Northumberland Yesterday and To-day

The following book makes no pretensions to be a mine of deep historical research or antiquarian lore; its object will have been achieved, and its existence to some extent justified, if haply by its aid some of the dwellers in this northern county of ours, with its past so full of action, and its present so rich in the memorials of those actions, may pass a pleasant hour in becoming acquainted through its pages with the happenings which have taken place in their own particular fields, their own streets, or by their own riverside.

I am aware that many learned volumes on this subject, representing an enormous amount of patient labour and careful research in their compilation, are already in existence. To such this little book can in no sense be a rival; but there must be many people who have not a superabundance of time, to enable them to dig out the information for which they wish, from these various sources; nor can they always make these volumes their own, to be consulted at leisure.

Northumbrians have always been interested in the records of their own county, and are now-a-days not less so than when, some three-and-a-half centuries ago, Roger North found them “great antiquarians within their own bounds.” If to such as these this little book may perhaps bring in a more convenient form the information they seek, and help them to become better acquainted with the county which inspired Swinburne to write in stirring phrases of “Northumberland,” and to address the home of his people as

“Land beloved, where nought of legend’s dream
Outshines the truth”—

I shall be more than satisfied. I would take this opportunity of expressing my grateful thanks to the Rev. Canon Savage, of Hexham, for information relating to the tomb of Alfwald the Just, in the Abbey, given with courteous readiness; to the Rev. Canon Jeffery, of Bywell, for similar kindness regarding Bywell St. Peter’s; to R.O. Heslop, Esq., whose profound store of learning on the subject of “Northumberland words” was in cases of uncertainty my final court of appeal; to E.T. Nisbet, Esq., and J. Treble, Esq., to whom I am greatly indebted for their goodness in reading my manuscript, and for their generous encouragement following thereupon; to C.H. Abbey, Esq., for his kindness in executing the map which accompanies these pages; and to Mr. G.P. Dunn, of Corbridge, for much helpful criticism, and many suggestions which only want of space has prevented my adopting in their entirety.

J.F.T.

31st May, 1913.

NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY

CHAPTER I.
THE COAST OF NORTHUMBERLAND.

“We’ll see nae mair the sea banks fair,
And the sweet grey gleaming sky,
And the lordly strand of Northumberland,
And the goodly towers thereby.”
—A.C. Swinburne.

Wild and bleak it may be, hard and cruel at times it undoubtedly is, but, nevertheless, this north-east coast of ours is at all times inspiring, whether half-hidden by storm-clouds, its cliffs and hollows lashed by the “wild north-easter,” or seen calmly brooding in the warm haze of a summer’s day, its grey-blue water smiling beneath the grey-blue sky, and its stretches of sand and bents edging the sea with a border of gold and silver.

In keeping with either mood of nature, the ancient Priory of Tynemouth, standing on the sandstone cliffs on the northern bank of the Tyne, rearing its grey and roofless walls above the harbour mouth, strikes a note that is symbolic of the Northumbria of old and the Northumberland of to-day—the note, that is, of the intimate commingling of the romance of the warlike past and the romance of the industrial present. Here, above the mouth of the river on which so many of the most noteworthy advances in industrial science have been made, and out of which sail the vessels which are often the last word of the moment in marine engineering and construction, stand calmly looking down upon them all the fragments of a building which was a century old when John signed Magna Charta, and which stands upon the site of another that had already braved the storms of nearly five hundred years.

Looking upon the Priory of St. Mary and St. Oswin we are carried back to the days when Edwin, the first king of Northumbria to embrace Christianity, built a little church here, in which his daughter took the veil. King Oswald had the first wooden structure replaced by a stone one; and here, in 651, the body of another good king—Oswyn—was brought for burial from Gilling, near Richmond in Yorkshire, where, disbanding his army, he sacrificed his cause and his life to Oswy of Bernicia, with whom he had been about to fight.

The Priory, Tynemouth.

When the pirate ships of the Danes swept down upon our coasts, the Priory of St. Oswin, conspicuous on its bold headland, could not hope to escape their ravages. It was destroyed by the fierce invaders; but King Ecgfrith[^[1]] of Northumbria restored the shattered shrine. Again, in the year 865, it was sacked and burnt, and the poor nuns of St. Hilda, who had already fled from Hartlepool to Tynemouth hoping to find safety, were ruthlessly slain and earned the crown of martyrdom. It was again restored; but, five years later, the destroying hands of the invaders fell on the place once more, and for two hundred years the Priory stood roofless and tenantless. After the Norman Conquest, Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland bestowed it upon the monks of Jarrow. The rediscovery of the tomb of St. Oswyn in 1065, had gladdened the hearts of the monks, and forthwith the monastery was reared anew over the ashes of its former self.

[1] Pronounced “Edge-frith.”

Mowbray, the next Earl of Northumberland, re-endowed the building. He had quarrelled with the Bishop of Durham, so in order to do him a displeasure, he made Tynemouth Priory subordinate to St. Albans instead of to Durham and brought monks from St. Albans to dwell there. The new buildings were finished in 1110, and the bones of St. Oswyn enshrined within them, the right of sanctuary being extended for a mile around his resting-place. This right, however, was already in existence, and had been appealed to in 1095 by Mowbray himself, who fled here pursued by the followers of William Rufus, against whom he had rebelled. The King’s men disregarded the sanctuary right, captured Mowbray, and sent him prisoner to Durham[^[2]].

[2] See account of Bamburgh Castle.

In later days the queens of Edward I. and Edward II. visited Tynemouth Priory; and it was from Tynemouth that the foolish King Edward II. and his worthless favourite Piers Gaveston fled from the angry barons to Scarborough. In the reign of Edward III., after the battle of Neville’s Cross, David of Scotland was brought here by his captors on his way to Bamburgh, from whence he was sent to the Tower.

At the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. the Priory was inhabited by eighteen monks with their Prior. They bowed to the King’s decree and left the monastery; but the church continued to be used as the parish church until the days of Charles II., when Christ Church was built.

The Priory has many times formed the subject of pictures by famous artists, the best known being that of no less a genius than J. M. W. Turner; and its picturesque ruins are a well-known landmark to the hundreds of voyagers who pass it on their journeys, outward or homeward bound. Within the last few years the Priory has been in some measure repaired and restored.

There is but little left of Tynemouth Castle, which was built as a protection for the monastery against the attacks of the Danes. It stands in a commanding position on a neighbouring cliff, and is now used as barracks for garrison artillery corps. During the days when Scotland harried the English borders, the Priors of Tynemouth maintained a garrison here; and later, in Stuart days, Charles I. visited the North, and the fortress was strengthened just before the outbreak of the Civil War. It was captured, notwithstanding, by Leslie, Earl of Leven, after he had left Newcastle. Colonel Lilburn, left in charge as governor, shortly afterwards avowed himself on the side of King Charles; but he speedily paid for his change of allegiance, for the Castle was re-taken by a force from Newcastle under Sir Arthur Hazelrigg, and Lilburn lost his life in the fight. The Castle has long been used as a dep ôt for the storage of arms and ammunition. Behind the Spanish Battery which commands the entrance to the Tyne stands a statue of the famous North-countryman, Admiral Collingwood.

Connected with Tynemouth, by the fact that a small chantry belonging to the Priory once stood there, is St. Mary’s Island. One may walk unhindered at low tide across the rocks to this favourite place, but where the chantry stood there is now a lighthouse with a powerful lantern, flashing its welcome light to the seafarers nearing the mouth of the Tyne, and extending

“To each and all our equal lamp, at peril of the sea,
The white wall-sided war-ships, or the whalers of Dundee.”

Between Tynemouth and St. Mary’s Island lie Cullercoats, Whitley Bay, and Monkseaton, and together these places make practically one extended seaside town, stretching for three or four miles along the sea-front, and joined by a fine parade which leads to open links at Monkseaton. Of these places Cullercoats is most noteworthy. This picturesque fishing village, with quaint old houses perched in every conceivable position on the curve of its rocky bay, is, needless to say, a favourite camping ground for artists. The Cullercoats fishwife, with her cheerful weather-bronzed face, her short jacket and ample skirts of blue flannel, and her heavily laden “crees” of fish is not only appreciated by the brotherhood of brush and pencil, but is one of the notable sights of the district. At Cullercoats is struck a note of the most modern of modern achievements—the Wireless Telegraphy Station (225 feet); and here, too, is situated the Dove Marine Laboratory, looked after by scientists on the staff of the Armstrong College at Newcastle.

In fine weather the crowds which pass and repass along the top of the bold cliffs which overlook the fine stretch of sands between Cullercoats and Monkseaton show how many hundreds of Northumbria’s busy workers enjoy the fresh breezes from the sea on this pleasant and bracing coast. Out at sea, opposite the Parade, vessels built in the busy shipyards on the Tyne may be seen doing their speed trials over the measured mile. The Peace of St. Oswyn may, in fact, be said to brood over Tynemouth, even in these days, for it is an increasing custom for those who can do so to remain in Newcastle and other busy centres of toil only during business hours, and to leave workshop and office every evening for their home by the sea: while the tide of noisy, happy, boisterous excursionists has rolled on to Whitley Bay, leaving Tynemouth to its old-time sleepy content. Northward to Hartley and Seaton Sluice the cliffs are very fine. Hartley, with its bright-looking red-tiled houses, once belonged to Adam of Gesemuth (Jesmond) who lived in the reign of King John. Coming down to modern times, about thirty years ago a gallant Hartley man, Thomas Langley, rescued two successive shipwrecked crews on the same day, in one case allowing himself to be lowered over the cliffs at a terrible risk in the furious storm.

Seaton Sluice belongs to the ancient family of the Delavals, whose house, Delaval Hall, may be seen not far away, peeping from amongst the trees which surround it. Seaton Sluice owes its name to the Delaval who placed the large sluice gates upon the burn, in order to have a strong current which, in rushing down to the sea, would be able to wash the mouth of the stream clear from the silt and mud brought in by the incoming tide. A later baronet, Sir John Hussey Delaval, made the cutting through the solid rock which is so striking a feature of the harbour. It was ready for the entrance of vessels in March, 1763.

Delaval Hall is now owned by Lord Hastings, the present representative of the Delavals, which family became extinct in the male line early in the nineteenth century. The last Delaval, a very learned man, was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1814. The Hall was built for Admiral Delaval in 1707 to the design of Sir J. Vanbrugh, who also designed Blenheim Palace, given by the nation to the great Duke of Marlborough about the same time.

