"Peat, calm, stillness, a silence broken only by the sighing of the wind and the rippling trickle of fast-running burns. The smell of the peat - twelve feet deep here in places. It's the loneliest place in all England."
The Tyne. David Bean. 2003
The source of the River South Tyne is located in a spring in the side of the hill to the east of the river, which has become steadily narrower - and steeper - since the previous bridge. Rocks and pebbles have been a feature of the river for some distance, but now it runs amid marshy land in these final few hundred yards. A stone sculpture in the form of an obelisk erected in 2001 marks its generally accepted source under the slopes of Cross Fell. The height above sea level here is about 1750 feet or 560 metres and about 1500 feet higher than the meeting point of South and North Tyne near Hexham. Lead mining has left its mark on the countryside, rocks litter the valley and old mine shafts are to be found on the fells. The sources of the rivers Wear and Tees are not far away. This area has been called England's last wilderness and it is not hard to see why.