“Alec Ridley he let flee
A clothyard shaft ahint the wa';
And struck Wat Armstrong in the ee.”
To such men as these the good Bishop Ridley, about to yield his body to the flames, wrote that, “as God hath set you in our stock and kindred, not for any respect to your person, but of His abundant grace and goodness, to be, as it were, the bell-wether to order and conduct the rest, so, I pray you, continue and increase in the maintenance of truth, honesty, and all true godliness.” Bell-wethers they were, indeed, these Ridleys, and to some rough purpose, too.
Unthank Hall, to the tenants of which the martyr also wrote letters of farewell, is a recently rebuilt mansion, the near neighbour of Willimontswick, and on the opposite side of the Tyne to the quiet little country town of Haltwhistle. We are here again within a brief distance of the Roman wall. Haltwhistle may have been garrisoned by some of the assailants of that stupendous rampart. There are ancient earthworks on the site of what is known as the Castle Hill, one side of which is defended by an artificial breastwork of precipitous appearance. The former “Castle of Hautwysill” is now no more than a tall barn-like building, with a loop-holed turret resting on corbels. The chancel of the church is a survival from the old rough-riding days, and dates back to the thirteenth century; but there was too much fighting in the little town for much that was ancient in it to have survived into the present century. Haltwhistle has now a growing population of 1,600, and is as sweetly situated as heart could desire.
HALTWHISTLE. / HAYDON BRIDGE.
This little town is made attractive not only by its neighbourhood to the Tyne, but through the wild and fantastic beauty of Haltwhistle Burn, which flows down from the desolate, dreary, and cruel-looking Northumberland lakes, where the winds that ruffle the surface of these forlorn waters
“Wither drearily on barren moors.”