Hartley Colliery, about half a mile away, has a sad interest as being the scene of the terrible accident in 1862, when a number of men and boys were imprisoned in the workings owing to the blocking up of the only shaft by a mass of d ébris, caused by the fall of an iron beam belonging to the pumping engine at the pit-head. Before the shaft could be cleared and a way opened to the workings, all the poor fellows had died, overcome by the deadly “choke-damp.” Joseph Skipsey, the pitman poet, in a simple ballad, tells the pathetic story.

“Oh, father! till the shaft is rid,
Close, close beside me keep;
My eyelids are together glued,
And I,—and I,—must sleep.”
“Sleep, darling, sleep, and I will keep
Close by—heigh ho.”—To keep
Himself awake the father strives.
But he—he, too—must sleep.
“Oh mother dear! wert, wert thou near
Whilst—sleep!” The orphan slept;
And all night long, by the black pit-heap
The mother a dumb watch kept.

From here, northward, the coast is rather dull and uninteresting, although the sands are fine, until we reach Blyth, at the mouth of the little river of the same name. This town is growing rapidly in size and importance; the export of coal has greatly increased since the harbour was so much improved by Sir Matthew White Ridley, and now totals some millions of tones a year. The river Wansbeck not far north of the mouth of the Blyth, in the latter part of its course flows through a district begrimed by all the necessary accompaniments of the traffic in “black diamonds,” and reaches the sea between the colliery villages of Cambois and North Seaton.

On the point at the northern curve of Newbiggin Bay stands Newbiggin Church, and ancient building, whose steeple, “leaning all awry,” is a well-known landmark for sailors. The site of this church is in danger of being undermined by the waves, and, indeed, part of the churchyard crumbled away many years ago; but such defences as are possible have been built up around it,—and the danger averted for a time. Newbiggin itself is a large fishing village and an increasingly popular holiday resort, for it possesses not only good sands but a wide moor near at hand which provides one of the best of golf courses; and, also, a short distance along the coast, are the attractive Fairy Rocks.

Newbiggin was a town of some importance in Plantagenet days, with a busy harbour, and a pier; and in the reign of Edward II. it was required to contribute a vessel towards the naval defence of the Kingdom.

Northward from Newbiggin Point is the magnificent sweep of Druridge Bay, stretching in a fine curve of ten miles or more to Hauxley Haven. Here, the sands of a warm golden colour, the wind-swept bents of silvery-grey, and the vivid green of the grassy cliff tops edge the curve of the bay with a line of bright and delicate colour, only thrown into greater relief by the brown reefs and ridges which stretch out from the rocky shores, and by the deep blue-green of the waves rolling inshore in long majestic lines, to break into hissing foam on the sharp reefs, or slide smoothly up the yellow sands in the centre of the bay. Above, beyond the grassy tops of the cliffs, stretch deep woods, with the old pele-tower of Cresswell looking out from amongst the trees, fields many-coloured with their burden of varying crops, and wide lonely moors, where one may walk for half a day without hearing any sound save the wild screaming of sea-birds, or the whistle of the wind, with the low boom of the waves below sounding a deep-toned accompaniment. The bay is not always so peaceful, however, and many wild scenes and terrible shipwrecks have taken place here, as everywhere along our wild north-east coast. The Bondicar rocks, by Hauxley, and the cruel spikes of the reef at Snab Point, near Cresswell, have betrayed many a gallant little vessel to her doom. Not, however, without bringing on many an occasion proof of the courage which is shown as a matter of course by the fisher folk on our coasts. At Newbiggin, and Cresswell, for instance, deeds have been done, which, in their simple unassuming heroism, may be taken as typical of the hardy race which could count Grace Darling among its daughters.

About thirty years ago, a ship drove ashore off Cresswell one bitter night in January, and the fisher folk crowded down to the shore, watching with sorrowful eyes the hapless crew clinging to their unfortunate vessel, which was slowly being broken up by the waves. There was no lifeboat at Cresswell then, and all the men of the village, except the old men who were past work, had gone northward, when the oncoming storm prevented their return. The women and girls heard the cries of the schooner’s crew, and mourned to each other their inability to help. But one gallant-hearted girl, named Peggy Brown, cried out, “If I thowt she could hing on a bit, I wad be away for the lifeboat.” But between them and Newbiggin, the nearest lifeboat station, the Lyne Burn runs into the sea, and spreads widely out over the sands; and the older people told Peggy she could never cross the burn in the dark. She set off, however, the thought of the drowning men hastening her on. For four miles she made her way in the storm and darkness, partly along the shore, scrambling over rock’s, and wading waist-deep through the Lyne Burn and one or two other places where the waves had driven far up the sands, and partly across Newbiggin Moor, where the icy wind tore at her in her drenched clothing. She pressed on, however, and managed to reach the coxswain’s house and give her message. The lifeboat was immediately run out, and the men reached the wreck in time to save all the crew except one, who had been washed overboard.

On another occasion one of the fishermen, named Tom Brown, was preparing to go out, with the help of his two sons, in his own fishing coble to the aid of a ship in distress on the reef. A carter had come down to the beach, the better to watch the progress of events, and, terrified by the thundering waves, his horse took fright, and in its plunging drove the cart against the little boat, making a hole clear through one side. “Big Tom,” as he was generally called, merely took off his coat, rolled it into a bundle and stuffed it against the hole. Then he beckoned to another fisherman, saying to him “Sit on that.” The man clambered in, and without the loss of another minute these four heroes set off to save their fellow creatures’ lives, with a broken and leaking boat in a heavy sea. And they did it, reaching the brig only just in time, for it went to pieces a few minutes after the shivering crew had been safely landed.

Incidents like these, which could be multiplied indefinitely, bring a glow of pride to the heart, and a reassuring sense that the degeneration of the race is not proceeding in such wholesale fashion—in the country districts, at any rate—as the pessimists would have us believe.

At the northern extremity of Druridge Bay is the little fishing village of Hauxley, with the chimneys and pit-head engines of Ratcliffe and Broomhill Collieries darkening the sky to the south-west. Passing the Bondicar rocks and rounding the point we enter the “fairway” for Warkworth Harbour and Amble, where a brisk exportation of the coal of the neighbourhood is carried on.

Lying out at sea, opposite Amble coastguard station, the white lighthouse on Coquet Island keeps watch over the entrance to the harbour. Some of the walls of the monastery, which stood on the island in Saxon days, can now be seen forming part of the dwelling of the lighthouse keeper. For many generations, too, hermit after hermit went to dwell on this tiny islet, and St. Cuthbert himself is said to have inhabited the little cell at one time. The island was captured by the Scots in the Civil Wars of King Charles’s reign, and held by them for a time.

The situation of Amble, at the mouth of the Coquet, has been looked upon as convenient from very early days, for there are signs which tell us of a population here at an early period. Several cist-vaens, or ancient stone coffins, have been found near the town, and a broken Roman altar was unearthed in the neighbourhood. The monastery which stood here, like that on Holy Island, was, in later times, inhabited by Benedictine monks, who were under the authority of the Prior of Tynemouth. William the Conqueror gave the then Prior the right to collect the tithes of the little town.

A short distance from Amble, and practically encircled by the Coquet which here makes a wide sweep, we come upon Warkworth, prettiest of villages, combining the beauties of sea-shore and river scenery, and rich in the possession of that romantic castle, the ruins of which carry the mind back to Saxon times; for they stand on the site of an older fortress erected by Ceolwulf, a Saxon King of Northumbria. He was the patron of Bede, who dedicated his “Ecclesiastical History” to his royal friend. Ceolwulf built both the fortress and the earliest church at Warkworth, and a few stones of this latter building are still to be seen. In 737, two years after the death of Bede, this royal Saxon laid aside his kingly state and became a monk on Lindisfarne,

“When he, for cowl and beads, laid down
The Saxon battle-axe and crown.”

It was when the castle was bestowed by Edward III. upon Lord Percy of Alnwick that it became, for more than two hundred years, the chief residence of that illustrious family; becoming in the next reign of historical value as the home of that Hotspur whose valour and gallantry made Henry IV. envy the Earl of Northumberland, in that he “should be the father of so blest a son.” In Act II., Scene 3 of “Henry IV.,” Part II., Shakespeare has laid the scene at Warkworth Castle, where Hotspur’s wife, troubled by her lord’s moody abstraction, tries to win from him the reason of his secret care. And after the battle of Shrewsbury, Rumour, flying with the news of Hotspur’s death, says:—

“Thus have I rumoured through the peasant towns,
Between the royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
Where Hotspur’s father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick.”

Two years after this, the castle was besieged by Henry IV. himself, and surrendered to him after a brief bombardment by the newly invented cannon. The keep was re-built by Hotspur’s son, after the family possessions had been restored to him by Henry V., and it is now the only remaining part of the castle which is almost perfect. One of the half-ruinous towers remaining is called the Lion Tower, from the sculptured lion on its walls; while another rejoices in the curious name of Cradyfargus. A strange story is told of a blue stone to be seen in the courtyard of the castle. Many years ago, so runs the tale, one of the custodians of Warkworth Castle dreamed three nights in succession that a large treasure was concealed beneath a blue stone in a certain part of the castle grounds. He told this dream to a neighbour, and after allowing two or three days to pass, finding the dream constantly recurring to his mind, he thought he would go to the place indicated, and see what he could find. To his disappointment, however, he discovered that some one had been there before him; a large hole had been dug, and on the edge of it lay the blue stone.

Needless to say, the hole was empty, nor could the keeper discover anything about the treasure in the neighbourhood. It is said that a certain family in the village became suddenly rich; and, many years afterwards, a large and ancient pot, supposed to have been that in which the buried treasure had been contained, was found in the Coquet.

The main street of Warkworth leads straight up to the postern gate of the castle, and many stirring sights have the successive inhabitants of the little village looked upon, as the fortunes of the owners of the castle waxed and waned throughout the many centuries in which the lords of Warkworth played a notable part in the history of England. They saw Henry Percy, entrusted with a share in the safe keeping of the country, set out from Warkworth for Durham, to help in winning the victory of Neville’s Cross.

They saw Hotspur’s force set out for the Cheviots to intercept Douglas and his followers, which they did at Homildon Hill, near Wooler; and it was the quarrel in connection with the prisoners taken on that day which led Hotspur and his father openly to throw off their allegiance to Henry IV., so that a few months later the peasants of Warkworth saw their idolised young lord set out for what was to prove the fatal field of Shrewsbury. They saw Hotspur’s father, the first Henry Percy to receive the title of Earl, (a title which had been given him at the coronation of Richard II.) set out with a brave force after Hotspur’s departure; and they saw his return, almost alone, dejected and broken in spirit, having learnt that the help so tardily given had come too late, and the life of his gallant son was ended.

