Download - Coastal walking, Scremerston,Northumberland
Northumberland coastal walks - Scremerston and Cheswick
Welcome to Patrick Norris from Footsteps in Northumberland.Patrick is a qualified walking guide
and he leads walks across all of Northumberland. He has kindly contributed his notes on a recent
walk along the coast at Scremerston and Cheswick.
Footsteps - walking the beauty of Northumberland
It doesn’t really matter where you go walking in Northumberland and I will write about walking,
because that’s what we do at Footsteps, you will always find yourself in a landscape full of natural
interest, drama and history.
Recently for example in early July, we walked on the coast at Scremerston near Berwick, the
natural interest came from perhaps the best display of wildflowers I have ever seen, to say the
dunes were covered is an understatement, they were positively glowing with colour; it was a
wildflower extravaganza, which we were so pleased to walk through, sit amongst and enjoy. The
history was illustrated up on top of the highest dune, where a World War 2 gun emplacement,
unusual in that we are used to seeing pillboxes, hunched menacingly along the coast, but I had
seen nothing quite like this in my travels. A bit further south at Cheswick, a sign warned us not to
pick up anything made of metal that we didn’t recognise, it might just be a bit of old explosive
ordnance; we stuck to the path. The coast is just dramatic, full stop, but on that day the wind was
blowing strongly from the north east, whipping up the waves adding to the drama and I thought
about coming back later with the surf board and making the most of the opportunity. North east
winds are never with us for long and later on of course and when I got back, the sea had flattened
out and I put the surf board away for another day.
I didn’t really have time to identify all the wildflowers, but I could recognise many of them; the
vipers bugloss, bright, blue and tall stood out, the wild thyme released its scent when we crushed
a few leaves between our fingers and I must learn more about the North Sea defences, they have
been with us for a few generations now; they must have used good concrete in those days. The
sea of course is the constant feature in the landscape, it’s seen it all come and go and the sand
dunes shift over time and eventually even the concrete will disintegrate and become sand to be
moved about by the waves up and down the Northumbrian coast.
Patrick Norris
Footsteps - walking the beauty of Northumberland
http://www.footsteps-in-northumberland.co.uk/ http://www.northumbria-byways.com
Breaking waves
Looking south from Cocklawburn
Vipers bugloss
Beach at Cocklawburn