Emblehope Moor and Tarsetdale

I had wanted to go and look at Bastles and things in Redesdale for a while, so today I set off from Black Middens Bastle in Tarsetdale, on the edge of Kielder Forest and Redesdale. This is an area infamous for its bloody border history, with a cluster of Bastles (fortified farmhouses) dating from the 16th and early 17th century, around the Tarset Burn.

a two story stone building. it has a doorway next to an external flight of stone stairs, which lead to another doorway. The only windows are two small square openings next to the upper window; the structure has no roof. It sits in muddy looking grass and behind it can be seen the ruins of another stone building.
Black Middens Bastle House

From here, I could easily walk uphill to join a bridleway along a rough road that would take me to near Ridley Shiel.

Back in 2009 I found a route in a Cicerone guide, Backpacker’s Britain: Northern England. In those days, the Forestry Comission had about a dozen “approved” wild camp sites that a few walks in this Cicerone guide used. One of these was a circular walk from Blakehopeburnhaugh, called “Emblehope Moor and the Redesdale Forest”.

A view over rough moorland with long tussocky yellow grass downhill. On the other side of the valley are some forestry plantation, and a small house, Ridley Shiel, can just be made out.
A view towards Ridley Shiel

(Sidenote: Blakehopeburnhaugh is the longest placename in England, joint with Cottonshopeburnfoot. Both 19 letters long.. and next door to each other on the A68 near Byrness.)

At 29km, it was a great walk, written by Graham Uney, although the book is out of print now (and you aren’t allowed to wild camp in Kielder any more), so I’ve uploaded the route to OutdoorActive for historical purposes.

So I was quite interested to come across the same approved wild camp spot that I camped at in 2009. Back then, I had come in from a slightly different direction and got confused by exactly where the sites was. Passing by isolated Ridley Shiel, the resident called me over and offered me a cup of tea and a chat. Now the area around what was a sunny clearing 16 years ago is all felled, although the same footbridge crosses the burn by the ford.

A photograph from 2009 of a small green tent in the sunshine, pitched in a small clearing near a wooden footbridge and surrounded by mature plantation woodland. The edge of a road that fords the stream can be seen at the bottom of the image.. A wider view, taken in 2025, of the same location. The footbridge and ford can be seen, but now the landscape has been cleared of trees, apart from a few young ones and a distant plantation just over the horizon. Grass, heather and a small gorse shrub are where the woods and the clearing were.
Wild camping in 2009 The same site in 2025

My planned route was to follow a bridleway through the forestry to the first of two of the “Named Stones” I wanted to look at. I found these Named Stones on the brilliant website of the Heddon History Society, it being a list of “Named Stones of Northumberland” published in the early 1890s. Heddon History Society created a freely downloadable KML of the stones, so now you too can locate all the named stones in the county. If you want.

The bridleways through the forest should take me to one called The Greymare Stone, “Near old path junction on Graymare Moss, NE of Comb Hill. Now in Forest.” The old paths are gone now, (despite one being a Public Bridleway) having been planted over.

a greyscale map from the 1st edition OS, so mid 19th century. two paths from the west join and then cross to the east, and are crossed by a path running north-south. On this path, north of the Junction is tmarked the Graymare stone. We can also see a point labelled "B.M.935.2" this is a boundary marker A part of a modern OS map, green with forestry with white rides marked in. a single green bridleway crosses from south east to the north west, and an orange permissive footpath is further to the east.
1st edition OS map of Greymare Stone Modern OS of same Location
A wall of plantation forestry, too dense to enter.
forestry where a bridleway should be

but I found a fairly open ride to trudge through

thick and tussocky yellow grass carpets the floor, with some tussocks of moss poking out. Either side are Sitka Spruce, about 4m tall.
 

