Northumberland: Cresswell to Blyth 4/7/2006

 

Newbiggin-on-sea     Alchemilla micans at Ned's Whin

Driving from Warkworth to Cresswell, we took a side turning from the Widdington roundabout to the dense woodland of Ned’s Whin.  Here by the road we found a few plants in one spot of the very rare lady’s-mantle Alchemilla micans, found in few other places in south Northumberland.  Recent verge cutting had virtually decimated it, but we could find enough remains to identify.  Hearing a noise in the wood, we looked up to see a female red deer!  At Cresswell we saw a procession of gannets fly by, their size, bright white plumage and black wing-tips making them readily recognisable.  We walked down the road to Lynemouth, passing wasteland with several plants we had not seen in the established grasslands further north.  Much of this was rehabilitated spoil heaps.  We had to round the power station built on the coast by going inland as far as the rows of houses making up Lynemouth.  Here we passed the Resource Centre, which proved a useful resource to get scones and chocolate muffins for lunch later.  We went seawards again through the disused colliery, whose mines ran five miles out to sea, and by aluminium smelters.  A path took us inland of the Newbiggin golf course, through wet dune-slacks with a good flora of creeping willow, marsh, early and spotted orchids, marsh ragwort, marsh pennywort, brackish and thread-leaved crowfoots, and water forget-me-not.  As we neared the first houses of Newbiggin-by-Sea we were able to cut across the green in front of the club-house to the edge of the low cliff and down to the beach below a caravan site.  Here we had lunch before rounding Newbiggin Point and descending to the seafront, which seems to have seen better times as a resort, the pub boarded up and the promenade bare above a small beach.  Rising above Spital Carrs we were kept from Spital Point by a group of houses and a factory-cum-farm with high fencing topped by barbed wire, a sight that became increasingly familiar.  We returned to the cliff-top path and down to the beach, which had few shells but much sea-coal.  We found we could wade across the mouth of the River Wansbeck, saving a circuitous route, and continued along the beach several kilometres to the remote community and factories of North Blyth, isolated on a narrow spit of land across the River Blyth from Blyth itself.  At the end of the road and railway along here there was once a ferry to the centre of Blyth, but this had long gone, with only wooden jetties and walkways along the riverbank.  We returned along the road to the first roundabout and took a road west parallel to the river, passing abandoned industries such as a former power station, now demolished, which once had the largest steam turbines in the world.  As a concomitant of this economic decline and physical desolation we now found paths and pavements scattered with broken glass, and vandalism and graffiti were rife.  After East Sleekburn a modern cycleway took us across the tributary of Sleek Burn.  We took a second signed footpath (the first proved to be a dead end) towards Mount Pleasant Farm, but this also became difficult to follow because it was unmaintained and lacked signs.  We made enquiries at a cottage and they helped us find the route down to the river, but along the banks the long grass and scrub made it hard and hot work.  We did, however, eventually reach the dual carriageway that crossed the river, with walkways beside it, and we could then follow a better-maintained path along the Blyth side of the river.  However, as soon as we reached an interpretation board extolling the nature of the river and its saltmarsh birds (including shelduck and curlew that we could actually see from this point), the path became denser with undergrowth and it was impossible to continue.  We were forced to abandon the path for a boring road through a huge industrial estate to the main road into Blyth.  For several kilometres this passed through dreary housing estates and commercial premises, with hardly a shop and no pub, only an off-licence, a Chinese take-away, and a dog-grooming parlour!  In view of the thousands of people living here, it was a depressing sight.  We eventually reached a tiny “centre” with modern shopping arcade, large car park and noisy pubs.  Here we phoned for a taxi and the driver was an ex-miner, laid off when the Lynemouth colliery closed.