Cows of Kirknewton
The blog entry this week does not feature goats, as did last week, but as the title may hint to, the animal of the moment was the cow, (as often my outings, also sheep). As such the what3words I’ve chosen to go for from the starting point is ///sheep.unfounded.piles, which is the car park by the Village Hall and The Church of St Gregory.
The Church of St Gregory, Kirknewton, Northumberland
Starting from Kirknewton, the walk heads along some of the country lanes to encircle and then summit West Hill, followed by St Gregory’s Hill. Some of the lanes make for some nice leading lines, however I get one hike per month without the children, and this month it was this one, which left me short of subjects to place within the leading lines. We’ve done this hike once before in spring, and I feel it may be a good time to return with the added potential to photograph lambs along the route.
Lanes from Kirknewton towards West Hill, Northumberland
When we did this walk last time, one of my favourite points to photograph was an old farm building. It is one that is visible from the road as you pass through Kirknewton towards College Valley and Hethpool. On this occasion however there was work being done on the building, which meant it wasn’t quite the pinnacle of the walk that I was expecting it to be, as it was surrounded by earthworks and had a couple of pieces of heavy machinery.
Hopefully this is for restoration rather than demolition and I will be able to take more intentionally composed version of the image again in future. In all fairness though, if refurbished it could make a hell of a holiday let, being just a stones throw from some of the best walks in the North-East.
Old farm building, Kirknewton, Northumberland
Following the building above you pass through a gate. Waiting on the other side of the gate was a small group of cows. I say small, between those in the ferns, and those in the grass there was probably 20 or so, which I only class as small comparatively speaking to the herd on the other side of the hill.
Cows in the ferns, Kirknewton, Northumberland
As we rounded the hill, the group of cows seemed to follow us. Generally in small groups of three or four at a time. Some rather vocally so. We moved to the side and let the more vocal ones pass in case we had inadvertently placed ourselves between a mother and calf.
Cows rounding West Hill, Northumberland National Park
Cows rounding West Hill, Northumberland National Park
Some of the younger cows didn’t seem to do their mothers any favours when it came to stress levels. It felt almost like they were trying to play hide and seek. Some seemed to run off ahead. Some seemed to go into the trees and disappear from sight. Others seemed to get a bit more adventurous with their hiding…
Spot the cow in the below image:
Peak-a-moo, Northumberland National Park
When we first got to this point in the walk there were two cows hiding under there. We initially got quite worried that they were stuck, until one of them backed out and we could see it wasn’t as tight a fit as we’d thought.
As we approached the next gate along the route the number of cows increased, significantly. The photo below probably doesn’t do justice as to how many cows were actually there, I was trying to do it in a way where I was getting Yeavering Bell through the trees, but I wish I’d just stuck a wide angle on and shown there were MILLIONS of cows.
OK, so maybe millions is a slight exaggeration, but there was a lot! A Cowmageddon.
Cowmageddon
Leaving the cows behind (for now) we then started to head up West Hill from the rear.
Given how short a hike this is (and the fact that you can short cut from West Hill back to Kirknewton without doing the second hill) I can’t help but feel like I need to do it at some point in golden hour to get more out of the light from the hilltops at either sunset or sunrise. These hills may be smaller than some that surround them, but I imagine you can still get some great shots of Yeavering Bell and Easter/Wester Tor in the right light.
Or maybe it’s just that the grand vistas aren’t really my thing so I end up underwhelmed by my photos that don’t contain some form of additional subject through farm buildings or the occasional sheep?
Below are two images from the summit of West Hill. One captures the cairn stones with Easter and Wester Tor behind, looming over the smaller hill, and the other is of a mushroom, and I think the mushroom takes it for me… I took more from the summit than just these two however, and I’ll include some in the gallery at the bottom of the blog.
Easter Tor and Wester Tor from West Hill in Northumberland National Park
A Mushroom on West Hill, Northumberland National Park
From here, we descended into the little dip between West Hill and St Gregory’s and then circled around St Gregory’s back to Kirknewton, all the time feeling that cows had become a bit of a theme of my photography for the day…
A cow grazing in front of Easter and Wester Tor from St Gregory’s in Northumberland.
All the while as we crossed St Gregory’s, even mid-hike I was conscious I wasn’t happy with my ‘vista’ shots, so I found much of this stretch of the walk shooting backwards towards the Tors. Don’t forget to look behind you!
Gorse as a leading line to the Tors in Northumberland National Park
As you circle back towards Kirknewton, you get views over the rooftops of the village, with what I believe is Housedon Hill behind (though I have been known be wrong on these things!)
I think my favourite frame of the day was the second last one I took, which is below. I did get a version that had cows in the foreground, however I preferred this cleaner version. I may not have got the photo I’d intended of the farm building at the beginning of the walk, but it was nice to capture something I was really happy with from a farm building at the end instead, under the Lanton Hill Monument.
If you would like to see more of my landscape work, moving forward most of the images will be here in blog format, but I will notify of new entries on my Instagram page for landscapes - @photog.righ
If you are interested in following my portrait and product work, links to my instagram and twitter for those accounts are just below at the bottom of this page. A small selection of other images from this walk are in the gallery below. (Including the sheep mentioned at the start that I am yet to feature, and the version of the above image with added cows)
