A narrow-gauge line running north out of Alston up the South Tyne valley, worked by steam and diesel on a former branch line. The railway states plainly that it is dog friendly, so a dog can travel with you rather than wait in the car. Combine it with the riverside path back for a there-and-walk-home outing.
These are the parts only the business can add. We check the dog policy and stamp the date — photos, prices and their own words are theirs to put in, and this listing is waiting for them.
What it looks like with a dog in the picture.
Entry, parking, whether the dog goes free.
Can the dog actually sleep here, and what does it cost.
Which parts of the site, and whether leads are required.
Claiming fills every box above, and lets you reply to reviews when they open. £15 a month, no contract, and it never changes the verdict — the stamp stays ours.
Five and a half miles there and back in around two and a half hours, upstream from England’s highest market town on riverside path and old trackbed to the green at Garrigill. Start from the station car park at Alston, beside the South Tynedale Railway, which is free and the largest parking in the town; the cobbled market place has only a handful of spaces. The South Tyne is alongside almost the whole way with plenty of places for a dog to get in, and much of it is safely off the lead, but riverside meadows are grazed by sheep and there are stiles and gates to negotiate at the field boundaries.
Five miles of nearly level linear walking in two and a half hours, north down the South Tyne valley on the old Haltwhistle branch railway past Kirkhaugh and Lintley to Slaggyford. Start at Alston station car park, which is free and the largest in the town, and take the narrow-gauge South Tynedale Railway back from Slaggyford rather than walking it twice, since the trail and the line run side by side. Traffic-free trackbed makes this the safest long off-lead walk in the North Pennines, with the South Tyne close by for a drink, but the viaducts have open parapets, sheep graze the adjoining fields, and dogs must be on a lead on the train.
Two and three quarter miles with 80 metres of climbing, an easy hour and a quarter up the South Tyne from Garrigill to a waterfall you can walk behind, returning on the trail above. Start at the village green in Garrigill, where roadside parking is free but limited to perhaps fifteen considerate spaces, so a weekday is easier. Pools and cascades all the way up give a dog constant water and shallow paddling, the wooded gorge section is fine off the lead, and the only cares are the wet rock behind the fall itself and the sheep in the meadows either side.
Nobody has written one for South Tynedale Railway. If you have been with the dog, you would be the first — and the first review is the one everybody reads.
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