Industrial Rookhope

Rookhope - its name means 'valley of the rooks' - is today a small, remote Weardale village. But it has a long and fascinating history. By 1153, when King Stephen granted a licence to mine for lead and iron, it was known as Rykhup. In the 14th century the local farmers combined agriculture with searching out the lead on the stream banks. The Rookhope farmers were generally free from the cattle raids that plagued their counterparts further north, but a famous raid of 1569 into Weardale ended with the raiders cornered in the Rookhope Valley, where a pitched battle resulted in victory for the Weardale men. Their exploits were recorded in the 24-verse ballad Rookhope Ryde.

Nineteenth-century Rookhope was a great contrast to the rest of its history. Under the influence of the Blackett family, the Weardale Iron Company and then the Weardale Lead Company, Rookhope became a bustling, noisy, industrial town, dedicated to winning minerals out of the ground in the surrounding hills. In its heyday its population approached 1,000, with ten shops, several churches and chapels, an Institute and generous sports fields. The mine owners maintained a paternalistic but benevolent eye on their workforce. There were still mines operating in the Rookhope area into the 1990s, mainly for fluorspar.

There are still many reminders of Rookhope's industrial past in the area - and the most expressive is the great arch near the start of the walk. It is the only surviving fragment of a row of six such arches that carried the 2-mile (3.2km) flue, known as Rookhope Chimney, from the smelt works at Lintzgarth across the valley. After crossing the river, the flue ran for 1 mile (1.6km) underground and ½ mile (800m) up the hillside. Its purpose was to cool the gases from the smelting floor, in which there was much vaporised lead. The lead was deposited on the walls of the flue, and was either scraped off or washed away with water flowing along the tunnel into special 'fume tanks'. The car park is the site of one of them.

The Rookhope area's mining relics were a formative influence on the poet W H Auden (1907-73). Lead mining fascinated Auden as a boy, and a visit he made to Rookhope in 1919, when he was 12, proved a life-changing experience. He suddenly saw these derelict remains as symbols of mankind's lost beliefs. His poems of the 1920s contain many references to the industry, including technical terms that must have puzzled many of his readers. Auden himself was in no doubt of the importance of his Rookhope experience 'There in Rookhope,' he wrote in New Year Letter, 'I was first aware of self and not-self, Death and Dread.'

Where to eat and drink

In Rookhope the Rose and Crown near the church offers meals and real ale (dogs allowed). The Rookhope Inn also has real ale, and home-cooked food. Both provide a pleasant place to stop and children are welcome, but check at the Rose and Crown when you arrive.

What to look for

From Rookhope to Smailsburn farm the walk follows the route of the former railway line built by the Weardale Coal and Iron Company. The route continues beyond Smailsburn for another 3 miles (4.8km) to Westgate where it originally joined the Wear Valley line. According to a late 19th-century survey, the line was 'used for the conveyance of coal, limestone, lead, &c. Coal for the village, smelt-mill, and Westgate; limestone from the quarry of the Weardale Coal and Iron Company to their iron-works, and lead from the mines to the smelt-mill, and thence to the market.' The mines and quarries around the Rookhope Burn valley also had their own branches, some of them of smaller gauge.

While you're there

Visit nearby Stanhope, called the Capital of Weardale. In the churchyard is the fossilised stump of a 250 million-year-old tree. In Heathery Burn Cave near by, the possessions of a Bronze-Age family (now in the British Museum) were discovered in 1850. For today's visitors there is an open-air swimming pool and pleasant walks beside the River Wear.