Tanfield Tour - October 17th

We decided to have another run out in the Jeep to have a look at the colours of Autumn now the trees are turning. It turned out that the colour of Autumn was grey!! What started out as an overcast but bright day, soon turned into a wet one after we got going! The planned route was a roughly circular tour from Washington, through Birtley, Beamish and on to Tanfield Railway for a coffee stop. I tried to find country lanes along the way which might be more scenic and colourful, as the trees are well on their way to showing Autumn colours.
I had the dash cam fitted to record additional images, but didn't compile a video from this trip. Passing through Beamish Museum, it caught the riveted steel pillbox beside the 1940's farm. That's not a position that would have appealed to me, knowing from World War 1, how impacts often caused the rivets of early tanks to shatter, sending shrapnel flying. At the bottom of the bank after passing the farm, we stopped for a few photos
The trees at Beamish were just in the early stages of changing colour, with a few yellows and reds, but mostly still shades of green.
From Beamish, we followed the country lanes to Kip Hill at the North Edge of Stanley. From there we headed North West to East Tanfield Station, the end of the line at Tanfield Railway. Their station building is open a few hours a day, serving refreshments to help cover losses caused by covid.
After the coffee and cake stop, we headed on to Tanfield village and then turned North East towards Causey Arch. As we left the station, the first spots of fret turned to larger droplets of water and it wasn't long before it got very wet. My dashcam was just out of the sweep of the windscreen wipers, so I had to regularly give the screen a wipe with an old rag so the camera still had a view.
We stopped in a couple of places along the road to Causey for photos. The road then dropped down the steep bank to the bottom of the valley and up the other side and over Bobgins crossing, meeting the A6076 road to Sunniside. We drove along that road, running parallel to the railway into Sunniside, before turning South East towards Old Ravensworth.
By now the Pacific Ocean was falling from the sky which had also turned very dark. The sky was brighter all around our area and Gateshead was almost looking sunny! At Old Ravensworth, we turned North East towards Lamesley
Between Ravensworth and Lamesley, the trees are only just turning with the colours predominently still green.
From Lamesley, we headed South back to Birtley and then to the North edge of Washington, calling in to an old level crossing on the West side of Springwell. This crossing was part of Bowes Railway. Originally, this line linked up to Tanfield Railway at Marley Hill. Back in the late 1970s and early 80s, my dad and I were volunteers at Bowes Railway. We manned this level crossing, which was on the rope haulage section of the line. Due to the steep incline, stationary steam engines were located at winding houses at the tops of the hills and raised or lowered wagons by winching them on steel cables. This section of the line is now disused, though the track is still there in the undergrowth. The last picture shows a set of six wagons being lowered down the hill back in the 1980s.

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