..and then a bit of scrabbling around in the soggy dense forest to find the Graymare Stone itself:

in the dense forest surrounded by sitka spruce, a large, flat topped grey boulder. It has patches of moss and the soggy vegetation half swallows it, the top is fairly smooth with some indentations. It is about 2m across and rises perhaps 50cm out of the ground
Graymare Stone

Worth it. From here I wanted to follow the bridleway up onto Emblehope Moor, which involved more negotiation of thick forestry until I could find rides to walk down, then finally a last push through about 200m of dense, young plantation to reach the moor. Up here is the other named stone I wanted to see, “The Fairy’s Kirk”. A similar size, maybe 2m at it’s broadest, it lies in a suspicously conical depression, like a sinkhole or a pit.

a grey boulder with white lichen lies in thick tussocky grass at the edge of a conical depression that can just be made out. In the distance are scattered sitka spruce.
The Fairy’s Kirk

A search in the Northumberland Name Book gives this unexpected info:

A screenshot of part of a handwritten page about Fairy's Kirk, I have transcribed in the text below
The relevant part from the Northumberland Name Book

List of Names as written on the Plan: Fairys Kirk

Various modes of Spelling the same Names: Fairys Kirk

Authority for those modes of Spelling: Mr Robt Scott of The Comb, Mr R. Thomson of the Comb, Mr J. Thomson of Blackburn

Situation: 56 chains south east of Dummy’s Hole.

Descriptive Remarks, or other General Observations which may be considered of Interest: A subterraneous passage on Comb Moor extending about fifteen yards from the entrance and having a space at the end about six feet square.

If you know Northumberland, this sounds a lot like the Cateran Hole! I wonder if it is worth investigating?

Back to the walk, I had now reached Emblehope Moor, which is a huge and very remote expanse of moorland bordered almost entirely by Kielder Forest. After appreciating the view from Whiteheugh Crag, I skirted round the edge of the moor then followed the road to Emblehope Farm and finally south to re-enter the forest

a sweeping vista under the grey sky of yellowy moorland extending far to the opposite horizon. There are patches of plantation forestry and the odd tree; in the centre-distance the farmhouse can faintly be made out, surrounded by green in-bye fields.
Emblehope Moor, the farm is in the centre distance near the greener in-bye fields
The Tarset Burn flows away from the footbridge. it has been widened just ahead, possibly for stock access, and flows in a small U-shaped grassy valley. It is about 3 or 4m wide at this point
Tarset Burn at Dummy’s Hole
A very overgrown track in the forest cuts through grass and is bordered by heather. Either side grown tall sitka trees
Back into the forest

This time I stuck to the forest tracks rather than try to follow the non-existant bridleway. Eventually I found my way to the start of the Tarset Bastle Trail. You will notice the website says “trail closed”. There are no signs anywhere on the ground to explain this, so most of the route involved clambering over fallen trees and wading through knee-deep bog. But it also involved looking at Bastles, who doesn’t love a Bastle? Here’s Bog Head Bastle

the ruins of a 2 storey, squat stone building sit in boggy ground next to a bare tree in a forestry clearing.
Bog Head Bastle

Back in 2009, the intepretation boards along the trail featured a legendary story of 2 of the men who lived in these Bastles - Corbit Jack and Barty Milburn. The story recounted here that Scottish thieves rode to Barty’s farm at Bog Head and nicked his sheep. When he woke up the next morning and discovered his sheep gone, he called over his neighbour Hodge Corbett aka Cobit Jack, who lived at Shilla Bastle. They set off after the rustlers, but lost the trail near Leathem just over the border. Rather than return empty handed, they just pinched some nearby sheep instead, but were caught up by a pair of angry Scotsmen at Chattlehope Spout where a fierce hand-to-hand battle ensued. Corbit Jack was killed and Barty wounded in the thigh, but he managed to slay the two Scots. He slung Corbit Jack’s body over his shoulder and headed for home with the stolen sheep, placing Jack on his doostep at Shilla before going home for the night. Later, recounting the fight to his friends, Barty explained how he decapitated one of them and “His heid span alang the haither like an onion!”

I cannot see the word “bastle” without thinking “His heid span alang the haither like an onion”. Today, the newer information board just has a load of actually quite interesting archeological and historical facts about the ruins.

The trail, apart from the bits that were covered with fallen trees, was really lovely, along the river and then up to Shilla Bastle on the hill before reaching the private houses that are the sites of two more bastles, Waterhead and Comb.

The ruins of another small stone building, only two or three courses high, poke out of the grass
Shilla Bastle

From here I could continue on this side of the river to get back to Black Middens Bastle, but given the state of the rest of the trail I had zero confidence that the footbridge still existed, so I just followed the road back.

This was a really great walk, and would be much improved if you don’t go offroading into thick forestry looking for novelty rocks, and if the Forestry Comission ever decide to sort out the Tarset Bastle Trail so you can actually follow it. As it is.. I don’t recommend, but Fairy’s Kirk might be worth some further investigation.

Map of route taken

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