I can honestly say that I have never walked around the village of Stamfordham. Indeed, I have never been to Stamfordham before we did this walk despite it being a few miles from our house.

It’s a surprisingly big village with a lovely spacious village green which was the start of our walk today. We headed out of the village by way of the footpath that loops around the lovely church of St Mary before heading out into farmland.

It was a bright and breezy day, not too cold for February and good walking weather. Following the footpath markers, we walked West, down a grassy lane between fields before a short spell of road walking and then cutting through a small hamlet after a mile or so. After crossing the Fenwick Burn and a bit of a wrong turn through a badly way marked field, followed by a dainty hop over an electric fence, we passed through a large farmyard and back out into open fields.

It’s fairly flat around this part of Northumberland and so we tucked ourselves behind a stone wall for shelter and ate our lunch. We were lucky enough to catch a bit of winter sunshine here and some bird song for a lunchtime cabaret. It was a bit chilly though so we didn’t hang around for long.

We headed back towards Stamfordham before we were close enough to nearby Matfen Hall to hear the thwack of expensive golf clubs, following quiet roads and country lanes for the most part. We did pass through an enormously heavy metal gate that led from open pasture onto a local road. It was obviously a relic of a grander age and was crowned by a pair of impressive carved stone gateposts.

7.5 miles