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Verified Slow Way

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Alnwick to Rothbury:
This route involves beautiful and easygoing stretches of an old railway line. It starts with an incline out of Alnwick but the views at the top make it worth the hike. The path up to Shiel Dyke is easy, with one small road section. After Newmoor Hall, the paths are less easy to follow when crossing the airfield, and some of the stiles are doable but overgrown. Longframlington has lots of options to stop for a bite to eat.

Walking down to Pauperhaugh through fields is pleasant and easy to follow. The stretch above the Coquet River is a lovely final section, with clear and well maintained paths. The final descent into Rothbury is on small roads with pavements.

We walked this from Alnwick to Rothbury

This route starts with a climb out of Alnwick, but this is rewarded with a good path and then a lovely stretch along an old railway line. The route then follows the contours to Snipe House through good farmland. Walking is easy up to Shiel Dyke and then onwards, with one small road section.

Farmland after Newmoor Hall becomes muddier, with some less clear paths across the airfield, and overgrown stiles. Longframlington has plenty of options for lunch or a stop.

Beyond this, the field walking is good down to Pauperhaugh. The final stretch above the Coquet River is very good, following a clear and well maintained path through fields and woodland before the final descent into Rothbury on small roads and pavements.

We walked this route from Alnwick to Rothbury. It is a successful route in that it is mainly easy walking and direct, though a large proportion is road walking. However the roads are almost all quiet single track roads with resulting slow moving traffic and when we walked (a Monday with good weather, in school holidays when 'staycationing' was at its peak) we encountered only 3 cars. Between leaving Alnwick and arriving at Rothbury we saw no other walkers.
The route quickly takes you out of Alnwick, steadily climbing before turning onto the first long section of road walking. The route then continues on a path over grassland to Snipe House. There is no obvious path through this section, but the gates and stiles are labelled with footpath signs.
We had problems from Snipe House - there are four different paths all leaving from the same point. Three are obvious, but the Slow Ways route is difficult to find and having set off on the path after less than 100m, at the first field boundary, the route was blocked with an electric fence.
Fortunately three of the four routes rejoin after a few hundred metres at a small commercial woodland (now mainly harvested) and we retraced our steps and continued instead on the path past Snipe House Cottages and Freeman's Hill to rejoin the route, a decision based on the distribution of cows in the fields rather than distance.
The route is then on easy to follow paths/farm tracks over moorland, with much evidence of forestry work, to Shiel Dykes.
There is then another long section along quiet roads to reach Newmoor Hall. We had problems here. There is no sign indicating where the footpath leaves the road and, where the path should be, is blocked by a profusion of sheep pens. We were also informed that cows were being moved on the farm and while we could progress through the pens this would be potentially dangerous with the unsettled cows. We took the advice to continue down the road to Longframlington, which added significant distance and even more road walking.
Longframlington has two pubs serving food, a recommended cafe and a small village shop.
The path from Longframlinton is initially a descending narrow enclosed footpath (one section has 4 steps going up and then down again after a few metres) which then opens out onto rough meadowland, (with large number of thistles) with fabulous views to Simonside in the distance. There is no path at all visible across this section, but as you climb over a stile it is usually possible to see the next stile. The path ends at some farm buildings by Throat Wood and the final gate here has been nailed closed and the land on the other side of the gate seems to have been levelled so it is almost 1m above the old level with a ditch between the gate and this new level, making climbing the gate and progressing rather difficult.
After another section of road walking the route joins a footpath gradual descending over grazing land to Pauperhaugh where, after crossing the Coquet on the road bridge, the route joins St Oswald's Way for the final walk along well marked and scenic paths, including a section along the old railway line, to Rothbury
The problems we found with obstructed paths on this route have been reported to Countryside Team at Northumberland County Council.

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