to the fact that there was supposed to be a byway there.

What does this leave? One contiguous route, kind of in the shape of a question mark seen in mirror-image, covering about three miles from when you enter the forest near the hamlet of Dukesfield to where you leave it on a lane covering a similar distance south across the austere landscape of Blanchland Moor.

Whereby hangs a tale. Delightful though it is, the bloodbath inflicted on the rights of way within it means Slaley isn’t enough on its own for a green lane adventure. But if you don’t mind putting in half an hour on the tarmac, you can link it up with no end of other trails to create a very long and very, very varied day out.

Which is exactly what we had going on here. We started in Slaley (the village, not the forest) and headed immediately west on to a fairly simple, grubby sort of farm track before working our way north towards the first big one on our route. Known as Peth Foot, it’s basically a series of climbs and drops that are steep enough to make low box if not a necessity then certainly a very good idea. It

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Emerging from the west end of the lane, we carried on through the fruitily named village of Juniper and south through Dukesfield towards our entry point into the forest. It’s pretty remote round here – though as we approached the junction, we passed about a dozen SUVs parked up along the sides of the lane, each of them with a horsebox attached. Something to do with the hunt, presumably; either way, it was a weekday so this wasn’t your standard recreational outing.

To start with, the trail is very much like those you find in other forests; firm, a bit splashy in places and bordered by tall, mature trees with a carpet of bracken covering the ground below. But then, about half a mile in, you see one of those depressing ‘no motor vehicles’ highway signs announcing that a track which dog-legs to the right up ahead is closed – at which point the main one, which you stay on, swings left and changes character completely. The tree cover remains mature, with extensive thinning having left the landscape light and open, but the ground is now more uneven, with a blanket of fallen pine needles covering the compacted soil beneath your wheels.

This was where we encountered the foxhound. It was also where we found piles of rubbish left behind by others – picnic detritus, mainly, so probably walkers, though some of it contained the sort of fancy energy drink cartons that might point to cyclists. Either way, you’ve got to feel for them, bless their little cotton socks, for not having a handy 4x4 to help the carry home their trash. Can’t blame them when they had already used up all their energy carrying it into the forest in the first place, can you?

So we did what we do when we’re out laning. We donned a pair of stout gloves, tidied up after whoever else it was and popped their litter in the bin bag we carry aboard our D-Max for just this purpose.

Should it be our job to do this? Absolutely not, of course it shouldn’t. But we’re all responsible for looking after the countryside, and if that means tidying up after a cretinous know-nothing, so be it. If you happened upon a walker who had just been beaten up, you’d stop to help them even though it was

‘Welcome to Slaley Forest’ says the sign, before going on to make it abundantly clear that visiting in a 4x4 makes you anything but. Given that the overwhelming proportion of trees here are Sitka, an invasive species planted for its value as a timber crop, and that actual nature has been almost completely pushed out by human activity, Slaley would be the perfect location for an intelligent approach to managing the needs of all users, but how very un-British that would be. The closures that exist on the majority of byways here are in place to protect commerce, along perhaps with some mythical notion of a rural idyll, but certainly not the environment

someone else’s fault, wouldn’t you? Rising above takes many forms.

So on we went, pausing to chat to a chap and his kids about that dog we’d both seen tooling around the place, then came to a sign at a crossroads with another track. This made for interesting reading; it confirmed that motor vehicles were allowed on the byways in the forest – but unbelievably begrudgingly, using language so aggressive it would make anyone assume all 4x4 drivers are criminals. Which, you can’t help but feel, is on purpose.

‘There are many paths and tracks running through the forest to enjoy by foot, horse and bicycle,’ it starts. Lovely and welcoming. Then comes the bit about motor vehicles: ‘The routes shown in orange on the map are open to all traffic. Vehicles and

motorbikes are prohibited anywhere off these byway routes.’

It goes on. ‘A zero tolerance approach is taken with anyone illegally accessing the forest or farmland outside of these formal legal routes. Visitors are encouraged to contact 101 on sighting vehicles outside the legally designated byway.’

Why not just go the whole hog and say ‘we don’t like you and we don’t want you around’? Here we are carrying a bag of rubbish other people have chucked on the forest floor and there’s no mention of anything about taking a zero tolerance approach to people doing that. Perhaps we should just empty it back out again.

Going somewhere to relax and being made to feel persecuted is not nice. But at least these feelings of outrage can’t last when you’re in such a mesmerising landscape. Further on along here came the section of track I described at the outset, where the trees are younger and more tightly packed, but not yet too tall to prevent you from seeing over them into the distance. The effect really is glorious.

Less glorious was the section of track further on where 4x4 drivers have created a mud run alongside the byway. However crass the language of the sign back at the junction might have been, two wrongs never make a right.

