Trail Running > Routes > The Cheviot
A 25 km trail run to The Cheviot – Northumberland’s highest point – featuring tough and rugged terrain with remote, windswept views.
Why run this trail?
The Cheviot is Northumberland’s highest mountain at 815 metres (2,674 ft) and is the last major climb of the Pennine Way, sitting right on the border between England and Scotland.
I have family in Berwick-Upon-Tweed, so fell-running The Cheviot has been on my radar for a while. This notoriously boggy, imposing dome with the perpetually cloud-covered summit has always piqued my interest.
The uncharacteristically dry spring of 2025 coincided with a planned trip up north, so the stars aligned and I finally got an opportunity to trail run The Cheviot!
I had planned to run a 28 km circular route featuring Comb Fell, Hedgehope Hill and Langlee Crags on the return leg. That being the order of the day, I parked at the (deserted) Brewery Rd Car Park near Middleton Hall and ran the 6km on-road through the beautiful Harthope Valley to the trail head at Scald Hill/Langleeford.
I ran this on Good Friday of the Easter weekend. The trails were fairly quiet with one or two walking groups, a few couples and some solo walkers. I saw no other runners. The sunshine was promising to begin with and temperatures in the valley were well into double figures. I sweated and cursed for the first few kilometres, running in layers and leggings that I was to become extremely thankful for by the time I got to the summit an hour and a half later. It was a different story up there, with stiff winds and -1°C chill factor.
The trail proper begins with a pretty unassuming right hand turn – about 300 m past the grass car parking area at Langleeford – onto the moorland slopes of Scald Hill. It felt like a nice warm-up gradient and the footing was good, with nice views opening out over my left shoulder and the odd clucking calls of grouse in the heather providing a bit of atmosphere. The path is wide and impossible to miss. Towards the top of Scald Hill, I got decent but hazy views looking back eastward towards Berwick, Lindisfarne and the huge expanse of the North Sea.
After cresting Scald Hill (549 m) there’s a kilometre or so of navigating deep, flooded peat hags that require plenty of leaping and direction switching to pick the path of least resistance. This is a real leg sapper and it serves as an entrée to the main climb up to the summit of The Cheviot that immediately follows.
The final ascent of The Cheviot is a steady slog with an average gradient of 14% over a 2 km section. Thankfully the footing is decent – a broad slope of grass and compacted heather that was bone dry when I ran it. I was glad of a couple of pauses on the way up to look back and enjoy the views. Despite the gathering clouds, these turned out to be much better than those from the actual summit of The Cheviot once I reached it.
The path at the top of The Cheviot is paved with large granite slabs which are very welcome. The terrain here is a mire of bogs and peat hags that would be brutally heavy going without them. After about 600m of paving, you arrive at the trig point, which seems to sit in the middle of a plateau, surrounded by mud, water and (during my visit) thick swirling cloud. It’s definitely not a place to sit and contemplate the universe.
At this point, I was somewhat disappointed to realise that I’d already burned through most of my inadequate food supplies. A quick inspection offered up a solitary flapjack, several Percy Pigs and a handful of dried mango.
With the prospect of another extended section of peat bogs on Comb Fell (many thanks for this tip-off from the nice walking guide at the trig point) I elected to re-route on-the-fly and descend via Harthope Burn. This would deposit me right back at the trail head at Langleeford, shaving about 3 km and 400 m of climbing off my original planned route.
Decision taken, I joined the paved section of The Pennine Way for a further 1 km before the short descent of Cairn Hill to pick up the trail.
The route via Harthope Burn tracks the burn itself tightly and descends steeply, especially on the top section. After a winter of heavy rain, big sections of the track were washed away and hard to identify. I found myself crossing the burn repeatedly by jumping stones and in some instances – where I had lost the trail completely – the narrowest parts of the burn itself. There’s also plenty of waterlogged, slicked grass to contend with and it is very rocky and winding with one or two dicey drop-offs caused by erosion. There’s a nice waterfall at Harthope Linn, but all told this is a very technical descent and I definitely didn’t find myself sightseeing or taking photos on this section.
After about 3.5 km, the trail broadens out to a compacted gravel farm track at Langleeford Hope. It’s an easy rolling flat run at this point, affording nice views of the crags above the valley, which closely resemble tors transplanted from Dartmoor.
With very little juice left in the legs, and perversely enjoying some tarmac, I rejoined the lane at Langleeford and tapped out the final 6km back to the car park at Brewery Rd.
I closed the adventure with several coffees and a hearty lunch at the beautiful Ad Gefrin Museum in Wooler – a very civilised way to end a decent outing. I’m looking forward to returning to the Cheviots to run The Schil next time I’m back in Northumberland!
Trail run highlights
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Disclaimer
All routes and GPX files are provided as a guide only. Conditions, rights of way, and landmarks may change. Always carry an up‑to‑date map and use your own judgement. See the Trail Run Disclaimer page for details.