There's treasure everywhere*
May. 27th, 2007 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustI've already mentioned the Use Your Paths challenge, a campaign by the Ramblers' Association to have every footpath in England and Wales walked, and any problems reported, within a 15 month period. Over the past year, we've ticked off a number of paths, and we're now into the final period when we try to tidy up as many as possible of the missing footpaths: the ones which are not part of any of our established walks, which don't lead anywhere or which look like unpromising links between built-up areas.
Which is why yesterday's walk looped around west of Chester-le-Street, on odds and ends of paths and along roads and through villages and across reclaimed land; paths that we were walking for no better reason than because they were there. And because we had no great hopes, there was a pleasant surprise round every corner: the first poppies of the summer blooming in the corner of a field, an old Primitive Methodist Chapel now trading under the name of The Owlet Garage (the area was once known as Howlett, said the owner), an old waggonway that led us into the bluebell woods, views of lush green farmland and hawthorn hedges, through which a track led past a Green Man watching over a seat on the edge of a clump of trees (just at the point where the grassy lane turned into a rubbish-strewn track).
Best of all, because least expected, was the footpath which looped through the Stella Gill Industrial Estate: a side path brought us steeply up onto the track of the Coast to Coast Cycle Route, the C2C, nose to nose with David Kemp's King Coal. We'd caught sight of him further back down the path, and been intrigued, but uncertain whether we were seeing a monumental sculpture or an abandoned industrial construction. Both, it seems:
Back home, full of virtue, and there in my inbox was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
desperance's SF supernovella: as I said, there's treasure everywhere...
*Oh, yes, there is...
Which is why yesterday's walk looped around west of Chester-le-Street, on odds and ends of paths and along roads and through villages and across reclaimed land; paths that we were walking for no better reason than because they were there. And because we had no great hopes, there was a pleasant surprise round every corner: the first poppies of the summer blooming in the corner of a field, an old Primitive Methodist Chapel now trading under the name of The Owlet Garage (the area was once known as Howlett, said the owner), an old waggonway that led us into the bluebell woods, views of lush green farmland and hawthorn hedges, through which a track led past a Green Man watching over a seat on the edge of a clump of trees (just at the point where the grassy lane turned into a rubbish-strewn track).
Best of all, because least expected, was the footpath which looped through the Stella Gill Industrial Estate: a side path brought us steeply up onto the track of the Coast to Coast Cycle Route, the C2C, nose to nose with David Kemp's King Coal. We'd caught sight of him further back down the path, and been intrigued, but uncertain whether we were seeing a monumental sculpture or an abandoned industrial construction. Both, it seems: "By the abandoned Railway Line at Pelton Fell, the head of an industrial giant emerges from the embankment. The body lies deep underground, King Coal was well known in these parts. The material for King Coal came entirely from dismantled local industries. The stone works was recycled from Consett Railway Station Bridge, the bricks were collected from the demolished kilns at Templetown brick works, British Coal donated the crown, a fan impella from Boldon Colliery, and the shovels came from Wolsingham Iron Company. Stonemason Burt Hunter and a team of local volunteers worked with the sculptor on the exposed hillside site, in wintry conditions. Construction took five weeks, finishing coincidentally on the 15th October 1992, the date of the announced closures of the last pits in Durham Coalfields."
Back home, full of virtue, and there in my inbox was
desperance's SF supernovella: as I said, there's treasure everywhere...*Oh, yes, there is...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-05-27 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-28 08:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-28 03:10 am (UTC)And the picture and explanation of King Coal just makes me happy that such a thing exists in the world (and that one day, perhaps I shall be lucky enough to see it).
no subject
Date: 2007-05-28 08:12 am (UTC)And I'm glad you enjoy these posts, because your days out always sound so wonderful to me.