The path reached from the road to Warden runs beside the Newcastle to Carlisle railway line, the elevated tracks almost level with your eyes. The day is bright and cool. There are the aromas of damp leaves, mostly oak and sycamore, and a distant bonfire. Lichen-covered trees are lit by winter’s low sunlight, creating a very particular shade of golden green that possesses a subtle quality of enchantment, as if in an Arthur Rackham painting. The path rises quite steeply across a field, from where the rumble of traffic on the A69 is clearly audible, as is the occasional train. To the south, the wooded ridge appears black against the rising sun.

Soon a wide view opens up westward, including the river itself, previously tucked under the base of the hill. A flock of rooks sweeps noisily by, above a flock of sheep that stare at you inquisitively, one of which seems unwell, its face blotchy and eyes swollen. You follow an inviting track along the edge of a coniferous plantation on the slope of Warden Hill, from which distant snow-dusted hilltops become visible upstream towards Alston. Vivid, velvety-green moss covers the exposed tree roots.

The early 19th century buildings of Park Shield farmhouse come into view, including a gingang (which would have accommodated machinery turned by a horse). Beyond a large disused quarry, which provided sandstone for construction in nineteenth century Newcastle but is now covered in trees, the path descends between molehills. The day has become pleasantly warm and spring-like. Contentment creeps over you, as it tends to, out here.

From the road through Newbrough a path signed to St Peter’s Church takes you across Meggie’s Dene Burn, and then down a curving flight of steps over the broad Newbrough Burn. The path veers south, towards the river, through a sparse oakwood. The sound of the burn and the insulating effect of the trees quite erase the rumble of traffic.

Footpaths such as this wend their ways quietly through the countryside, along relatively unknown and unexpected routes, as if by a network of secret passages. It is very satisfying to make your way along them, since they connect you with your ancestors. In Crow Wood stands a stone in memory of Rossie, who died on August 11th 1911 – “For ten years, the constant and devoted companion of Dorothy Du Cane”. Past the enticingly-titled Sewage Wood, the Burn gurgles and rumbles beneath a footbridge, its sound oddly like the murmur of voices heard on a poorly-tuned radio. Now it runs beneath the single arch of a stone bridge that carries the railway, and joins the wide River South Tyne.