The range of the Cheviot Hills stretches for about twenty-two miles along the north-west border of Northumberland; and as the width of the range is, roughly speaking, twenty-one miles, we have a tract of over three hundred square miles of rolling, grassy, and heath-clad hills, of which about one-third is over the Scottish border in Roxburghshire. The giants of the range, The Cheviot (2,676 feet high), Cairn Hill (2,545 feet), and the striking cone of Hedgehope (2,348 feet), are all near to each other on Northumbrian soil, a few miles south-west of Wooler, which is a most convenient starting place for a visit to any part of the Cheviots, as the Alnwick and Cornhill Railway brings within easy reach the heights which lie still farther north.
The quiet little market town lies pleasantly among green meadows almost at the foot of the Cheviots; its low substantial stone houses, with few gardens in front, give the place a somewhat monotonous appearance, but the newer streets try to make amends by blossoming out into brilliant flower-plots in summer-time. Still, one would not quarrel with the older buildings; solid and unpretentious, they must look much the same as in the days of Border turmoil, when the first requisite in house or town was strength, not beauty.
Near to Wooler are many interesting places; within the limits of quite a short stroll one may visit the Pin Well, a wishing well of which there are so many examples to be found wherever one may travel; the King’s Chair, a porphyry crag on the hill above the Pin Well; Maiden Castle, or, less euphoniously, Kettles Camp, an ancient British encampment on the same hill, the Kettles being pot-like cavities in the ravines surrounding it; and the Cup and Saucer Camp, just half a mile distant from Wooler. The Golf Course is now laid out on these same heights.
To reach the Cheviots from Wooler, the most usual way is by the beautiful glen in which lies Langleeford. The bright streamlet known as the Wooler Water runs through it from Cheviot on its way to the town from which it has taken its present name; formerly it was known as Caldgate Burn. It was at Langleeford that Sir Walter Scott stayed, as a youth, in 1791, with his uncle, after they had vainly attempted to find accommodation in Wooler. Here they rode, fished, shot, walked, and drank the goat’s whey for which the district was famous in those days and for long afterwards.
Cheviot itself, or “The Muckle Cheviot,” is a huge cumbrous-looking mass, with rounded sides and flat top, boggy and treacherous, where, nevertheless, many wild berries brighten the marshy flats in their season. The name “Cheviot” is said to mean “Snowy Ridge” and well does this highest summit of the range merit the name, for on its marshy top and in the rocky chasms of Henhole and Bazzle, the winter’s snow often lies until far into the summer. Down through the weird and fairy-haunted cleft of Henhole, as we have seen, the little brown stream of Colledge Water splashes its way, breaking into golden foam between mossy banks as it reaches the outlet, and turns northward to join the Till.
This little burn is one of the prettiest of mountain streams; and in the district surrounding it are perhaps more points of interest than any other stream of such inconsiderable dimensions can show, saving only its neighbour, the Till. The whole of the surrounding country, wild, lonely, and romantic, teems with memories and reminders of the past. Sir Walter Scott, while on the visit already referred to, found an additional pleasure in the presence of so many relics of ancient days in the neighbourhood. “Each hill,” he wrote to a friend, “is crowned with a tower, or camp, or cairn, and in no situation can you be near more fields of battle.”
Indeed, the whole district of the Cheviots, and the lower lines of swelling hills into which the land subsides as it nears the sea, is crowded with the memorials of an earlier race; from every hill-top and rocky height they speak with tantalising half-revelations of that race which the Romans found here when their galleys brought them to the land which was to them Ultima Thule. No convincing explanation has yet been found of the concentric circular markings, with radiating grooves from the cup-shaped hollow in the middle, which are scored on the rocks wherever traces of an ancient camp are found; and the numbers of these traces are proof that this district was once a very thickly populated part of Britain.
And when Angle and Saxon were driving the early inhabitants before them, westward and southward, these hills and valleys still sheltered a considerable population; and Bede tells us of a royal residence not far away, at the foot of the well known Yeavering Bell, one of the more important hills of the range. It rises to a height of more than 1,100 feet, and then abruptly ends in a wide, almost level top, grass-grown and boulder-strewn, and crowned near the centre with a roughly-piled cairn. The ancient name of Yeavering Bell, as given by Bede in his account of the labours of St. Paulinus, was Ad-gefrin.
To recall the days when King Edwin and his queen, Ethelburga, came here from the royal city of Bamburgh, we must go back to a time nearly forty years after the Bernician chieftain, Ida, established himself in that rocky fortress, from whence he ruled a district roughly corresponding to the present counties of Durham and Northumberland, and known as Bernicia. One of Ida’s successors, Ethelric, overcame the tribe of Angles then established in the neighbouring district of Deira—the Yorkshire of to-day. His successor, Ethelfrith, ruled over the united district, and married the daughter of Ella, the vanquished chieftain. Her brother, Edwin, he drove into exile, and the young prince found refuge at the court of Redwald of East Anglia, where he remained for some years.
Redwald’s friendship, however, does not seem to have been above suspicion, for we find that Ethelfrith’s bribe had on one occasion nearly induced him to give up his guest, whose life, however, was saved by Redwald’s wife who turned her husband from his purpose. In his exile the thoughts of the young prince often turned towards his own land; and, once, as he sat brooding over his misfortunes, he saw in a vision one who came and spoke comforting words to him, saying that he should yet be king and that his reign should be long and glorious. “And if one should come to thee and repeat this sign,” said the stranger, laying his right hand on Edwin’s head “wouldst thou hearken to his rede?” Edwin gave his word, and the vision fled. Some little time after this, Ethelfrith of Northumbria, as the united districts were now called, fell in battle against Redwald, and Edwin, returning northward, became ruler of Northumbria, the sons of Ethelfrith fleeing in their turn before the new king. Edwin wedded, as his second wife, Ethelburga, daughter of that king of Kent in whose days Augustine came to England; and being a Christian princess, she brought with her a priest to her new home in the north. The priest’s name was Paulinus; and one day he went to the King and, placing his right hand on Edwin’s head, asked if he knew that sign. Edwin remembered, and redeemed his promise. He hearkened to the teaching of the earnest monk, with the result that before long he and his court were baptised by Paulinus, Edwin’s little daughter, it is said, being the first to receive the sacred rite.