Yet there are fine sights enough above the ravine through which Haltwhistle Burn has ravaged and torn its way—wide views of fir-clad slopes, and wide-stretching farm-lands, and rolling moors, and dark precipices, and the ever-pleasant valley of the Tyne. Such another sight there is, with even a more extensive prospect, from the heights above the little hamlet of Bardon Mill. Southward lie Willimontswick, and the ancient chapel of Beltingham, and Ridley Hall, and the confluence of the Allen and the Tyne, and the grey, bright-looking village of Haydon Bridge; northward may be seen the important Roman stations of Vindolana and Borcovicus, and the far-reaching, dipping, and bending line of the Roman wall. Backwards, over the ground which we have traversed from Cross Fell, Saddleback and Skiddaw are in sight, and half the peaks, fells, and ridges of the great Cumbrian group.
A little below Bardon Mill the River Allen joins the South Tyne. What the Rede is to the northern, the Allen is to the southern branch of the river—the largest and longest of its affluents. It is formed by the joining of two streams which rise on the extreme southern borders of Northumberland, and which flow some three or four miles apart until they are within about five miles of their confluence with the Tyne. The Allen is one of the loveliest and most retired of streams, flowing between picturesque rocks, and sheltered and darkened by hanging woods. There are here
“Steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion.”
Of all northern rivers this is the one which is most praised for the wild and yet tranquil variety of its scenery, for the charms which the quiet angler finds in the turns and windings of its rocky pass, and for the beauty and diversity of the foliage which clothes its steeply ascending vale.
At Haydon Bridge, when the water is low, there lies a great expanse of shingle, polished into whiteness by the floods. White are the houses also, with roofs of bluish stone; and there is an aspect of great quaintness about the little village, which seems to have been founded in Saxon times, and to have borrowed much of its older building material from the Roman wall. Of its former state there are still some small remainders in the chancel of an old chapel, and a cottage here and there on the height. It was at Haydon Bridge that John Martin, the painter of “The Last Judgment,” and “The Plains of Heaven,” and “Belshazzar’s Feast,” was born, and here, up to his twelfth birthday, he evoked the wonder of the simple folk with his rough drawings, a number of which, with the family eccentricity, he once exhibited upon his father’s housetop.
From here it would be easy to make an excursion into King Arthur’s country. Not, indeed, to
“The island-valley of Avilion,
Where falls not hail, nor rain, nor any snow,