Geograph - photograph every grid square

The photo shows a grassy site (among reeds) on the north bank of Chew Sike close to where it is crossed by the Roman road, Dere Street. The route is now used by the Pennine Way and is close to the footbridge across the Sike NT7808 : Pennine Way at Chew Sike. In this grassy area are the foundations of a rudely constructed square building. It is named as Chew Green on William Roy's plan of Military Antiquities of the Romans (1793), which shows Dere Street (named as 'Watling Street') passing close to its south side after a sharp right-angled turn where it forded the sike. A number of hollow-ways now visible north of the ruin probably relate to later use of the route as a drove road. Fragments of C17th earthenware, glass and clay pipes found in a nearby kitchen midden suggested that this may have been the site of the Chew Green Inn. The Inn would have been an interesting place in smuggling days, when both salt and whisky were carried across the border from Scotland into Northumberland, and when Dere Street was heavily used as a drove-road. Its identification as an inn is not proven and it may simply be remains of a small farm-house, although also possibly selling liquor to thirsty drovers.

Brownhart Law rises on the left.