I’ve used the little weather-resistant guides published by Frances Lincoln in various locations, and learned to trust them. So setting out from Seathwaite (the Duddon Valley one, not the one under Scafell Pike) with Norman and June Buckley’s guide, Walking with Wordsworth in the Lake District, promised a great afternoon’s walking in the river valley that Wordsworth explored as a boy and immortalised in his River Duddon sonnets.First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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Not that it was easy to step from the Newfield Inn (cheerful fire, friendly folk, snoring dogs) into the spit and bluster of a wet old day. The Tarn Beck rushed noisily under its hazels and alders. The tops of the Seathwaite Fells were misted over, the trees dripped and the road was slick with water rills. The half-gale pushed me along northwards, past whitewashed Tongue House and up a stony path onto the open moor between High Tongue and Troutal Tongue.
The Duddon’s vale is full of tongues – high rocky knolls that give the valley a wild character unique in the Lake District. Along the wet grasses the golden busbies of bog asphodel shivered to the wind in their tens of thousands. What rhymes with asphodel? Wordsworth would have found something to encapsulate the damp shimmer of buttery bronze up here in the wind and rain.
Gradually the weather relented: the mist shredded off the Seathwaite Fells, revealing their high spine against patches of intense blue sky. The rain-swollen River Duddon came leaping and churning through a dark slit of a gorge, to jostle in a surge of bubbles under the single arch of Birks Bridge.
I lingered on the bridge, listening to the crashing of the river, then turned downstream. Pied wagtails bobbed on the rocks. A whinchat squeaked and clicked up the bank. The path rose and fell, a tricky stumble among slippery tree roots and rocks. One moment the Duddon was sluicing over flooded stepping stones at my elbow; the next it was hissing between rock walls 200 feet below.
I threaded a cathedral-like pine forest, skidded across a scree slope of red and grey boulders, and recrossed the roaring Duddon to follow its east bank down to Seathwaite. On the outskirts of the village I passed a pebbly strand where a couple of boys were skinny-dipping in the rampant river, risking life and limb as country boys have done since Noah – let along William Wordsworth – was a lad.
Start & finish: Newfield Inn, Seathwaite, Cumbria, LA20 6ED (OS ref SD 227960)
Getting there: M6 to Jct 36; A590, A5092, A595 to Duddon Bridge; Ulpha & Seathwaite signposted from here.
Walk (5½ miles, moderate grade, OS Explorer OL6): Newfield Inn – church (229961) – fork right (232967, ‘Coniston’) – left in 300m – cross footbridge by Tongue House (236074) – path north, left of Worm How and Troutal Tongue to road (234983) – left across Birks Bridge (234993) – left along riverside. Soon path climbs right (white arrows) to top of knoll. Same line descending (NB Indistinct path; beware rocks, roots and mud!) to woodland section by river. In 2/3rds of a mile, ford Wet Gill by logs (229979); over stile; path climbs (YA) behind crag; descends to cross scree (224966). Left to cross Duddon by stone bridge (224963); right through gate; riverside path to cross Tarn Beck (225960); left to Newfield Inn.
Conditions: Riverside path between Birks Bridge and Seathwaite is slippery and tricky underfoot – roots, stones, mud. Allow plenty of time. Boots essential; stick helpful.
Lunch: Newfield Inn, Seathwaite (01229-716208) – meals noon-9 daily.
Reading: Walking with Wordsworth in the Lake District by Norman and June Buckley (Frances Lincoln).
Info: Broughton-in-Furness TIC (01299-716115; www.lakedistrictinfomation.com)
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk