Barnard Castle

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Many thanks to William HT Salvin Chartered Surveyor and Land Agent for facilitating this camera's location and to The Tees Rivers Trust for capitally funding its installation. The River Tees rises on the eastern slope of Cross Fell in the Pennines, and flows eastwards for about 85 miles to reach the North Sea between Hartlepool and Redcar. It drains an area of 708 square miles and subsumes no important tributaries. The head of the valley, whose upper portion is known as Teesdale, has a desolate grandeur, surrounded by hills, some exceeding 2500 feet, and bleak moorland. This area is part of the North Pennine Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, recently designated a geological Europark, the first in the UK. The castle stands high above the river and the bridge apparently built or rebuilt in 1569, though a stone on the parapet says 1596. It is likely that other bridges existed here before the 16th century and that the last of these was the existing bridge, rebuilt in the 16th century, though much altered since.