Merrygill Viaduct on the Northern Viaduct trail

Yesterday's muddy experience created a slight whiff of rebellion by the troops so today I was more aware of the need to avoid as much as possible any contact with the stuff.

I'd picked up a leaflet about the Northern Viaduct trail in the Tourist Information Centre and also noted a disused railway running just below our cottage. It turned out that this was the remnants of the South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway which was built in the 1850s. The railway was built to bring essential supplies of coke to the new iron furnaces of Barrow-in-Furness from Teeside and originally iron ore traffic going the other way. The railway crossed from coast to coast via the Northern Pennines with a summit at Stainmore Pass (1370 feet above sea level) - a replica summit marker can be seen from the A66.

This was a railway in extreme and explains why there was railway line so close to our isolated cottage. Loaded trains had to be hauled to Stainmore Summit from Barnard Castle up gradients as steep as 1 in 67, 1 in 69 and 1 in 68 successively over a distance of 13 miles. The ten mile descent to Kirkby Stephen was even steeper, long stretches having gradients of 1 in 59 and 1 in 60, with 1 in 72 over Merrygill and Podgill Viaducts.

When the iron ore and coke traffic declined, the railway was no longer viable and was closed in 1962 with the exception of a section from Kirkby Stephen and Appleby serving a quarry at Merrygill.

In 1989 The Northern Viaduct Trust was formed to acquire, restore and maintain disused important railway viaducts in the North of England and to provide public access to to the railway formation and the viaducts and other engineering structures.

So this is what we did, picking up the disused railway just below our cottage and following a permissive footpath to the start of the Trail at Merrygill. Some wonderful views of the North Pennines on the early part of the trail followed by the viaducts over deep valleys at Merrygill and Podsgill. At the end of the trail we picked our way over a bit of mud alongside the Eden to Kirbky Stephen, stopping to read some poetry on the Poetry Trail before returning to the cottage in deteriorating weather.

There is a gap in the disused line at Kirkby Stephen before the trail continues southwards across more viaducts to Newbiggin on Lune. This is partly because the Stainmore Railway Company occupies the Kirkby Stephen East Railway Station with plans to operate a heritage railway from the site.

A good day, despite the deteriorating weather in the afternoon. And a very good evening as we went over to friends in Grange Over Sands in the evening for more good food and drink and company and a late evening hunt for fuel in Kendal.