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This is a journey from moors above the middle reaches of the River Tees near Barnard Castle to its mouth where it empties into Hartlepool Bay. Along the way the plan is to look at some prehistoric rock art at Barningham, celebrate the merits of sand and gravel and a hear a cautionary tale about flood risk, revisit the salt deposits of Teesside and in Hartlepool Bay hear about some graphic evidence of times when our coastline was very different

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The first of our journeys is along the River Tees. The Tees has its headwaters way up in the Pennines, in the Carboniferous rocks just east of Cross Fell, but downstream of Cow Green Reservoir it cuts through some of the oldest rocks in Northern England – that’s why its the first or the rivers in this series. On our way downstream we will explore some different bits of the Whin Sill and some rocks it baked, the making pencils from ancient slates and take a closer look at High and Low Force, iconic sites of the Northern landscape. But let’s head for Widdybank Fell near the dam at Cow Green.

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The episode title of this section of the Roman Rock Trail isn’t perfect – as we are starting in west Durham in a place called Lanchester, then returning to the Wall at Heddon – a village which owes its position to its hard sandstone bedrock resisting glacial erosion more than the surrounding area. And then onto Benwell. A place not on the current Hadrian’s Wall Trail but from what I hear it will be in the near future. As will the final stop, South Shields Fort – popularly known as Arbeia. On the way we will look at Roman water engineering and perhaps iron production, examine some well exposed sandstone, delve more into the mysteries of the exploitation of coal and finish with a more obscure use of rocks – pigments.