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The trans-moorland B6278, which cuts north from Weardale at Stanhope for ten extraordinarily wild miles, runs to tiny BLANCHLAND . Little more than a handful of ancient, lichen-stained cottages huddled round an L-shaped square, the hamlet was once the site of a Premonstratensian abbey, founded in the twelfth century. Blanchland has been preserved and protected since 1721, when Lord Crewe, the childless Bishop of Durham, bequeathed his estate to trustees on condition that they rebuilt the old conventual buildings, for Blanchland had slowly fallen into disrepair after the abbey's dissolution. The original trustees obliged and their successors have allowed but the faintest whiff of the twenty-first century to intrude. Consequently, the village bears many reminders of its monastic past, from the sturdy gatehouse that now accommodates the post office to the parish church where the medieval chancel and tower were all used to good effect during the rebuilding of 1752. But it's the Lord Crewe Arms Hotel (tel 01434/675251, ; GBP110-150) that steals the show, boasting dark vaulted basements, two big fireplaces left over from the canons' kitchen and a priest's hideaway stuck inside the chimney. The restaurant serves expensive table d'hote dinners but there's a fine public bar with cheaper food in the undercroft. By bus , you need the #773 from Consett (not Sun), which is itself linked by hourly bus to Newcastle.
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