Northumberland Yesterday and To-day

by Jean F. Terry

Another mansion near at hand, and most picturesquely situated, is Wallington Hall, lying a short distance away on the north bank of the Wansbeck. It is one of the most notable country houses in Northumberland, and especially so on account of its unique picture-gallery, roofed with dull glass, and containing several series of pictures connected with Northumbrian history. One of these is a series of frescoes by William Bell Scott, whose name was for so many years associated with all that was best in art in Newcastle, and whose picture of the “Building of the Castle” may be seen at the head of the staircase in the Lit. and Phil. building. His pictures at Wallington are:—1. The Building of the Roman Wall. 2. The visit of King Egfrid and Bishop Trumwine to St. Cuthbert on Fame. 3. A Descent of the Danes. 4. Death of the Venerable Bede. 5. The Charlton Spur. 6. Bernard Gilpin taking down a challenge glove in Rothbury Church. 7. Grace Darling and her father on the way to the wreck. 8. The Nineteenth Century—showing the High Level Bridge, the Quayside, an Armstrong gun, etc., etc. Another series consists of medallions and portraits of famous men connected with Northumbrian events, from Hadrian and Severus down to George Stephenson and others of modern times; while yet another depicts all the incidents of “Chevy Chase.”

Some miles further eastward, the Wansbeck receives the Hart Burn—which, by the way, is larger than the parent stream at this point—and, a little later, the Font. The lovely little village of Mitford, once important enough to overshadow the Morpeth of that day, lies at the junction of Font and Wansbeck. The Mitfords of Mitford can boast, if ever family could, of being Northumbrian of the Northumbrians, as they were seated here before the days of the Conqueror, who made such a general upsetting amongst the Saxon landowners.

The beauty of the two miles walk along the banks of the Wansbeck from here to Morpeth is not easy to surpass in all the county, though several parts of the Coquet valley may justly compete with it. William Howitt has left on record his admiration for this lovely region, and said Morpeth was “more like a town in a dream” than a reality. Especially is this so when looking at the town from the neighbourhood of the river. Before actually reaching Morpeth the Wansbeck waters the fair fields that once held Newminster Abbey in its pride; now, nothing remains but an arch or so and a few stones, to remind us of the noble abbey which Ralph de Merley built so long ago. When only half built it was demolished by the Scots under King David; but willing hands set to work again, and the abbey and monastery were completed.

In the town of Morpeth, though newer buildings are stretching out towards the outskirts, many of the ancient buildings and streets remain, and the general aspect of this part of it is much the same as when the Jacobites of Northumberland gathered together here, and the clergyman, Mr. Buxton, proclaimed James III. in its Market Place. Of Morpeth Castle, built by a De Merley soon after the Conquest, only the gateway tower remains, but the outlines of the original boundary walls can be clearly traced. A company of five hundred Scots, whom Leslie had left as a garrison in 1644, held out here for three weeks against two thousand Royalists under Montrose. After the cannonading received during that siege, the walls were not repaired again, and the castle fell into decay. The inhabitants of Morpeth have a daily reminder of times yet more remote, for the Curfew Bell still rings out over the little town every evening at eight o’clock.

Another walk of three miles along the still beautiful banks of the Wansbeck brings us to Bothal, another little village of great beauty, embowered and almost hidden amongst luxuriant woods. Its curious name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon bottell, a place of abode (as in Walbottle). The name conjures up memories of the knights of old, their loves and their fortunes, fair or disastrous; for the best-known version of “The Hermit of Warkworth” tells us that it was a Bertram of Bothal who was the luckless hero of that tale, though another version avers that he belonged to the house of Percy.

Wansbeck’s fellow stream, the Coquet, has its birth amongst some of the wildest scenery of the Cheviot Hills, where the heights of Deel’s Hill and Woodbist Law look down on the now silent Watling Street and the deserted Ad Fines Camp. In its windings along the bases of the hills it is joined by the Usway Burn, said to be named after King Oswy, between which and the little river Alwine lies the famous Lordship of Kidland, once desolate on account of the thieving and raiding of its neighbours of Bedesdale and Scotland.

Hodgson, in his “Northumberland,” says of this region, “All the said Kydlande is full of lytle hilles or mountaynes, and between the saide hilles be dyvers valyes in which discende litle Ryvvelles or brokes of water, spryngynge out of the said hilles and all fallynge into a lytle Rever or broke callede Kidlande water, w’ch fallethe into the rever of cockette nere to the towne of alwynntonn, w’tin a myll of the castell of harbottell.” The reasons for the desolation of Kidland are graphically set forth:—“In somer seasons when good peace ys betwene England and Scotland, th’inhabitantes of dyv’se townes thereaboutes repayres up with theyr cattall in som’ynge (summering) as ys aforesaid, and so have used to do of longe tyme. And for the pasture of theyr cattall, so long as they would tarye there they payed for a knoweledge two pens for a household, or a grote at the most, though they had nev’ so many cattalles. And yet the poore men thoughte their fermes dere enoughe. There was but fewe yeres that they escaped w’thout a greatter losse of their goodes and cattalles, by spoyle or thefte of the Scottes or Ryddesdale men, then would have paide for the pasture of theyr cattail in a much better grounde. And ov’ (over, besides) that, the saide valyes or hopes of Kidlande lyeth so distant and devyded by mounteynes one from an other, that such as Inhabyte in one of these hoopes, valeys, or graynes, can not heare the Fraye outcrye, or exclamac’on of such as dwell in an other hoope or valley upon the other side of the said mountayne, nor come or assemble to theyr assystance in tyme of necessytie. Wherefore we can not fynde anye of the neyghbours thereabouts wyllinge cotynnally to Inhabyte or plenyshe w’thin the saide grounde of Kydland, and especially in wynter tyme.”

These reasons were given by the people of “Cockdale” in the neighbouring valley, to account for the desolation of Kidland, which lay open on the northward to attacks from the Scots, and had no defence on the south from the rievers of Redesdale. The inhabitants of Coquetdale seem to have been a right valiant and hardy fraternity, honest and fearless, well able to give good blows in defence of their possessions, for it is left on record that “the people of the said Cock-dayle be best p’pared for defence and most defensyble people of themselfes, and of the truest and best sorte of anye that do Inhabyte, endlonge, the frounter or border of the said mydle m’ches of England.” The traces of these days of raid and foray are to be found in abundance all over Coquetdale, as indeed all over Northumberland, in pele-tower and barmkyn, fortified dwelling and bastle house.

Harbottle Castle would have a good deal to tell, could it only speak, of siege and assault from the day when, “with the aid of the whole county of Northumberland and the bishopric of Durham,” it was built by Henry II., until, after the Union of the Crowns, it shared the fate of many of the Border strongholds, and fell into gradual decay, or was used as a quarry from which to draw building material for new and modern mansions. At Rothbury, a pele-tower has formed the dwelling of the Vicars of that town from the time that any mention of Whitton Tower is to be found, it being first noticed as “Turris de Whitton, iuxta Rothebery.” Rothbury itself occupies quite the finest situation of any of the Northumbrian towns. Others, besides it, lie on the banks of a pretty river; others, too, possess fair meadows and rich pastures; but none other has the combination of these attractive features with the finer surroundings of hill, crag, and moorland as picturesquely beautiful as those of Rothbury. In the old church here Bernard Gilpin, “the Apostle of the North,” often preached; and even the fierce rival factions of the Borderland were so influenced by the gentle, yet fearless preacher, that they consented to forego their usual pleasure of “drawing” whenever they met one of a rival family, at least so long as Gilpin dwelt among them, and especially to refrain from showing their hostility in church.

There are in Coquetdale, as elsewhere, memorials of the ancient British days in the many camps to be found on the summits of the hills near the town, on Tosson Hill and the Simonside Hills; and not camps only, but barrows, cist-vaens, and flint weapons in considerable numbers. The magnificent view to be obtained, on a clear day, from Tosson Hill or the Simonsides is one to be remembered; to the west and north stretch the vales of Coquet and Alwin, with the rolling heights of the Cheviots bounding them; northward are the woods surrounding Biddlestone Hall, the “Osbaldistone Hals” of Scot’s Rob Roy, awakening memories of Di Vernon; far to the eastward a faint blue haze denotes the distant coastline; while southward, over the dales of Rede and Tyne, the smoke of industrial Tyneside lies on the horizon, with the spires and towers of Newcastle showing faintly against the heights of the Durham side of the Tyne.