Shepherd’s Cairn Walk

14 Dec 2024

An early start to walk up to the Shepherd’s Cairn, near Alnham. This marks the site where two shepherds, Jock Scott and Willie Middlemas, sadly perished while trying to drive their tractor home from Alnham to Ewartly Shank.


A view over a drystone wall of rolling hills in the early morning light. On the distant horizon is the familiar shape of the Simonside Hills.

I head up onto the moors following the Salter’s Road. This is an ancient route through the Cheviots that joins Clennel Street at the border; when it’s not crossing bog it runs in hollow-ways worn down by hundreds of years of use. This route starts in Alnham and climbs north-west steeply up into boggy moorland, passing through White Gate. (You can see where Salter’s Road joins Clennell Street when I was walking up near Usway.)


A wooden 5-bar gate out on moorland in the morning light. To the right, the end of the a tumble-down wall has a wire fence running along it and a 4-step stile crossing it. The lefthand gate pillar has some small circular rights-of-way markers on it. The right hand wooden gatepost abuts a much stockier, anciend stone gate post, to which part of a wooden fence rests up against. There’s a frozen puddle visible through the lower bars of the gate; behind, the boggy moorland stretches away to a gente hill on the horizon, all very brown and orange in winter. The sky is clear and crisp

A wooden 5-bar gate out on moorland in the morning light. To the right, the end of the a tumble-down wall has a wire fence running along it and a 4-step stile crossing it. The lefthand gate pillar has some small circular rights-of-way markers on it. The right hand wooden gatepost abuts a much stockier, anciend stone gate post, to which part of a wooden fence rests up against. There’s a frozen puddle visible through the lower bars of the gate; behind, the boggy moorland stretches away to a gente hill on the horizon, all very brown and orange in winter. The sky is clear and crisp

From here it should have been a pleasant walk up to the top of High Knowes then down to the cairn. Unfortunately, most of the hillside had been divvied up with electric fence, so I had to take a bit of detour round to the memorial cairn.


A sandstone boulder stands amid a cairn of smaller rocks on the brown grassy hillside. One face is smooth and the words below are carved into it. The stone is speckled with circular lichens.

“Dedicated in memory of the shepherds Jock Scott - Willie Middlemas who perished here in the snow 17th November 1962. Erected by Northumberland National Park Authority and NNP Mountain Rescue Team”

On Saturday 17 November, 1962, after a trip to Rothbury Mart, Jock Scott and Willie Middlemas dropped off Willie Bulloch at Castle Farm near Alnham, then set off home to Ewartly Shank. Two days later, Willie Bulloch was out with his sheep and stopped by Ewartly Shank to see them, only to find Jock’s wife asking when she should expect them back. Realising what had happened, Willie raised the alarm.


The memorial from further away. We can see the hills behind, the location is very bleak

Rescue parties including the police, RAF, shepherds and farm workers began the search. The tractor was found abandoned and Jock’s body was discovered buried under drifting snow near High Knowes late on the Tuesday. He was only half a mile from home. The following day, Willie’s body was found only 100 yards away from where Jock had perished.

This incident led to the National Park Voluntary Rangers creating what is now the Northumberland National Park Mountain Rescue service. The memorial stone was raised in 2007.

Walking down from the memorial, I met the modern road between Alnham and Ewartly Shank (which didn’t exist in 1962). A footpath led a bit away from it, towards Pidon’s Leap. A large rocky outcrop surrounded by dead bracken sat above a cleugh, with a lovely little waterfall at the bottom. Pigdon was supposedly a sheep rustler who lept across the gorge with a stolen sheep to escape his pursuers.


A stream flows through the bottom of a steep sided little valley, cascading down a little rocky waterfall. The banks are covered in brown dead bracken.

Up from here and I stopped at Tod Stones to eat a sandwich. Here are the rocky remains of a medieval farmstead; a 1979 survey suggests that part of the building may have been an illicit whisky still! You know how I like an illicit still.


Rocks and rubble remains of the Tod Stones farmstead enclose a grassy space on the hillside. The land beyond gently slopes down, then back up the opposite hillside; a few other gentle hills and a small bit of plantation are in the distance.

From here, it was a pleasant enough walk back through pheasant rearing landscape and fields of sheep. I took a detour around some wind-blown plantation and found a boundary stone, marked with a S scored through with horizontal lines - I can’t find anything online about it.


The track curves down a steep slope between two hillsides. One has a plantation forestry, the other has naked broadleaf trees. More hills of grass and trees in the distance witha view of gently sloping moorland. The sky is starting to cloud over.


A weathered sandstone pillar about 50cm high, stuck behind a 4-strand wire fence. An “S” can be seen with 4 horizontal lines carved across it

A nice morning’s walk, even with the extra faffing around electric fence. The route tried to follow this national park leaflet if the electric fences hadn’t been in the way.

Map of route taken