They saw the siege train of Henry Bolingbroke laid against the castle, directed by Henry in person, provoked into these active measures by the open rebellion of father and son, though Northumberland had tried to make it appear that he was innocent of any treasonable act. After capturing the castle, Bolingbroke bestowed it on his third son, John of Lancaster, and the villagers saw the young prince riding in and out among them daily so long as he made the castle his home.

Then, in the next reign, they welcomed the return of Hotspur’s son, Henry, to the home of his fathers, restored to him by Henry V.; and, within a short time, saw him bring home his bride, Eleanor Neville, daughter of his friend and neighbour, the Earl of Westmoreland.

In the Wars of the Roses, Warkworth Castle saw many changes of fortune, as the tide of victory flowed this way and that. The Percies were all Lancastrians, though Sir Ralph Percy changed sides twice. The castle fell into the hands of the Yorkists, and the great Earl of Warwick, the “King-maker” himself, made it his headquarters for a time, while he superintended the sieges of Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamburgh, which were all invested at the same time. Eventually, after the Wars of the Roses concluded, Warkworth was restored, along with the other Percy estates, to its original owners.

Finally, the inhabitants of the little village saw the church entered by the Jacobites in 1715, when Mr. Buxton, chaplain of the little force, prayed for James III. and Mary the Queen-mother; and General Forster, dressed as a trumpeter, proclaimed King James III. at the village cross.

A few miles north from the mouth of the Coquet, the little Aln spreads over the sandy flats near Alnmouth, and reaches the sea. It has changed its course, for at one time it flowed to the south of Church Hill, instead of to the north as at present. The town of Alnmouth, viewed from the train just before entering Alnmouth Station, looks very picturesque, especially if the rare sunshine of an English summer should be lighting up the bay, bringing out the vivid red of the tiled roofs against the grassy hills fringing the links which lie on their seaward side, and lighting up, also, the yellow sands and long lines of sparkling wavelets edged with white.

Alnmouth depends for its living on a fleet of fishing boats, and on the numbers of visitors who seek its fresh breezes and inviting shores each summer. Golfers, indeed, find it pleasant all the year round, as there is only a scarcely appreciable interval in the winter months when their favourite pastime cannot be followed on the breezy links. On Church Hill, now crowned by a few old stones, once stood a Norman church, dedicated to St. Valery, which, in its turn, occupied the site of an older Saxon building, supposed to have been the church which Bede refers to as being at Twyford, where a great synod of clergy was held in the year 684, and Cuthbert appointed Bishop of Lindisfarne. It is a matter of dispute whether this Twyford was Alnmouth or Whittingham, but the two fords at Alnmouth seem to point to a decision in favour of that place. The old Norman church, which fell into ruin at the beginning of last century, was fired at by the famous pirate Paul Jones; the cannon shot, weighing 68 pounds, missed the church, but struck a neighbouring farm house, doing great damage.

The coast north of Alnmouth becomes rocky and wild, and very picturesque, and the villages along the coast are being sought out by holiday makers in increasing numbers, year by year. Boulmer, one of these villages, was a famous place for smuggling in the old days, and many an exciting scene and sharp encounter took place between the smugglers and the King’s men. Not far away is Howick Dene, a lovely little glen leading down to the sea from Howick Hall, the home of Earl Grey.

Cullernose Point, a striking crag, is formed by the outcrop of a portion of the Great Whin Sill, which from here can be traced to the south-west, and thence right across the county.

At Craster, another fishing village and a favourite holiday haunt, is Craster Tower, which has been the home of the family of Craster since before the Conquest. Not far to the north is the famous Rumble Churn in the rocks below Dunstanborough Castle, where the waves roll in and out of the caves and chasms with weird and hollow rumblings. There is another Rumbling Churn in the cliffs near Howick.

The famous divine of the Middle Ages, John Duns Scotus, was born in this parish—that of Embleton; the group of buildings known as Dunston Hall, or Proctor’s Steads, is supposed to have been his birthplace, and a portrait of the learned doctor is to be seen there.

Dunstanborough Castle stands in lonely grandeur on great whinstone crags, close to the very edge of the sea, and on the first sight of it, Keats’ wonderful lines spring involuntarily to the lips:—

“Magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.”

Forlorn, indeed, though not in exactly the sense conveyed by the poem, is this huge fortress now; it abides, says Freeman, “as a castle should abide, in all the majesty of a shattered ruin.” The primitive cannon of the days of the Wars of the Roses began to shatter those mighty walls, and, unlike Bamborough, it has never been strengthened since. Simon de Montford once owned this estate, and the next lord of Dunstanborough was a son of Henry III., to whom Earl Simon’s forfeited estate was given. His eldest son, Thomas of Lancaster, took part with the barons in bringing the unworthy favourite of Edward II., Piers Gaveston, to his death. Under the King’s anger, Lancaster went away to his Northumbrian estate, and began to build this mighty fortress, though he already owned the castles of Kenilworth and Pontefract. In the Wars of the Roses, Dunstanborough Castle was taken and retaken no less than five times, and Queen Margaret found refuge here, as well as at Bamburgh; but apart from these occasions, Dunstanborough has not taken nearly so great a part in either local or national history as the other Northumbrian castles of Bamburgh, Warkworth, and Alnwick, though greater in extent than any of them. In 1538 an official report describes “Dunstunburht” as “a very reuynous howse”; and the process of dilapidation was soon aided by enterprising dwellers in the neighbourhood using the stones of the forsaken castle to build their own homesteads.

From the castle northward curves Embleton Bay, in which, after having been buried in the sand for ages, a sandstone rock was uncovered by the tide, having on its surface, chiselled in rough but distinct lettering, the name “Andra Barton.” Sir Andrew Barton, daring Scottish sea-captain and fearless freebooter, was slain in a sea-fight off this part of the coast, in the days of Henry VIII., by the sons of Surrey, one of whom, Sir Thomas Howard, was Lord Admiral at the time, and so, in a measure, responsible for the defence of the English coast. The loss of his brave sea-captain and his “goodly ships” was one of the grievances in the long list which led King James IV. to declare war against England, and led to the fatal field of Flodden, in which Admiral Sir Thomas Howard and his brother took part under the command of their father, the Earl of Surrey.

The wide sweep of grassy common beyond the sands in Embleton Bay is, in summer time, covered with a profusion of wild flowers, chief amongst them being the wild geranium, or meadow cranes-bill, whose reddish-purple blossoms grow in such abundance as to arrest the attention of every visitor. A little way back from the sea-shore, in the middle of this wide space, lies the village of Embleton, which possesses an ancient and interesting church, and a vicarage, part of which is formed by an old pele-tower. Embleton would seem to have a reputation to keep up in the way of famous churchmen. Duns Scotus has been already mentioned; and one of the vicars here was a cousin of Richard Steele, the essayist and friend of Addison; and he described the country squires of his day in a paper which he contributed to the “Spectator” of that date, 1712.

Another Vicar of Embleton, who lived here from 1874 to 1884, was Dr. Mandell Creighton, the learned historian, who became Bishop of London.

The well-known journalist, W.T. Stead, was born in the parish of Embleton, though his childhood was passed in very different surroundings, in the narrow streets and grimy atmosphere of Howdon-on-Tyne. His recent death on the ill-fated Titanic will be fresh in the minds of all.

Newton-by-the-Sea is reached by a pleasant walk along the sea-shore. (It is to be understood that in this journey along the coast we are moving northward always). There is here a cheery-looking white-washed coastguard station standing on the bold headland of Newton Point.

Past this point is Beadnell Bay, with green and grassy Beadnell just beyond Little Rock. The small fishing harbour at Beadnell has the unique distinction of being the only harbour on the east coast whose mouth faces west, and the short pier, running inland from rocks to shore, acts as a breakwater against the heavy easterly or southeasterly seas and makes the harbour a safe anchorage for fishing craft or small yachts. The rocks around this bay are very interesting, showing the various strata very plainly, and containing many fossils. The striking cliff called Ebbe’s Nook is supposed to have been named after the Saxon princess Ebba, sister to King Oswald, and the ruins which were discovered on the headland, to be all that is left of a chapel erected to her memory.

At Seahouses is an extensive fish-curing establishment, a fact which proclaims itself unmistakably as you near the village, especially if the day chance to be at all warm. A little distance from the shore is another fishing village, North Sunderland, and northward from Seahouses is the inn called The Monkshouse, from the fact that it once belonged to the community on Lindisfarne.

Bamburgh Castle, magnificently placed on a lofty crag rising perpendicularly from the greensward on the west or landward side, and almost as steeply from the sea which washes the north and east sides, lies like a majestic lion on its mighty rock “brooding on ancient fame.” The voices of children at play on the sands below sound faint and far in the still air; the sea birds, with the summer sunshine flashing on their outspread wings, sweep round and round; in the far distance a trail of smoke low down on the horizon marks the track of a passing steamer; and near at hand, southward a little way from the castle cliff, the rocky islets of the Farne group lie drowsily asleep on the gently-heaving swell of the grey-blue waters. Behind the castle lies the pretty old-fashioned village with its quaint hostelries and grove of trees; and from the higher parts of the new golf-links the player may look round on a view which would be difficult to match, comprising as it does, the Farne Islands and Dunstanborough to the south, and northward, Holy Island, with its castle and abbey and the bluish haze of smoke lying over Berwick; while, on the western skyline, on a clear day, may be seen the rounded caps of the Cheviots.

The beginnings of Bamburgh take us back more than a thousand years, to that long-ago summer of 547, when the cyuls (keels) of the marauding Bernician chieftain Ida and his followers grounded on the shore of our Northland, and the work of conquest began. Ida was not slow to grasp the importance of such a commanding site as this isolated mass of basaltic crag, and the rude stronghold which crowned it. It became in time a formidable fortress, and remained for centuries the headquarters of the kings of the North.

Here reigned Ida and his sons—six of them—for more or less short and stormy periods, and Ethelric of Bernicia, who vanquished the neighbouring prince of Deira, and thus reigned as the first king of Northumbria as Northumbria. The Celtic name of the fortress was Dinguardi, or Dinguvardy; and tradition has it that this was Sir Lancelot’s castle of Joyeuse Garde, where he had often feasted the Knights of the Round Table, and where he, at last, came home to die. The fact that Bamburgh is the only pre-Conquest castle in Northumberland disposes of the claim of Alnwick.

