mhodnett

Last updated 01:00, Friday, 19 October 2007

THE North Tyne landscape is glorious on a clear bright autumn day as the river glints in the sunlight and the valley’s wooded slopes turn to gold.

Today there’s even more to experience than the great sweeps of hill and dale because the upper stretch of the valley is becoming an important rural centre for interesting and original public art in the landscape.

The sculptures around Kielder Water have now been joined by two significant open-air artworks, easily accessible from the village of Falstone, and well worth a visit.

This walk through the national park exercises both mind and body, and sits comfortably between lunch and tea with ample chance for refreshments between invigorating viewings.

Food is provided at the Pheasant Inn at Stannersburn, or the Black Cock Inn and the Old School Tea Rooms in Falstone. You can use the car park by the tea rooms to do the walk.

Stage 1 takes you on to the ridge above the village to see FLOW.

FLOW is the work of four artists resident at the nearby Highgreen Arts Centre – Julia Barton, Susan Grant, Julie Livsey and Karen Rann.

It is located on four interconnecting ponds in breath-taking natural surroundings at Donkleywood just above Falstone and aims to draw attention to social and ecological questions.

The four ponds were dug in the 1980s to encourage biodiversity and vary in size from 20 metres and 80 metres long and 10-20 metres wide.

Like communicating vessels, they feed one into another before their waters empty invisibly into the North Tyne River, as does Kielder Water further up the valley.

Walk to the junction past the tea room and turn left up the road through the village and under the old railway bridge. Turn right at the T-junction.

Follow the single track road for about 1.25 miles (2km) to the hamlet of Donkleywood. Falstone Forest is on the hillside on your left and the North Tyne down below on your right with the old disused railway line.

Follow the road through the hamlet. After the last house on your right there are two farm gates into fields. Go through the left gate down the footpath to the ponds and FLOW.

Return to the village the way you came admiring the wide sweep of the valley running up to the Kielder dam and on to the Border.

Stage 2 leads you in a circular walk along the river bank path to see STELL.

STELL is a sit-on sculpture set on the banks of the North Tyne just outside Falstone village, and commemorates in stone the warm expression of welcome that is typical of this village in Northumberland National Park.

It is the inspiration of artist Colin Wilbourn, who experienced the welcome first-hand as he worked with the community to develop and build this unexpected piece of sculpture.

The design of the sculpture fuses the traditional dry stone sheepfold, or stell, with a cosy enclosed space provided by two facing, cushioned sofas with lacy antimacassars made of stone and steel portraying scenes from the life of the valley.

The rug between the sofas depicts and commemorates the lost villages which were flooded to create the Kielder reservoir, and many of the images on the sculpture were drawn by local people and schoolchildren.

From the tea rooms, turn right and walk through the village past the church and the village hall. At the tennis court cross the road to the footpath that takes you along the river bank as it bends south-west, away from the village.

Continue through a wicket gate until the path opens out at a wide sweeping corner of the river. Situated here is STELL.

Follow the path to the stone bridge. At the bridge, bear left and head through a wicket gate ahead and through a group of conifers until the path emerges on to the road and heads back north towards the tea rooms.

You can download a map and guide for this walk from www.northumberlandnationalpark.org.uk

Grade: Easy.

Length: three miles.

Time: Allow 2-3 hours.