Warden Hill Fort Walk



From the Boat Inn in Warden Village, walk along the Warden road until you reach a rough lay-by on left. The signpost directs you to Quality Cottages, and to get there the path borders the main Newcastle to Carlisle railway line. Within ten minutes you are skirting the garden of the first cottage.

The lane up from the main road crosses your path here. Follow it to the right and through a farm gate. Go through a muddy corner, and make your way up the left hand side of a sloping pasture to another gate which gives access to a wooded area. When in the woods follow the rough road which goes left between two walls. Very soon you will emerge into the open again with good views of the River Tyne ahead.

At this point the track bears slightly right, keeping well above a copse of trees further down on the left. Ahead of you a rough farm track goes left-to-right across the path. Continue over the slight depression, which is sometimes quite a muddy area, and follow the fence on your left until you can enter the woods at a large gate. The track is fairly well formed here, if a little rutted, and leads along the boundary of the woods and agricultural land. The Tyne Valley is ahead of you now, but unfortunately will disappear very soon when you start climbing through the woods. Just before the next gate, a footpath breaks off right. It is waymarked in blue and leads up to Warden Hill and High Warden.

Follow this path back right at an angle, climbing through the woods until you arrive at a small gate which opens into a large sloping field. Turn right here, and follow the wall on the right. You will arrive at a corner where the wall top is padded with timber. Later on, after the climb up Warden Hill, you will need to cross this.

From this point, however, bear left up the hill. It takes only five minutes to reach the hill fort, and the views are splendid.

The remains of the old fort can be clearly seen in a rectangular shape at the very top of the hill, while the trig point is hidden from view behind the wall on the right. This is usually a windy spot, but refuge behind the wall is just a few yards away. The hill is also often frequented by Tornados of a different sort - the RAF aircraft which pass over most days of the week on their way to the training areas to the north and west.

Enjoy the view then move back down to the corner of the wall, where you can cross the padded wall top into the next field. Keep to the right, next to the wall, for two hundred metres. here the wall bears right, go diagonally left towards a gate near a water trough which is positioned in the opposite corner of the field. Behind this a clump of trees and piles of stones leads to another gate on the right behind a transmitter mast. Go down the access drive behind the mast heading towards a copse of trees into which you go via a white metal gate.

The track which follows is muddy, but out of the wind. It bears left at the bottom, passing the farm buildings of High Warden on the right. You need to go straight ahead here, but a rather attractive house is in the way. Circumnavigate this to the right, looking for a driveway on the other side that descends towards trees and a cattle grid. It soon joins another farm road, bearing right, and now just ahead of you is the roadway.

Follow this to the right, past Warden Village, and back to your transport near Bridgend.