“My fair lords,” said sir Launcelot, “wit ye well, my careful body will into the earth; I have warning more than I will now say; therefore, I pray you, give me my rights.” So when he was houseled and eneled, and had all that a Christian man ought to have, he prayed the bishop that his fellows might bear his body unto Joyous Gard.

Some men say Anwick, and some men say to Bamborow; “how-beit,” said sir Launcelot, “me repenteth sore; but I made mine avow aforetime, that in Joyous Gard I would be buried; and because of breaking of mine vow, I pray you all lead me thither.” Then was there weeping and wringing of hands among all his fellows.

And so, within fifteen days, they came to Joyous Gard, and there they laid his corpse in the body of the quire, and read many psalters and prayers over him and about him.... And right thus, as they were at their service, there came sir Ector de Maris, that had sought seven years all England, Scotland and Wales, seeking his brother sir Launcelot.... Then went sir Bors unto sir Ector, and told him how there lay his brother sir Launcelot dead.

And then sir Ector threw his shield, his sword, and his helm from him; and when he beheld sir Launcelot’s visage, he fell down in a swoon; and when he awoke, it were hard for any tongue to tell the doleful complaints that he made for his brother. “Ah! sir Launcelot,” said he, “thou wert head of all Christian knights!” “And now, I dare say,” said sir Bors, “that sir Launcelot, there thou liest, thou wert never matched of none earthly knight’s hands; and thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bare a shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrod horse; and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever stroke with sword; and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights; and thou wert the meekest man, and the gentlest, that ever eat in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe, that ever put spear in the rest.”

Then there was weeping and dolor out of measure.

—Malory’s Morte d’Arthur.

Ethelfrith, who succeeded Ethelric, gave the fort to his second wife, Bebba, after whom it was named Bebbanburgh, which soon became Bamburgh.

In the days of King Edwin, who succeeded Ethelfrith, Bamburgh was the centre of a kingdom which extended from the Humber to the Forth, and as Northumbria was at that time the most important division of England, the royal city of Bernicia was practically the capital of the country. The reign of King Oswald, though shorter than that of Edwin, was equally noteworthy from the fact that in his days the gentle Aidan settled in Northumbria, and king and monk worked together for the good of their people, and Bamburgh became not only the seat of temporal power but the safeguard and bulwark of the spiritual movement centred on the little isle of Lindisfarne. On the accession of Edwin, Oswald, son of Ethelfrith, had fled from Bernicia and taken refuge with the monks of Iona, living with them till the time came for him to rule Northumbria in his turn. As soon as possible after the inevitable fighting for his political existence was over, he sent to Iona for a teacher to come and instruct his people in the truths he had learned; and a monk named Corman was sent. He, however, was unable to make any impression on the wild and warlike Saxons of the northern kingdom, and he soon returned to Iona with the report that it was useless to try to teach such obstinate and barbarous people. One of the brethren, listening to his account, ventured to ask him if he were sure that all the fault lay with the people. “Did you remember,” said he, “that we are commanded to give them the milk first? Did you not rather try them with the strong meat?” With one accord the brethren declared that he who had spoken such wise words was the man best fitted for the task, and the gentle Aidan was sent to Oswald’s help. In such a fashion came the Gospel to Northumbria, and Aidan became the first of the long roll of saints whose deeds and lives had such incalculable influence on Northumbrian history. From Aidan’s arrival in 635 until the death of Oswald the relations between the king and the monk who had settled on Medcaud or Medcaut, soon to be known as Lindisfarne, and later as Holy Island, were those of friend to friend and fellow-worker, rather than those of king and subject.

After the death of Oswald, his conqueror Penda, the fierce King of the Mercians, harried Northumbria, and appearing before the walls of Bamburgh prepared to burn it down. Piles of logs and brushwood were laid against the city and the fire was applied. Aidan, in his little cell on Farne Island, to which he had retired, saw the clouds of flame and smoke rolling over the home of his beloved patron. Raising his hands to Heaven, he exclaimed, “See, Lord, what ill Penda is doing!” Scarcely had he uttered the words, when the wind changed, and drove the flames away from Bamburgh, blowing them against Penda’s host, who thereupon ceased all further attempts against the city.

Not long after this, Aidan was at Bamburgh, when he was seized with sudden illness, and died with his head resting against one of the wooden stays of the little church. Penda came again the next year, and this time both village and church were burnt, all except, says tradition, the beam of wood against which Aidan had rested in his last moments.

When the Danish ships appeared off our shores, in the two centuries following, Bamburgh was attacked and plundered several times. In the days of William Rufus, as we have seen, Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, rebelled against the Red King, in company with his uncle the Bishop of Coutances, Robert of Normandy, and William of St. Carileph, Bishop of Durham. Rufus marched into Northumberland, but the quarrel was adjusted for the time; though private strife between the two Bishops led to Mowbray’s driving the monks of Durham from the Priory at Tynemouth and replacing them by monks from St. Albans.

Later, however, Mowbray disobeyed a summons from the Red King, who once more marched into Northumberland. He reached Bamburgh, and invested it, but failed to make any impression on that impregnable stronghold, within whose walls were Mowbray and his young wife, the Countess Matilda, and his nephew, who was Sheriff of Northumberland. Rufus, finding all attempts to carry the fortress useless, began to build a wooden fort, called a Malvoisin, or “Bad neighbour”; and so anxious was he to have it speedily erected that he made knights and nobles as well as his men-at-arms take part in the work.

Mowbray, from the battlements, called out to many of these by name, openly taunting those who had secretly promised to join him, or had expressed themselves as in sympathy with his disobedience. His words gave great amusement to Rufus and the nobles who were truly loyal, and much mortification and vexation to those whom he so ruthlessly exposed. Rufus left the “Bad neighbour” to continue the siege and went southward.

Mowbray, led to believe that Newcastle would receive him, and take his part, stole away from Bamburgh by sea, and reached Tynemouth. On proceeding to Newcastle, however, he found he had been mistaken, and hurriedly fled hack to Tynemouth, pursued by his enemies. He held out against them for a day or two, but was then captured and taken to Durham. Meanwhile the high-spirited Countess held Bamburgh against all assailants; but Mowbray’s capture gave Rufus an advantage he was not slow to use. Returning to the North, he ordered Mowbray to be brought before the walls of Bamburgh, and threatened to put his eyes out if the Countess did not immediately surrender. Needless to say, she preferred to give up the castle, and Mowbray’s reign as Earl of Northumberland was over.

Thereafter Bamburgh was visited by various sovereigns in turn, when their affairs brought them to the northerly parts of their kingdom. When Balliol, tired of long years of conflict, surrendered most of his rights to Edward III., it was at Bamburgh that the convention was concluded. In this reign the castle was greatly strengthened.

In the Wars of the Roses, Bamburgh was held for the queen by the Lancastrian nobles of the north country—Percy and Ros—with the Earl of Pembroke and Duke of Somerset; but was obliged on Christmas Eve, 1462, to capitulate to a superior force. The next year the Scots and the queen’s French allies surprised it, and re-captured it for Henry VI. and his courageous queen; but Warwick, “the King-maker,” came upon the scene, and after a stout resistance the garrison surrendered.

When the Union of the Crowns took place in 1603, Bamburgh was no longer necessary as a defence against the Scots, and its defences were neglected. The Forsters, into whose hands it passed in the days of James I., were a spendthrift family, and gradually wasted their rich estate, until in 1704 it had to be sold, and was bought by Lord Crewe. He was Bishop of Durham at the time, having been promoted to that position by Charles II., who liked his handsome figure and pleasing manners. When at the age of fifty-eight, he wished to marry Dorothea Forster, daughter of Sir William Forster, of Bamburgh, the lady, who was many years younger, refused him at first; but some years later he renewed his suit, and this time was accepted. When the Forster estates were sold and their debts paid, there was scarcely anything left for the heirs—Lady Crewe and her nephew, Thomas Forster, who afterwards became the General of the ill-fated Jacobite rising in 1715, and whose escape after his capture was contrived by his high-spirited sister, Dorothy Forster the second.

Lord Crewe, in his will, left a great part of his fortune to found the Bamburgh Trust, for which his name will ever be remembered. The most notable of the trustees, Archdeacon Sharp, administered the moneys in so wise and beneficent a manner that to him most of the credit is due for the real usefulness of the Crewe charities. These include a surgery and dispensary; schools; the relief of persons in distress; the clothing and educating of a certain number of girls; the maintenance of a lifeboat, life-saving apparatus, and everything necessary for the relief of ship-wrecked persons. A lifeboat, kept in the harbour at Holy Island, is always ready to go out on a signal from Bamburgh Castle.

The castle was extensively restored and repaired by the late Lord Armstrong; but, sad to say, since his death it has been stripped of many of its treasures. The church, dedicated to St. Aidan, stands at the west end of the village; but there is no vestige remaining of the one built in Saxon times, the present building having been erected when Henry II. was king. In the churchyard is the grave of Grace Darling, and many hundreds come to look on the last resting place of the gentle girl who was yet so heroic, when her compassionate heart nerved her girlish frame to the gallant effort on behalf of her fellow-creatures in dire peril, when she

“.... rode the waves none else durst ride,
None save her sire.”

The beautiful monument over her grave is by Raymond Smith, and is an exact duplicate of the original one, also by him, which was being injured so much by the weather that it was removed to a position inside the church. The duplicate was commissioned by Lord (then Sir William) Armstrong.

The island on which yet stands the lighthouse which was Grace’s home is the Longstone, almost the farthest seaward of the rocky group of the Farnes, lying almost opposite Bamburgh. The Longstone is only about four feet above high-water mark, so that in stormy weather the lighthouse is fiercely assailed by the heavy seas, and the keepers are often driven for refuge to the upper chambers. To the Longstone might with truth be attributed the opening lines of Kipling’s poem, “The Coastwise Lights”:—

“Our brows are bound with spindrift, and the weed is on our knees,
Our loins are battered ’neath us by the swinging, smoking seas;
From reef, and rock, and skerry, over headland, ness, and voe,
The coastwise lights of England watch the ships of England go.”

There are about twenty of these little islets to be seen at low tide, and very curious are some of their names—The Megstone, The Crumstone, The Navestone, The Harcars, The Wedums, The Noxes (Knokys), and The Wawmses. The largest, Farne Island, is the nearest to the coast, and is the one to which St. Aidan retired, and on which St. Cuthbert made himself a cell, and where he lived for some years, leaving Lindisfarne (Holy Island) very often for months together, to dwell alone on this almost bare rock and devote himself to holy meditation and prayer.

To this island came King Ecgfrith of Northumbria with Archbishop Trumwine and other representatives of the Synod to beg the hermit to accept the Bishopric of Hexham; and it was on this island that St. Cuthbert died, the monks who had gone to look after him signalling the news of his death to his brethren at Lindisfarne by means of torches. The island is rocky and precipitous, with deep chasms between the high cliffs; and when a north wind blows, the columns of foam and spray, from the waters dashing into the chasms and over the tops of the cliffs, may be seen from the mainland rising high into the air.

Before the first lighthouse was built on Farne Island, in 1766, a coal fire was kindled every night on the top of the tower-like building used as a fort. This method of warning passing vessels had been used continuously since the days of Charles II. In great contrast to this is the modern lighthouse, with its acetylene gas lights and its automatic flash apparatus.

Close to Stapel Island are the three high basaltic pillars, of rock called the Pinnacles. On all these islands sea-birds breed, but especially on the Pinnacles, the Big and Little Harcar, and the islet called the Brownsman.

Thousands and thousands of them perch and chatter on the rocks and fly screaming in the air, amongst them being guillemots, kittiwakes, gulls, terns, cormorants, puffins, and eider-ducks, for which latter St. Cuthbert is said to have had great affection; certainly they are the gentlest of these wild sea-fowl.

Bidding farewell to the rocky Farnes, we sail past Budle Bay, into which runs the Warenburn and the Elwick burn, and underneath whose sandy flats is the buried town of Warnmouth, once a busy seaport, to which Henry III. granted a charter. Approaching Lindisfarne, “Our isle of Saints, low-lying on the blue breast of the curling waters, is hushed and silent in the lightly-purple mists of morning, like the wide aisles of a great cathedral at daybreak, before the feet and tongues of sightseers disturb the solemn stillness. The tideway is covered with water, and the footprints of the pilgrims who came yesterday to the shrine of St. Cuthbert have passed into oblivion like footmarks on the sands of time.” (Galloway Kyle.) The modern pilgrim to Holy Island generally takes train to Beal station, and from there walks to the seashore, and crosses the long stretch of sand between Holy Island and the mainland. The governing factor in the possibility or otherwise of making the journey is the state of the tide, for these sands are entirely covered by the sea twice a day, so that Holy Island can only be said to be an island at high tide.

“For with the flow and ebb, its style
Varies from continent to isle;
Dry-shod, o’er sands, twice every day
The pilgrims to the shrine find way;
Twice every day the waves efface
Of staves and sandall’d feet the trace.”

There are dangerous quicksands on the way, too, and a row of stakes points out the proper course to be taken.

We have already seen that St. Aidan settled on Lindisfarne and have treated of him in connection with Bamburgh. After his death another monk of Iona, Finan, succeeded him and carried on his work; and after Finan came Colman, who resigned after the Synod of Whitby had decided to keep Easter according to southern instead of northern usage. St. Cuthbert was Prior of Lindisfarne at this time. Later, the seat of the bishopric was removed from Lindisfarne to York, when it was held by that restless and able prelate, Wilfrid, for a time. Then the bishopric was divided and a see of Hexham formed, as well as that of Lindisfarne, which included Carlisle, out of the northern portion of the diocese of York.

St. Cuthbert was bishop of Lindisfarne for two years, having exchanged sees with bishop Eata, who went to Hexham. The stone coffin in which St. Cuthbert’s body was pieced, after his death on Farne Island, was buried on the right side of the altar in the Abbey of Lindisfarne, which by this time had arisen on the little island. A later bishop, Edfrid, executed a wonderful copy of the Gospels, which was illuminated by his successor, Ethelwald. Another bishop enclosed it in a cover of gold and silver, adorning it with jewels; and, later, a priest of Lindisfarne, Aldred, wrote between the lines a translation into the vernacular, and added marginal notes. This precious manuscript, a wonderful example of the beautiful work done in monastic houses in the north so many centuries ago, is now in the British Museum, where it is known as the “Durham Manuscript.”

When the pirate keels of the Danes appeared off our coasts about the end of the eighth century, Lindisfarne Abbey was one of the first points of attack; and in 793 it was plundered of most of its wealth, and many of the monks were slain. For nearly a century afterwards it was left in peace, but in 875 the Danish ships appeared again approaching from the south, where they had just sacked Tynemouth Priory. The bishop, Eardulph, last of the Lindisfarne prelates, and the brethren hastily collected their most treasured possessions, and with the body of St. Cuthbert, the bones of St. Aidan, and other precious relics, they fled from their island home, and journeyed north, west, and south for many years before they found a resting place at Chester-le-Street near Durham. For seven years they carried with them the body of St. Cuthbert; and it is said that the final choice of a resting place for the body of their beloved saint was indicated to them by supernatural means as they approached Durham.

In 1069 William the Conqueror marched northward to visit with sternest punishment the hardy north-men, who were so long in submitting to his authority; and the monks of Durham fled before the advance of the relentless Norman, carrying with them, as before, the body of St. Cuthbert. They reached Lindisfarne in safety to find the Abbey in the ruinous state in which it had been left by the Danes two centuries earlier. Thus, once again, the body of St. Cuthbert rested on the little island where so many years of his life had been spent.

In 1070 the brethren returned to Durham and in 1093 the building was begun, almost simultaneously, of the present glorious Cathedral of Durham and a new Priory and Church on Lindisfarne, and a strong resemblance may be traced between the two buildings The Abbey was deserted on the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., and gradually fell into ruins.

The Castle, which stands on a lofty whinstone rock at the south-east corner of the island, is a conspicuous object for many miles, whether viewed by land or sea. It is supposed to have been built in the reign of Henry VIII., at a time when defences were commanded to be made to all harbours. If the Castle has had any appreciable share of romantic incidents in its history, the records thereof seem to be unknown; but one which has come down to us is the account of its daring capture by an ardent North-country Jacobite, Lancelot Errington, in 1715. The garrison consisted of seven men, five of whom were absent. Errington, who was master of a small vessel lying in the harbour, discovered this, and immediately made his way to the Castle accompanied by his nephew, and overpowered the two men who were left in charge, turning them out of the Castle. He then signalled to the mainland for reinforcements, but none were forthcoming. A company of King’s men came instead and re-occupied the place, Errington and his nephew escaping, to wander about in the neighbourhood for several days, hiding from pursuit, before they got clear away. The Castle was for many years the home of the coastguardsmen, who must have found it a most advantageous position for their purpose, as they had an uninterrupted view of miles of coast line.

Northward from Holy Island, but on the mainland, lies Goswick, from whose red sandstone quarries came the material for building the Abbey of Lindisfarne. Further north we come in sight of the coal pits and smoke of Scremerston, while beyond it, Spittal and Tweedmouth bring us right up to Berwick-on-Tweed itself, that grey old Border town which has seen so many turns of fortune, and been harried again and again, only to draw breath after each wild and cruel interlude, and go calmly on its quiet way until it was once more called upon to fight for its very existence.

Though definitely forming part of English soil since 1482, it is not included in any English county, but, with about eight square miles around it, forms a county by itself. Hence the addition, to any Royal proclamation, of the well-known words “And in our Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.”

Sir Walter Scott’s description of the Northumbrian coast, in his poem of Marmion may well be recalled here. It will be remembered that the Abbess of Whitby, with some of her nuns, was voyaging to Holy Island, and we take up the description when

“.... the vessel skirts the strand
Of mountainous Northumberland;
Towns, towers, and halls successive rise,
And catch the nuns’ delighted eyes.
Monkwearmouth soon behind them lay,
And Tynemouth’s Priory and bay. They
marked, amid her trees, the hall Of lofty Seaton Delaval;
They saw the Blyth and Wansbeck floods
Rush to the sea through sounding woods;
They passed the tower of Widdrington,
Mother of many a valiant son;
At Coquet-isle their beads they tell
To the good saint who owned the cell.
Then did the Alne attention claim,
And Warkworth, proud of Percy’s name;
And next they crossed themselves, to hear
The whitening breakers sound so near,
Where, boiling through the rocks, they roar
On Dunstanborough’s caverned shore.
Thy tower, proud Bamburgh, marked they there,
King Ida’s castle, huge and square,
From its tall rock look grimly down
And on the swelling ocean frown.
Then from the coast they bore away
And reached the Holy Island’s bay.

As to the port the galley flew,
Higher and higher rose to view
The castle with its battled walls,
The ancient monastery’s halls,
A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile
Placed on the margin of the isle.
In Saxon strength that abbey frowned,
With massive arches, broad and round.

On the deep walls, the heathen Dane
Had poured his impious rage in vain;
And needful was such strength to these,
Exposed to the tempestuous seas,
Scourged by the winds’ eternal sway,
Open to rovers fierce as they.
Which could twelve hundred years withstand
Winds, waves, and northern pirates’ hand.”

CHAPTER II.
NORTH AND SOUTH TYNE.

“On Kielder-side the wind blaws wide;
There sounds nae hunting horn
That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat
Round banks where Tyne is born.”
—A.C. Swinburne.

Between Peel Fell and Mid Fell, almost the farthest western heights of the Cheviot Hills, a little mountain stream takes its rise, and flows to the south and east. This little burn is the North Tyne, the beginnings of that stream which, deep, dark, and swift at its mouth, bears the mighty battleships there built to carry the war-flags of the nations round the world. In the wild and lovely district where the North Tyne takes its rise, is Kielder Castle, a shooting box belonging to the Duke of Northumberland.

This neighbourhood is the scene of two romantic ballads; that of the “Cowt (colt) of Kielder” and the Ettrick Shepherd’s ballad of “Sir David Graeme.” The deadly enemy of the young “Cowt,” so called from his great strength, is Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle, on the Scottish side of the border. The Cowt, with his followers, was enticed into the Castle, where Lord Soulis purposed his death; but the gigantic youth burst through the circle of his foes and escaped. The evil Brownie of the moorland, however, gave to Lord Soulis the secret which safeguarded the young Cowt. His coat of mail was sword-proof by a spell of enchantment, and he wore in his helmet rowan and holly leaves; but these would all be of no avail against the power of running water. The Cowt was pursued until, in crossing a burn, he stumbled and lost his helmet, and ere he recovered, his enemies were upon him, and they held him under water until he was drowned.

Not far from the mouth of the Bell Burn, which here runs into the Tyne, a circle of stones outside an ancient burial ground is known as the Cowt’s Grave.

“This is the bonny brae, the green,
Yet sacred to the brave,
Where still, of ancient size, is seen
Gigantic Kieldar’s grave.

