Hexham Abbey from North West
Other treasures of the Abbey are the beautiful Old Rood Screen, dating from the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century; some wonderful old paintings, especially the portraits of the early Bishops of Hexham, Alcmund, Wilfrid, Acca, Eata, Frithbert, Cuthbert, and John, which date from the fifteenth century; the mediaeval carved and painted pulpit, and the tomb of good King Alfwald of Northumbria. Many of the stones used by Wilfrid’s builders were of Roman workmanship, and seem to have come from the Roman city of Corstopitum, at Corbridge. An inscription on one of these old stones in the crypt takes us back some centuries before even Wilfrid’s time, for it commemorates the Emperor Severus and his two sons, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla) and Publius Septimius Geta, and has the name of the latter erased, as was done on all similar inscriptions throughout the Empire, by order of the inhuman Caracalla, after his murder of his brother.
A very interesting feature of the building is the stone stairway in the South transept, by which the monks ascended to their dormitories above.
Quite near to the Abbey, at the other side of the Market Place, the ancient Moot Hall claims attention. The modern visitor to the old town walks beneath the gloomy archway, with its time-worn stones, which forms the basement over which the Moot Hall stands. Another building, grim and dark, near at hand, is the Old Manor House, in which the business connected with the ancient Manor of Hexham was transacted.
An old foundation in the town was the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, which, after having fallen into desuetude for many years, has been revived in a form appropriate to modern needs, and housed in a worthy building, formally opened by Sir Francis Blake on November 2nd, 1910. The site on which the new Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth stands is one of the finest in the county, commanding, as it does, an uninterrupted view of the river valley for some distance, and of the rising ground beyond.
At the beginning of last century, Hexham was famed for its glove-making: but that industry has forsaken the town for many years. Now, Hexham is surrounded by acres of market-gardens, from which the produce of Tynedale is carried far and wide.
The spacious stretch of level meadow-land below Hexham, rising gradually up to the swelling ridges beyond, is said to have been the scene which John Martin had in mind when he painted the “Plains of Heaven”; though the level reaches above Newburn, unencumbered with buildings in John Martin’s time, and then a scene of quiet pastoral beauty, also claim that honour.
Flowing now between well ordered gardens, green meadows, and ferny banks, brawling musically over shingly shallows, or crooning gently between fringing woods, the Tyne rolls onward to Corbridge, receiving on its way the Devil’s Water, a sparkling stream which flows through scenes of enchanting beauty, whether between rugged cliffs and heather clad hills as in its upper course, through the graceful overhanging trees and cool green recesses of Dipton woods or between rich meadows and green pasture-land where it loses itself in the bosom of the Tyne.
There is no more delightful experience than to wander through the woods of Deepdene (Dipton) on a summer’s day, when it requires no stretch of the imagination to believe oneself in an enchanted forest, or, on hearing a crackle of twigs, or faint sounds of the outside world filtering through the green solitudes, to turn round expecting to see a maiden on a “milk-white steed,” or one of the Knights of the Round Table come riding by, in bravery of glistening armour and gay surtout, and to find oneself murmuring, “Now, Sir Gawain rode apace, and came unto a right fair wood, and findeth the stream of a spring that ran with a great rushing, and nigh thereunto was a way that was much haunted. He abandoneth his high-way, and goeth all along the stream from the spring that lasteth a long league plenary, until that he espieth a right fair house and right fair chapel enclosed within a hedge of wood.”
On the green meadows of Hexham Levels and near Dilston Castle—two spots of more than ordinary historical interest—the Lancastrian cause received, in 1464, a blow from which it never rallied, though the courageous Queen fought gallantly till the final disasters at Barnet and Tewkesbury. The general of her forces, the Duke of Somerset, was beheaded in Hexham market-place, and, together with several others of rank and station, buried at Hexham. The well-known incident of Queen Margaret’s escape into Dipton, or Deepdene woods, where she and young Prince Edward met with robbers, and afterwards escaped by the aid of another member of that fraternity, took place a year before this, after the first battle of Hexham in 1463. The year had been one of constant warfare between York and Lancaster in the north, the Castles of Alnwick and Bamburgh having fallen into the hands of Queen Margaret’s friends once more, after having been raptured by Edward of York the year before; the Scots with Margaret and King Henry VI., had besieged Norham, but were put to flight by the Earl of Warwick and hid brother, Lord Montague; the royal fugitives sought safety at Bamburgh, whence the Queen, with Prince Edward, sailed for Flanders, leaving King Henry in the Castle where he was in no immediate danger; Warwick, with his forces, retired southward again, and the gentle King remained in his rocky stronghold, and enjoyed there nine months of unwonted peace. Shortly after this, the Duke of Somerset deserted the cause of York for that of Lancaster, and became the leader of the Queen’s forces. In April, 1464, he and Sir Ralph Percy opposed, at Hedgeley Moor, the troops of Lord Montague journeying northward to escort the Scottish delegates who were coming to York to make terms with Edward of York. Sir Ralph Percy was slain, exclaiming as he fell “I have saved the bird in my bosom”—that enigmatic sentence which has given rise to so much conjecture, but which is generally held to mean that he had saved his honour, by dying at last, after so many changes of front, in the service of that King and Queen to whom he originally owed allegiance. “Percy’s Cross,” marking the site of his death, may be seen by the side of the railway near Hedgeley Station, on the Alnwick and Wooler line.