This July, on a visit to Northumberland, staying at Folly Cottage on the Belsay Estate, I found myself tracing an old bridlepath—a 4km stretch running from the fields just south of the cottage north toward Gallowhill, where my sister lives at White Cottages. The path crosses pasture for cattle and sheep, is boarded by ancient hedge banks , and their are two small rivers: the Blyth flowing south (looking more like a stream), and the How Burn to the north (just a trickle). Rivers are low after a spring and summer of low rainfall.
Over several days, I documented fourteen trees along the route, many of which displayed features typical of veteran or ancient trees: hollow trunks, fragmented canopies, multiple stems, or unusual growth habits. All with moss and lichen. And cows. Each one told a story of wind, weather, farming pressure, and human hands.
South from Folly Cottage toward Belsay
Starting at the gate nearest the road to Belsay, the landscape quickly reveals its history. Boundary banks and stone-walled edges are thick with ash—many deeply hollowed or fragmented by centuries of weather and livestock.
Ash multistem or ancient coppice
📍 ///swimsuits.sensible.shirtless
Girth: est. 4.0m
Likely a phoenix coppice with multiple stems, set beside a gate.
Ash ‘Maiden’ growing into a stone wall
📍 ///dynamic.bloomers.brands
Girth: 4.57m @1.40m
Rooted on a boundary bank where dry-stone meets new hedge planting.
Ash in the wall
📍 ///finishers.twitches.drain
Part of an estate boundary structure, likely from the original 19th-century shelterbelt system.
Ash (two stems with cows)
📍 ///towers.covenants.pays
Girth: 3.58m @1m (or possibly split measurement at 50cm)
Moving farther down the bridlepath, two oaks become landmarks:
Oak by path
📍 ///impresses.heads.tickling
Girth: 4.08m @1.50m
An intact, solid tree with minimal deadwood, likely planted during the mid-1800s shelterbelt initiative .
Oak ‘Maiden’ tree
📍 ///middle.poses.huts
Girth: 4.01m @1.50m
And then a beautifully formed ash maiden:
Ash Maiden
📍 ///care.shipwreck.mixes
Girth: 4.14m @1.50m
Near the final gate before the track turns back uphill:
Oak Maiden
📍 ///called.taken.pesky
Girth: 3.92m @1.50m
Ash by gate
📍 ///padding.easygoing.clockwork
Girth: 4.0m est.
Likely another phoenix regrowth tree, regrown after a storm or felling damage.
North from Folly Cottage to Gallowhill
Northward, toward the pygmy goat farm and eventually to White Cottages, the bridlepath continues its story. Here, the trees appear even older in some cases, or at least more dramatically shaped by their environment.
Ash: 7-stem coppice or cluster planting
📍 ///regular.replays.alongside
Girth: 7.27m
It’s unclear whether this is a true multi-stemmed coppice or multiple trees fused at the base, but its scale is striking.
Oak by the pygmy goat enclosure
📍 ///basically.budgeted.lungs
Girth, like similar oak around here approximately 4m.
Ash, likely ancient
📍 ///downsize.miracle.bumpy
Highly hollowed and fragmented, likely approaching ancient status under Woodland Trust criteria.
At journey’s end:
Beech at White Cottages
📍 ///guesswork.slings.noodle
Located on a bank, likely leftover from old field divisions.
Fallen Beech at Gallowhill
📍 ///scoop.bluntly.organist
Girth: 5.7m
A once-dominant boundary beech that may yet resprout even they it broke entirely at the base in February and had to he dawn to clean the lane, then pulled upright with chains.
BEFORE
AFTER
Reading the Landscape: Trees, Stones, and Boundaries
What links many of these trees is not just their age or size, but the story told by the ground beneath them. Several ash trees sit atop deliberate stone mounds, a feature now widely recognised as a hallmark of 19th-century shelterbelt and estate land management in Northumberland .
These stones were:
- Cleared from ploughed fields;
- Used to anchor boundary fencing;
- Designed to discourage livestock from rubbing or compacting roots;
- And essential in protecting against erosion on sloped or wet ground.
Where the trees remain, the roots have often absorbed the stones into their structure, creating tree-stone banks that are part woodland archaeology, part living history.
Final Thoughts
Each tree surveyed along this bridlepath marks a point in the landscape where time, farming, and nature intersect. Whether as boundary markers, cattle shelters, or windbreaks, they are as much a part of the estate’s memory as the farmhouses and field systems they once supported.
As ash dieback continues to threaten these boundary trees, recording their presence—and understanding the stories embedded in their bark, roots, and stones—feels more urgent than ever.
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