At the same time, we’ve written before about governmentowned forests in America where challenging sections of off-road terrain have been built on gash land alongside the main Cat A tracks, often using logs or surplus quarry or road stone. Here in Britain, quarry surplus is more likely to be used to block access to trails (sometimes even legal rights of way), but wouldn’t that be an innovative, inclusive way of welcoming in a user group and, rather than trying to ban them from as much land as possible, giving them something they can enjoy without doing any damage? A mud run here, a rock crawl there, a permit system for drivers wanting to use them… all managed to prevent any environmental impact and timerestricted to avoid disturbance to other users… you can already

hear the building whistle of steam escaping from the anti-vehicle haters’ ears, can’t you?

Further on was where we bumped into the hunt followers, then as we headed south towards Blanchland Moor a couple of guys on trail bikes pulled over to say hello and ask about the state of the track ahead. Which of course we didn’t know, on account of we were going the same way as them, but having done our research first using Trailwise2 (a spectacularly useful online resource for members of the Green Lane Association), we were able to reassure them that aside from some splashy stuff, the going ought to be pretty straightforward.

And so it was. Pretty straightforward and just plain pretty, albeit bleak as anything, the trail across Blanchland Moor is actually longer than everything in Slaley Forest put together, and while it was no challenge for our D-Max it contains more rough terrain. The land surrounding it is an SSSI, too; Blanchland is part of an extensive tract of dry heath and home to a number of bird species listed as requiring special protection. The higher part of the moor is also among the only parts of England populated by kinnikinnick, also known as bearberry, which in places carpets the ground alongside the dominant heather and wavy hair-grass.

By now, inevitably, any images of being a pioneer in the pineclad tracts of Norway or Canada have dispersed. The landscape is very British once again, and very northern English at that. One of the reasons for bearberry being found here is that it’s among the only parts of England that are cold enough; it’s a circumpolar species whose distribution sees is thrive primarily in high mountain ranges and lower lying ground skirting the Arctic Circle. So, perhaps those Scandinavian vibes weren’t so fanciful after all.

You’re definitely not in Scandinavia when you arrive in Blanchland village, though. Built using stones from the ruined 12th Century abbey which once stood on its site, it has remained almost completely unspoilt – if you’ve ever watched an 18th Century period drama on TV (something few of us can have avoided at some point), odds-on it was filmed here.

Sitting at one corner of the village square, the Lord Crewe Arms would be ideal if you’ve timed it right for lunch (arrive by 2.30, or 3.00 on a Sunday). It’s pretty fancy without being so far up itself you need a periscope; expect to pay about a score for a main course (ploughman’s, burger, fish and chips, that kind of thing, but done right) and a drink worth having. You can stay here, too, though the cheapest room we could find was £199 per night for B&B so in this case you’d probably want to be seeing it as a special treat rather than just another laning bash.

You’d be in good company, though. Poets WH Auden and Philip Larkin, composer Sir Benjamin

By now, any images of being in Norway or Canada have dispersed. Though one of the reasons for bearberry being found here is that it’s among the only parts of England that are cold enough

Above: West Rigg is a spent opencast where Victorian miners dug iron ore from around the flanks of Slitt Vein, a quartzite intrusion in the limestone bedrock. The weirdly sculpted landscape that remains is typical of the post-industrial terrain in this part of the country; you can view it from the side of the road opposite the end of a lengthy unsurfaced right of way Right: This lane runs between two others, both of which we drove. It’s well known for its extreme side tilts, and for being potentially damaging to vehicles’ bodywork, so we decided to let discretion be the better part of valour

Britten and tenor Peter Pears all stayed in the Lord Crewe during their illustrious lives, and Jacobite general Tom Foster used its fireplace as a hiding place during the 1715 revolution.

What none of these people will have in common with you is the joy of piloting your 4x4 across the roads south of Blanchland. The main one takes you east to Edmundbyers then south to Stanhope, skirting Derwent Reservoir then crossing Muggleswick Common via the sort of route sportscar drivers and bikers travel halfway across the country to enjoy. Having driven enough sports cars to have some knowledge here, I can confirm that it’s just as much fun in a lifted Isuzu D-Max.

Being sat up higher, and not driving at ridiculous speeds, means you get to enjoy the landscape, too. As you head south from Blanchland on Meadows Edge, a C-road whose vistas go on for ever, off in a valley to the right are the buildings and chimney of Presser Pumping Station, a remnant of the lead and fluorospar mining complex which operated in the Ramshaw area for more than three centuries starting in 1624. It’s a wonderfully austere thing to see, at once sad and ominous, as it sits abandoned in this vast landscape. The remnants of the Ramshaw workings are in the main now a Scheduled Ancient Monument; the Presser station was spared the pen, so it’s something of a wonder that it hasn’t been turned into a character home. It is in the grounds of someone’s actual home, though, so don’t be tempted down the track leading there to explore.

