Hareshaw Linn walk

No.8 HARESHAW LINN

Where Bellingham, Northumberland

Duration 2 hours, Level - Day Tripper

Northumberland is normally associated with wide vistas, yet this landscape is intensely confined – which adds to the seductive mystery.

The heavily wooded gorge of Hareshaw Linn lies by the small town of Bellingham and over the years has developed a reputation for being slightly mystical.

Nobody's quite sure why but it could well be that the suppressed, almost concealed nature of the gorge lets you feel cut off from the real world. Or perhaps it has to do with the winding, hesitant nature of the path.

Or just possibly, it's the almost unbelievable fact that this landscape was once the site of two 19th-century blast furnaces churning out massive gunk until as late as 1848. The fact that nature has re-established herself here so completely really does seem quite magical.

In any case, later Victorians loved the place, often holding genteel musical evenings beside the great tumbling waterfall at the walk's end.

There's a handy Northumberland National Park car park in Bellingham and you can walk from here, taking in autumnal views that include red squirrels scuttling through ancient woodland speckled with rowan berries, holly and masses of autumnal fungi.

Your path runs halfway up the gorge side and crosses and recrosses the stream at the bottom via a series of small bridges, leading to that waterfall, and journey's sad end.

The Telegraph 2009 by Nicholas Roe