Hopealone Radio Mast

A good spot in the Northumberland National Park near Hexham is the Hopealone Communications Mast. A space age style rocket looking structure, bound for Mars from the pines of Henshaw Common!

It pokes its structural head out of the depths of Wark Forest and can be seen from miles around. Until the arrival of wind turbines in Northumberland, it was the tallest structure in the National Park. At 260 feet tall, it has put some weight on too over time! Starting life as a single column tower, it has grown hips over the years, and now sports a more stabilising square base and various platforms.

The mast was originally erected as part of Britain's 'Early Warning System' in the 1950s, using radar to detect incoming aircraft. By 1959 it provided vital links between Cumbria and the North East to transmit TV and radio signals, linking Pontop Pike near Dipton in Country Durham to the North West. I remember as a kid when Cathy Secker and Neville Wanless used to read out the birthdays on Tyne Tees in between TV programmes and the TV would go fuzzy and they'd play a little bit of a musical interlude. It was always because there was snow at Pontop Pike, but Hopealone would be, just as the name suggests in an area of isolation on another level!

Built on the site of an old farm, the tower is isolated. Initially, there were serious planning objections to the tower being built so close to Hadrian's Wall, but adaptations were made to an existing farm barn and the mast was passed!

By 1967, approval was sought to build the more substantial tower away from the barn and attached to its own small service unit we see today which is now largely a mast for transmitters in the evolution of the national telephone network.

When we passed on our hunt for the Northern Lights in the summer of 2024, we were shocked to see a guy inside the remote operations room, beavering away...doing something in the middle of the night. Maybe checking that there were no outages amid the country's largest geomagnetic storm in 20 years.

Turning out of the forest and onto Henshaw Common, past Robinrock Flothers (the cutest of place names) we were met, not by incidental patch in music between programmes, but the biggest and best display of the aurora borealis. Something I've waited a whole lifetime to see. Even the local Belties seemed a bit agog with the goings on!

Spectacular and so nice that they were shared by so many across the country and not just by us filled with so much hope together in Hopealone.

The mast stayed put and didn't take off despite the extra terrestrial light show.

If you are into your trig bagging or just want more points for the league table, then the Hopealone Trig Point is just further along the road.