We learned all this while taking completely the wrong road, something we didn’t realise until we arrived at a T-junction approximately five miles east of where we thought we were going to be. Skills. Oh well, nothing for it but to turn back and enjoy these magnificent moortop road all over again before finally arriving in the hamlet of Lintzgarth.

This is notable for the letter Z, obviously, but mainly for Rookhope Arch. This is all that’s left of the Rookhope Chimney, another relic from the area’s lead mining history. As chimneys go, it was actually a flue, running as it did along the ground, but as it was two miles long this is probably just as well. It took noxious gases from the lead smelting works at Rookhope and carried them up on to the moor where they could dissipate harmlessly; seeing the arch now, you can only imagine how the structure must have looked in its heyday.

Further south, there’s another impressive reminder of the landscape’s industrial heritage. The Slitt Vein is a quartz intrusion in the limestone bedrock, around 20 feet wide, around which extensive iron ore deposits were laid down around 250 million years ago. These extend about 200 feet to either side of the vein, which breaks the surface at West Rigg – where, from the roadside, you can now look down into the worked-out opencast mine created in Victorian times to exploit it. The vein itself has been left more or less untouched, however the ground to either side of it has been excavated – creating a kind of cross-section of a typical 19th Century ore quarry.

We jumped out to take a look here as we stopped to turn right on to a track which leads back north, and it’s very well worth taking the time to appreciate what a remarkable thing it is you’re looking at. There are further mine workings to your left as you set out on the track, then after about three quarters of a mile there’s another track on your left which dives down into the valley and up the other side. You can site along the whole length of it – though what

Right: A couple of bikers having a brew and a guy driving a truck on a road after picking up some walkers’ litter. You can see why they need a zero-tolerance policy, can’t you? Below: Coldberry End is a fairly simply moortop lane. But at the point where this picture was taken, our D-Max was at the highest point anywhere in the country’s road network

this won’t show you is that on the far side, it’s exceptionally uneven, with savage washouts and side slopes waiting to cane your truck sideways into a dry stone wall. We wouldn’t suggest trying it without serious back-up, and we certainly didn’t feel like risking our D-Max; the combination of 33” General Grabbers, Pedders Evo suspension and an ARB diff-lock give us total confidence in the truck’s ability to get up there, but the damage we might inflict on it in the process was an unknown and that’s why we kept on straight ahead instead.

This meant coming back down the byway skirting the far lip of the valley instead, which was no hardship – especially as the first part of it was covered in absolutely loads of standing water, some of it surprisingly deep. Hardly a challenge, but always plenty of fun – as was the southern section of the lane, where it’s drier but more uneven and therefore technical.

We carried on, via the sort of ford that’s normally just a splash but could become fearsome when the river’s in spate, then continued through St John’s Chapel (there’s a handily placed Co-Op here) and followed another of those fabulous moor roads over the top of the world towards Landgon Common. This isn’t much of a destination in itself, and nor is the B6277, but a few miles on the latter took us towards Coldberry End.

This is an unsurfaced road over Ireshope Moor which wouldn’t be particularly exceptional – but for the fact that part of the way along it, at the summit of a steady climb, you reach the highest point on the entire UK road network. Nearby Killhope Cross gets close, but it’s surfaced and what’s the fun in that? So we trundled our way north-east from the road junction, the road got looser as we started to climb and then finally there we were, the highest motor vehicle in Britain.

Time to celebrate? Well, if you want to, though from our experience it’s more like time to get back in your truck before the wind blows you a lot of no good. Still, you’ve got to do what every other green lane user has done and stop for a photo at the highest point, don’t you? Just be very careful that of all the times in the world, you don’t choose this one to accidentally lock your keys in your car…

Happily, we’re not saying that from bitter experience. The D-Max is made to be pretty foolproof that way, to be honest, but a former colleague once locked himself out of a test vehicle on a scorching hot day, with the engine running, then discovered that its catalytic converter was starting to set Salisbury Plain on fire, so you can see why we get nervous about this kind of thing.

Arriving at Ireshopeburn and happening upon something as big and busy as the A689 was a bit unnerving after all these narrow rides, moortop roads and unmade byways. But that’s an inevitable part of every day on the lanes – at some point during the day, it has to be over.

Which is perhaps the clearest cutting off point between exploring in the UK and abroad. Our landscape may every so often fool your eyes, but the real thing is where it actually does go on forever. You can imagine, though – and whether you’re in the pine-clad haven of Slaley or the bleak expanses of the moors to its south, it really is just you and your truck. Civilisation might not be far distant – but for those few short, sweet minutes, the nearest human being really could be fifty miles away.