Where weeps the birch with branches green
Without the holy ground,
Between two old grey stones is seen
The warrior’s ridgey mound.
And the hunters bold of Kieldar’s train,
Within yon castle’s wall,
In a deadly sleep must aye remain
Till the ruined towers down fall.”

In the ballad of “Sir David Graeme,” by James Hogg, the lady of the story watched out of her window in vain for the coming of her “noble Graeme,” who had vowed that the hate of her father and brothers would not keep him from coming to carry off his fair lady on St. Lambert’s night.

“The sun had drunk frae Kieldar Fell
His beverage o’ the morning dew;
The deer had crouched her in the dell,
The heather oped its bells o’ blue.

The lady to her window hied,
And it opened o’er the banks o’ Tyne;
An’ “O! alack,” she said, and sighed,
“Sure ilka breast is blythe but mine?”

Her forebodings prove only too true, for her lover’s faithful hound seeks her out, and with mournful looks induces her to follow him over Deadwater Fell, and guides her to a lonely spot where the body of the gallant Graeme, slain by her brothers, is lying.

In the neighbourhood of these desolate Fells are to be found many traces of ancient British Camps.

The little mountain streams which here help to swell the stream of the North Tyne are, on the south side, the Lewis and Whickhope Burns, and on the north, the Plashetts and Hawkhope Burns. On both sides of the Tyne, near the Whickhope and the Hawkhope Burns are many remains of an ancient pre-historic forest, the largest being near the Whickhope Burn where the abnormally thick stems of trees may be seen.

The little village of Falstone is set amongst trees, in the midst of pleasant meadows, a welcome relief from the bare fells and moorlands around it; yet this wild scenery has a distinct fascination of its own, and adds not a little to the charm of the varied landscape within the bounds of our northern county. At Falstone a fragment of an ancient cross was discovered, with an inscription carved upon it—in Roman letters on one side and in the Runes of the Anglo-Saxons on the other. The inscription states that a certain Eamer set up the cross in memory of his uncle Hroethbert, and asks for prayers for his soul. The existence of a similarly inscribed cross is not known, so that the Society of Antiquaries, in whose keeping this cross rests, has in it probably a unique treasure.

The Tarset Burn, upon which stands the village of Thorneyburn, runs into the Tyne not far from Falstone, and reminds us of the old Border-riding days, when the rallying-cry of the men of the district in many a feud with neighbouring clans was—“Tarset and Tarret Burn, Hard and heather-bred, yet-yet-yet.” Near the spot where the Tarset Burn joins the Tyne is a grassy hill on which once stood Tarset Castle, a stronghold of that Red Comyn whom Bruce slew in the little chapel at Dumfries, and of whose death Bruce’s friend Kirkpatrick said he would “mak’ siccar”!

The village of Charlton, on the north bank of the Tyne, and the mansion of Hesleyside on the other, carry the mind back to the old reiving plundering days, for it was at Hesleyside that the incident of the ancient spur of the Charlton’s took place, doubtless many a time and oft, when the good lady of Hesleyside served up the spur at dinner as a gentle hint that the larder was empty, and it behoved her lord to mount and away to replenish the same, preferably with stock from the Scottish side of the border, or if not, a neighbour’s cattle would serve equally well.

The Charltons, Robsons (possibly the lineal descendants of “Hroethbert” of the ancient cross) and Armstrongs, held almost undisputed sway over this region, and the district teems with reminders of their prowess and traditions of their exploits. The men of Tynedale (the North Tyne) and Redesdale were known as the fiercest and most lawless in all that wild district. Redesdale is a district of monotonous, almost dreary, moorlands, and wild, bare fells, where sheep graze on what scanty provender the bleak hills afford, finding better fare, however, in the valleys near the river banks, where the pasture is fresh and green.

Bellingham is to-day the most considerable village of the neighbourhood; it stands conveniently at the foot of the hills where the little Belling Burn, or Hareshaw Burn, joins the main stream. In Hareshaw woods is the beautiful Hareshaw Linn, where the stream falls down through a break in the sandstone cliffs, and forms a picturesque waterfall, fringed with ferns and trees and cool mosses. It well repays one for the walk of a mile or so through tangled underwoods by the side of the burn. Bellingham gives its mime to the family of de Bellingham, whose chief seat, however, is now in Ireland and no longer in the little north-country town.

The massive church here, with its roof of stone, bears eloquent testimony to the need for fireproof buildings in a village so near to Scotland in the days of Border warfare. Outside the churchyard wall is the well of St. Cuthbert, or “Cuddy’s Well,” which was greatly venerated in early days, and many stories are told of the miraculous power of its waters. Inside the churchyard a grave is pointed out as the burial place of the robber whose tragic end was told by James Hogg in his gruesome story of “The Long Pack.”

The village itself is plain and bare, as might be expected from a settlement which would probably find that unattractiveness in either wealth or appearance was a tolerable safeguard.

Below Bellingham the North Tyne is joined by its longest and most noted tributary, the Rede Water, which also rises in the Cheviots. Rising in the hills north of Carter Fell, it flows south-east, through a wild region, passing, while still high up amongst the hills, the little village of Byrness, and the new reservoir at Catcleugh, where a supply of pure water is stored for the use of the dwellers in distant Newcastle. On its way to the Tyne, it passes many an old pele-tower, and the Roman stations of Bremenium (Rochester) and Habitancum, near Woodburn. The ancient Roman road of Watling Street crosses the Rede at Woodburn, leading from Habitancum to Bremenium.

Many mountain streams, clear and sparkling, or peaty and brown, join the Rede Water on its way, amongst others the little Otter Burn, by whose banks took place that stirring episode in the constant quarrels between the Douglases and Percies known as “Chevy Chase,” from which the fierce battle-cries ring down the five centuries that have passed since that time, with sounds that echo still.

The pretty village of Redesmouth (or Reedsmouth) stands where the Rede Water enters the North Tyne, and a few miles further on the rapid little Houxty Burn pours its peaty waters into the main stream.

On the right bank of the Tyne stands Wark, conveniently placed at one of the most important fords of the Tyne in former days. Like other towns and villages so placed on different streams throughout the country, the advantages of its situation have evidently been appreciated by the successive inhabitants of the land, for there are traces of its occupation by Celt, Roman, and Saxon; and, later, the town was the most considerable in Upper Tynedale. During the time that this part of England was ceded to the Scottish Kings, David and Alexander, it was at Wark that the Scottish law courts for Tynedale held their sittings. The mound called the Mote Hill, near the river, marks the spot where, in all probability, the ancient Celtic inhabitants met together to administer the rude justice of prehistoric times, and to make the laws of their little settlement, which grew to much greater proportions in later years. In fact, it is supposed that the Kirkfield marks the site of a church which stood in the midst of the once extensive town.

A little way up the Wark Burn, above the bridge, there may be seen some upright stems of Sigillaria in the exposed face of the cliffs. On the opposite side of the river from Wark is Chipchase Castle, one of the finest mansions in Northumberland, standing in the midst of the beautifully wooded and picturesque scenery which, from this point onwards is characteristic of the North Tyne. Of the former village of Chipchase scarcely a trace remains, though its name, if nothing else, shows that here has been a village or small town, important enough to have its well-known, market; for “Chip,” like the various “Chippings” throughout England is derived from the Anglo-Saxon ciepan—to buy and sell, to traffic. In the reign of Henry II., Chipchase was the property of the Umfravilles of Prudhoe; but later it passed into the hands of the well-known Northumbrian family of Heron.

Not far from Chipchase Castle are the famous Gunnerton Crags, formed by an out-crop of the Great Whin Sill. These lofty cliffs have been the site of a considerable settlement of the ancient British tribes who dwelt in the district in such numbers, as is evident from the scores of camps, which may be traced all over this part of Northumberland. The naturally strong position on the Gunnerton Crags, would be certain to commend itself to a people, the first requisite of whose dwelling places was strength and consequent safety.

At Barrasford the making of the railway cutting led to the opening up of a large barrow, or burial place, of the ancient Britons; and a single “menhir,” supposed to be the solitary survivor of a large group of these huge stones, stood near the village school some years ago.

Passing Chollerton and Humshaugh, embowered amongst spreading trees, we arrive at Chollerford, the prettiest village of North Tyne, lying near the river where it was crossed by the Roman Wall. From the bridge which spans the Tyne at Chollerford one of the finest views of the river, both up and down the stream, is to be seen; and to watch the swift brown stream, after a flood or a freshet, foaming through the arches is an exhilarating sight. The bridge itself is a modern one, for we know that all the bridges on the Tyne, except that of Corbridge, were swept away by the great flood of 1771.

In 1394, that prince of bridge-builders, Bishop Walter de Skirlaw of Durham, granted thirteen days’ indulgence to all who should assist in rebuilding the bridge at Chollerford; so that already there was one here which had evidently fallen into disrepair. Yet, in the ballad of “Jock o’ the Side,” the rescuers, with Jock in their midst, reach Chollerford, and, after some anxious questioning of an old man as to whether the “water will ride,” are compelled to swim the Tyne in flood, which their pursuers, coming up, will not attempt to do. Now Bishop Skirlaw’s bridges did not usually disappear; those of Yarm, Shincliffe, and Auckland have stood until to-day, with occasional repairs. Are we then reluctantly to question the truth of “Jock o’ the Side”? Surely, if the choice remain of the accuracy of the ballad or the fact of the bridge, it is the duty of all leal North-country people to swear by the ballad. Perhaps the good Bishop did not personally oversee the rebuilding of Chollerford Bridge: more probably the Wear and Tees do not come down with the angry impetuosity of the Tyne in flood!

The remains of the great Roman camp of Cilurnum (The Chesters) may be seen here within Mrs. Clayton’s park. This was the largest military station in Northumberland, Corstopitum, which is very much larger, being more of a civil settlement. At some little distance below the present bridge some of the piers of the old Roman bridge are still to be seen when the river is low.

