Burtree Fell, Cowshill mines, Sedling Fell, Co Durham
[10.8 km] Wed 02 Oct 2013

OS Grid Ref: NY 8526 4324
Lat/Long: 54.783853, -02.230734

After a wet and windy drive along a very busy M6 I reached the B6295 above Cowshill, Weardale. It was still wet and windy when I arrived. The views across the moor were none existent as I set off in the rain. The faint path soon vanished as I walked east along the fence line. I had to make a wide detour to avoid a large boggy area then came to a faint path again.

At a gate I turned right to head south along an old track across Burtree Fell. It was wet and a steady descent. When I reached below the cloud I could see Burnhope Reservoir in the distance. The area has the interesting name of Poppet Hill. Heading down a track I came to the building of Cogley, which was in the process of being renovated but didn’t look like work had been done on it for a while.

Further on I came to a gate where I left the track and followed the path across a field until I found myself on an impressive green track though a large area of old mine workings. A green causeway crossed a small valley with an impressive stone underpass. Through a gate I came to a wall and entered the impressive valley of Sedling Burn and a large area of abandoned mine workings. The larges mine is called Burtree Pasture Mine and a search reveals that it was worked as recently as the 1980s.

The Mine Cottage building was still occupied and higher up the hillside I could see that Coptcleugh seemed to be occupied. The track went round the valleys sides and on the far side I followed a rough track to the east. Up by Sedling Vein was an adit mine entrance in a depression. I climbed down for a look then back up to follow the track higher and into the mist.

The track levelled off at Sedling Rake which I followed to a gate where a branch path is supposed to head across Yearncleugh Head. There was a faint quad bike track for a while which followed the line of the path shown on the map. After a while the track swung away to the right and the path line vanished completely.

The ground was horribly wet and I was in thick mist. I came to a line of shooting butts which I followed for a while then along a ditch I rejoined the path shown on the map, though there was nothing on the ground. On Sedling Fell I came to the ruin of what looked like an old shepherds hut.

Across more wet ground I came to the fence line to the north then turned left to follow it to the trig post. I continued west along the fence line to rejoin my outwards route and then back to the car.