Eastward from Chollerford is the little church of St. Oswald, standing where the battle of Heavenfield took place. When Penda of Mercia, and the British Prince Cadwallon, were warring against Northumbria, the greatest Northumbrian King, Edwin, was defeated and slain by them; and on their return to the attack, Ethelfrith’s eldest son, called back from exile to take the vacant throne, and rule in his father’s seat of Bamburgh, also fell before their fierce onslaught. His brother Oswald now took command of the Bernicians and prepared to lead them against the foe. Oswald posted his men in a strong position on the north side of the great Wall; and, setting up a huge cross of wood, called upon all his followers to bow before the God of whom he had learnt during his exile in Iona, and to pray to Him for victory. His army obeyed, and, in the battle which followed, Oswald’s forces were completely victorious. The Mercians, and their allies, the western Britons, were routed, and driven out of Bernicia, and Cadwallon was pursued as far as the Denise Burn, and there slain. The Denise Burn is supposed to have been the Rowley Burn, which flows into the Devil’s Water, on whose banks stands Dilsten Castle. Some time later, on the spot where Oswald’s Cross had stood, a church was erected and dedicated to the royal Saint. It was served from Hexham Abbey.

After passing Wall, which, however, is not quite so near the Roman Wall as Chollerford is, we come to the pretty village of Warden, nestling beneath the woods of Warden Hill; and here, just above Hexham, the North Tyne unites with its sister river in the rich meadow lands which lie near the old town.

The South Tyne has journeyed from Cross Fell, where it takes its rise, northward through a corner of Cumberland, past Garrygill and Alston, until it enters Northumberland where the Ayle Burn on the one hand, and the Gilderdale Burn on the other, flow into it. Here is Whitley Castle, where was a small Roman station called Alio, and Kirkhaugh Church, charmingly placed on the bank of the river, which continues its course northward past Slaggyford, Knaresdale, Eals, and Lambley, till it flows past the fine Castle of Featherstone, and the ruins of Bellister, where it turns eastward to Haltwhistle.

The little streams which enter the South Tyne up to this point flow through wild and romantic glens, two of them owning the Celtic names of Glen Cune and Glen Dhu.

The family of Featherstonehaugh is one of the oldest in the North; and it was concerning the death of one of this family—Sir Albany Featherstonehaugh, who was High Sheriff of Northumberland in the days of Henry VIII.—that Mr. Surtees, the antiquary, wrote the well-known ballad, which, when Surtees gave it him, deceived even Sir Walter Scott into thinking it genuinely ancient. The first verse of the ballad shows with what a verve and swing the lines go.

“Hoot awa’, lads, hoot awa’
Ha’ ye heard how the Ridleys, an’ Thirlwalls, an’ a’
Ha’ set upon Albany Featherstonehaugh;
And taken his life at the Deadmanshaw?
There was Willimoteswick,
And Hard-riding Dick,
An’ Hughie o’ Hawdon, an’ Will o’ the Wa’
I canno’ tell a’, I canno’ tell a’
And mony a mair that the de’il may knaw.”

The ruins of Bellister Castle stand against a sombre background of woods, only a little way from Haltwhistle. The Castle once belonged to the Blenkinsopp family, who also owned Blenkinsopp Castle, about two miles away. The name was formerly spelt Blencan’s-hope—the hope being valley or hollow—and the Castle, like many other places, has its legendary “White Lady.”

Haltwhistle is a little straggling town lying on both sides of the main road above the South Tyne, where it is joined by the Haltwhistle Burn. By going up the valley of this pretty little stream we shall arrive near the Roman station of AEsica, on the Wall. The town of Haltwhistle is peaceful enough now, but it had a stirring existence in the days when Ridleys, Armstrongs, and Charltons, to say nothing of the men of Liddesdale and Teviotdale, had so strong a partiality for a neighbour’s live-stock and so ready a hand with arrow and spear. In the old ballad of “The Fray of Hautwessel,” we are told that

“The limmer thieves o’ Liddesdale
Wadna leave a kye in the haill countrie,
But an[^[3]] we gi’e them the cauld steel,
Our gear they’ll reive it a’ awaye,
Sae pert they stealis, I you saye.
O’ late they came to Hautwessel,
And thowt they there wad drive a fray.
But Alec Ridley shot too well.”

[3] But an = unless.

The most notable feature of present-day Haltwhistle is the finely placed parish church, of which the chancel is the oldest part, having been built in the twelfth century, so that it was already an old church when Edward I. rested here for a night in 1306, on his way to Scotland for the last time. When William the Lion of Scotland returned from his captivity, after being taken prisoner at Alnwick in 1174, he founded the monastery of Arbroath in thanksgiving for his freedom, and bestowed on the monks the church of Haltwhistle.

All that remains of the old Castle, or “Haut-wysill Tower,” is the building standing near the Castle Hill, which latter has been fortified by earthworks. The Red Lion Hotel is a modernised pele-tower. The general aspect of the place is singularly bare and bleak; but from several points in the town, notably from the churchyard terrace, fine views of the river valley may be obtained.

Henshaw (Hethinga’s-haugh) is a little village which King David of Scotland, when he was Lord of Tynedale, gave to Richard Cumin and his wife, who afterwards bestowed it on the Cathedral of Durham. It lies by the side of the main road to Bardon Mill, which is the most convenient station for travellers to alight at who wish to visit the Roman Wall and the Roman city of Borcovicus, and the Northumberland lakes. Some little distance up the hill from Bardon Mill station is a very pretty little village whose name speaks eloquently of other invaders than the Romans—the village of Thorngrafton (the “ton” or settlement on Thor’s “graf” or dyke). Near at hand there are quarries from which the Romans obtained much building material for the Wall; and in one of these old quarries some workmen discovered a bronze vessel full of Roman coins, a few of gold, but most of silver. This was known as the “Thorngrafton Find,” and the interesting story of it is told by Dr. Bruce.

On the opposite side of the South Tyne from Henshaw, Willimoteswick Castle stands on the level plains which are as characteristic of the south bank of the river as are the steep slopes of the north bank. One of the towers of this old Castle yet remains, and forms part of the more modern farm-house which stands there. Willimoteswick was long in the possession of the Ridleys, and it is generally accepted as having been the birthplace of Bishop Ridley, though Unthank Hall, nearer to Haltwhistle, and also a home of that family, disputes the honour. The Bishop, who suffered death at the stake in the troublous times of Queen Mary, in touching letters bids farewell to his Cousin at Willimoteswick and his sister and her children at Unthank.

On the same side of the Tyne is Beltingham Church, with some wonderful old trees in the churchyard, and Ridley Hall, which takes its name from that family, although not now occupied by them. Here the Allen flows into the South Tyne, and nowhere in the whole of the county is there a more beautiful and romantic scene. By the side of the stream the Ridley woods stretch for a mile or two, and the delightful mingling of graceful ferns, overhanging trees, tall, rugged cliffs, flowering plants, and sparkling waters forms a succession of lovely scenes throughout their length, which, with the play of lights and shadows on the dimpled surface of the stream, and frequent glimpses of grassy glades and cool green alleys, make a walk through these enchanting woods an unforgettable delight.

The Allen Burn, which gives its name to the beautiful district of Allendale, is, like the Tyne, formed by the junction of two streams, the East and West Allen, which rise near each other in hills on the border of Northumberland and Durham, down the opposite slopes of which run the little streams which feed the Wear. After flowing apart for some miles, the East and West Allen unite not far from Staward railway station. Both rivers flow, for the first part of their course, through a wild and hilly region, rich, however, in minerals. On the East Allen are the towns of Allenheads, formerly a busy centre of the lead-mining industry, and Allendale Town, which lies about 1,400 feet above the sea-level.

As the lead-mining industry has decreased, Allendale has turned its attention to other methods of living, and now caters for the army of visitors who, each summer, climb its hills and wander through its woods and lanes, and by its riverside, as did the Allendale maid whose memory is perpetuated in the simple lines of the little poem, “Lucy Gray of Allendale.”

“Say, have you seen the blushing rose,
The blooming pink, or lily pale?
Fairer than any flower that blows
Was Lucy Gray of Allendale.
Pensive at eve, down by the burn,
Where oft the maid they used to hail,
The shepherds now are heard to mourn
For Lucy Gray of Allendale.”

Not far from the village of Catton, the name of “Rebel Hils” reminds us that it was a vicar of Allendale, Mr. Patten, who joined young Derwentwater in the rising of “The Fifteen,” and was appointed chaplain of the little army. He met some half-dozen men of the neighbourhood at this hill, when they set off together to join the rest of the forces at Wooler.

On the West Allen is the lonely little hamlet of Ninebanks, with Ninebanks Tower, concerning which little is known with certainty; and on this stream also are two of the most strikingly beautiful places in Northumberland—the delightfully picturesque village of Whitfield, and the well-known Staward-le-Peel.

The ruins of the “Pele” tower stand on a high grassy platform, safeguarded on three sides by tall cliffs and tumbled boulders; the remains of a ditch may also be traced. From this point a splendid view of the river valley, with its steep precipices, overhanging pinewoods intermingled with trees of less sombre hue, and the bright course of the river, may be obtained. At a point a little higher up the valley, where the waters of the stream are held back by some huge rocks, they form a deep pool, and then flow onwards through a narrow gorge called Cyper’s Linn. Following the stream now until it has merged its waters in those of the South Tyne, we turn eastward with the main stream and come to Haydon Bridge.

This considerable village, gradually growing to the proportions of a small town, lies on both sides of the river, which is here crossed by the substantial bridge from which the village takes its name; for the original village of Haydon stood at some distance up the hill on the north side of the stream. On the hillside may still be seen the ruins of the old church, in which services are occasionally held in the summer time. The chancel, apparently dating from the twelfth century, and a later little chapel to the south of it, are all that are left of the building. Some very quaint inscriptions are to be seen in the churchyard, and there are many sculptured grave-covers within the church. Many of the stones used in the building have evidently been brought from the great Wall, or probably from the Roman station of Borcovicus, some six or seven miles to the north; and what a rush of bewildering fancies crowds upon one’s mind on first discovering that the font was originally a Roman altar!

The old church must have looked down on many a wild and curious scene in the days when Scot and Englishman sought only opportunities to do each other an injury, and the river-valleys were the natural passes through which the tide of invasion, raid, and reprisal flowed.

In the beginning of the reign of Edward III., about 24,000 Scots, under Douglas and Murray, crossed the Tyne near Haydon Bridge, and rode on to plunder the richer lands that lay to the south and west. They reached Stanhope and encamped there for a time. The young king set out northwards with a great army to punish these marauders, and he was told by his scouts that they had hastily left Stanhope on his approach. He and his army pushed on quickly until they reached Bardon Mill; and, crossing the Tyne, marched down to Haydon Bridge, expecting the Scots to return by the way they went. It was miserable weather, and the feeding of so many thousands of men was no little problem. They scoured all the country round for provisions, getting the most from the Hexham Abbey lands. Meanwhile it rained and rained, and no Scots appeared. After a week of waiting, Edward, in great disappointment, went to Haltwhistle, while his followers reconnoitered in all directions. Finally, he had the mortification of learning that the Scots were still at Stanhope, but before anything more could be done, they betook themselves back to Scotland by a different route, and there was nothing left for Edward but to give up the expedition in despair.

The bridge at Haydon appears to have been the only one for some distance up and down the river in the sixteenth century, for we read of its being barred and chained, on various occasions of marauding troubles in Tynedale, to prevent the free-booters re-crossing the river.

In the days of Charles I. Colonel Lilburn marched to Haydon Bridge in command of some troops of the Roundheads, on his way to join their comrades at Hexham as a counter-move to the operations of the Royalist troops in the North. Little more than thirty years after this, when the days of Cromwell’s power had come and gone, and Charles II. ruled at Whitehall, the old Grammar School was founded at Haydon Bridge in 1685 by a clergyman, the Rev. John Shafto. Various changes have taken place in the school from time to time, necessitated by the gradual changes and educational needs of the passing years; and now, like the Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth at Hexham, it has been entirely re-constituted to meet modern requirements. John Martin, the famous painter of “The Plains of Heaven,” received the beginnings of his education at this school. He was born at East Land Ends farm in 1789. In after years the authorities of Haydon Bridge Reading Room, wishing no doubt to afford a perfect example to future generations of the truth of the proverb concerning a prophet and his own country, refused some of Martin’s pictures, which the gifted painter himself offered to them—an act which their successors have doubtless regretted.

At a little distance along the Langley Road, which leads past the school, a memorial cross is standing. It was erected in 1883 by the late Mr. C.J. Bates, the historian of Northumberland, to the memory of the last of the Derwentwater family, whose castle of Langley he purchased. The inscription on the cross reads:—“To the memory of James and Charles, Viscounts Langley, Earls of Derwentwater, beheaded on Tower Hill, London, 24th February, 1716, and 8th December, 1746, for loyalty to their lawful sovereign.”

A striking testimony, this, to the fact that freedom in England is a reality, and not merely a name. In what other land would an inscription such as this have been allowed to remain for more than twenty-four hours?

A couple of miles or more down the South Tyne is Fourstones, so called because of four stones, said to have been Roman altars, having been used to mark its boundaries. A romantic use was made of one of these stones in the early days of “The Fifteen.” Every evening, as dusk fell, a little figure, clad in green, stole up to the ancient altar, which had been slightly hollowed out, and, taking out a packet, laid another in its place. The mysterious packets, placed there so secretly, were letters from the Jacobites of the neighbourhood to each other; and the little figure in green was a boy who acted as messenger for them. No wonder that the people of the district gave this altar the name of the “Fairy Stone.”

Between Haydon Bridge and Fourstones are both freestone and limestone quarries, which latter have supplied many fossils to visitors of geological tastes. Halfway between Fourstones and Hexham, the two streams of North and South Tyne unite, and flow together down to the old town of Hexham, with its quaintly irregular buildings clustering in picturesque confusion round its ancient Abbey, which dominates the landscape from whatever point we approach.

Warden Village, already mentioned, lies in the angle formed by the meeting of the two streams, and has an ancient church which, however, has been largely rebuilt. From High Warden, near at hand, a delightful view may be obtained for a long distance up the valleys of North and South Tyne. On the summit of this hill there are the remains of a considerable British camp, showing that they had seized upon this point of vantage, and though the ancient British name has not come down to us, it is evident from the Saxon name of Warden (weardian) that Saxons as well as Britons were fully alive to the merits of the situation, “guarding” the valley at such a commanding point.

CHAPTER III.
DOWN THE TYNE.

The town of Hexham, standing on hilly ground overlooking the Tyne, immediately below the point at which the North and South Tyne unite, and spreading from thence down to the levels all round, is one of the most ancient in the kingdom. To write of Hexham with any measure of fulness would require much more space than can be given to it within the limits of a small book; only a mere summary can be offered here. Britons, Romans, and Saxons, in turn, have dwelt on and around the hill which, in Saxon days, was to be crowned with Wilfrid’s beautiful Abbey, which, we read, surpassed all others in England at that time for beauty and excellence of design and workmanship; nor was there another to equal it anywhere on this side of the Alps.

The name of Hexham is generally understood to be derived from the names of two little streams, the Hextol and the Halgut, now the Cowgarth and the Cockshaw Burns, which here flow into the Tyne; or, as Mr. Bates suggests, it may have been the “ham” of “some forgotten Hagustald,” which the name perpetuates. In any case its name was Hagustaldesham when King Ecgfrith (or Egfrid) of Northumbria gave it to his queen, Etheldreda, who wished to take the veil. Queen Etheldreda, however, preferred to go to East Anglia, which was her home; she retired to a convent at Ely, and bestowed the land at Hagustaldesham on Wilfrid, a monk of Lindisfarne, clever, ambitious and hardworking, who had become Bishop of York, which meant Bishop of all Northumbria.

Wilfrid had been to Rome, and seen the churches of that city and of the lands through which he travelled; and, on his appointment to power, he set himself to make the churches of his diocese worthy to compare with those of older civilizations. He did much to the cathedral of York, and built that of Ripon; but the Abbey of Hexham was his masterpiece. He built a monastery and church, dedicating the latter to St. Andrew, for it was in the church of St. Andrew at Rome that, kneeling, he felt himself fired with enthusiasm for his work, in the same church from which Augustine had set out on his journey to Britain some fifty years before. The year 674 is generally accepted as the date on which this noble Abbey was founded.

Wilfrid lived in great splendour at York, and ruled his immense diocese with a firm hand; in fact, he was the first of that line of great ecclesiastics who have moved with such proud, and oft-times turbulent, progress through the pages of English history. King Ecgfrith’s second wife, Ermenburga, was jealous of the great power and magnificence of the Northumbrian prelate, and through her influence, Archbishop Theodore was induced to divide the huge diocese of Northumbria into four portions—York, Hexham, Ripon and Withern in Galloway. Wilfrid, naturally indignant, found all his protests disregarded, and immediately set out for Rome, to obtain a decree of restitution from the Pope. It was given to him, but little cared the Northumbrians for that. Wilfrid was imprisoned for nine months, and then banished from Northumbria.

He went southwards and dwelt in Sussex, where his genius for hard work found scope in a mission to the Saxons of the south lands, and where he built and founded more churches and monasteries. Readers of “Rewards and Fairies” will have made acquaintance with Wilfrid in his Sussex wanderings and hardships. On his recall to the North by King Aldfrith, he returned to Hexham. On the death of Aldfrith, the new King, Edwulf, banished Wilfrid once more, ordering him to leave the kingdom within six days; but the friends of Aldfrith’s young son, whom Edwulf had dispossessed, obtained the ascendancy, and Wilfrid was re-instated in his Abbeys of Hexham and Ripon.

While on his way back from Rome, on his last visit, Wilfrid had a severe illness, but was granted a vision in which he was told that he had four years more to live, and that he must build a church to the honour of the Blessed Virgin. The little church of St. Mary, which stood close to the walls of the great Abbey of Hexham, was erected in fulfilment of this command.

In the Abbey church itself, all that was known for centuries of the original work of Wilfrid was the famous crypt, which is almost unique, that of Ripon, also the work of Wilfrid, being the only one like it; but recent excavations have brought much more of the ancient cathedral to light, and laid bare, not only its original plan, but some of the walls, and part of the very pavement trodden by the feet of Wilfrid and his fellows so many centuries ago. The tomb of Wilfrid, however, is not at Hexham, but at his other foundation of Ripon.

The ancient Abbey suffered much at the hands of the Danes, and in later years from the ravages of the Scots, having been burnt several times, notably in 1296, when 40,000 Scots ravaged the North of England, plundering, burning, and laying waste wherever they went, exactly as the Danes had done four hundred years before. Some of the stones of the old Abbey yet bear traces of the fires by which the ancient building was so often nearly destroyed, and in these frequent conflagrations all records, charters, etc., of the Abbey, from which might have been compiled a complete history, not only of the Abbey but of much of the provincial and national history of the times, were lost.

The Abbey was restored and rebuilt again and again, but for varying reasons was without a nave for some hundreds of years. Within the last ten years, however, a complete restoration has been carried out, under the loving, and, what is more to the point, the capable superintendence of Canon Savage and his colleagues, in the spirit and manner, as nearly as possible, of the beautiful portions already standing; and several disfiguring so-called “restorations” of nineteenth century work, which could only detract from the beauty and dignity of the noble building, have been removed entirely. This work was completed in 1908, and all who have the honour of our famous county at heart must rejoice that its noblest church is at last more worthy of its own high rank and glorious past.

Among the many deeply interesting objects to be seen in the Abbey is the stone Sanctuary seat—the Frid Stool, or seat of peace—at which fugitives, fleeing from their enemies, might find refuge. It is believed that this was the “Cathedra” of St. Wilfrid himself. The arms and back of the chair are ornamented with a twisted knot-work pattern. The right of Sanctuary extended for a mile round the Abbey, the boundaries being marked by crosses, one at each point of the compass at that distance.

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.

The rest of the force dispersed, and made their way to Hexham; and Lord Montague marching upon them from Newcastle, a sharp engagement took place on the Levels, near the Linnels Bridge, with the result, as we have seen, of the defeat and death of Somerset, and the overthrow of Queen Margaret’s hopes in the north, where she had had a strong following.

The historical interest centred on Dilston Castle brings us to much later times, and enshrines a story which possesses a pathetic interest beyond that of any other place in Northumberland. Originally the home of the family of D’Eivill, later Dyvelstone (which explains the name “Devil’s Water”) Dilston Castle came into the possession of the Radcliffes by marriage, and in the days of the Commonwealth the Radcliffe of the day forfeited his estates on account of his loyalty to the house of Stuart. Charles II. restored them, and the close attachment between the houses of Stuart and Radcliffe continued until the fortunes of both were quenched in disaster and gloom. The figure of the young and gallant James Radcliffe, last Earl of Derwentwater, holds the imagination no less than the heart as it moves across the page of history for a brief space to its tragic end. Though born in London, in June 1689, young Radcliffe passed his childhood and youth in France in the closest companionship with James Stuart, son of the exiled James II. At the age of twenty-one he returned to his home in Northumbria, and took up his residence there, his charming manners, kind heart, and openhanded hospitality speedily endearing him to all classes. His servants and tenants, in particular, were passionately devoted to him. In the words of the old ballad of “Derwentwater”—

“O, Derwentwater’s a bonnie lord,
And golden is his hair,
And glintin’ is his hawkin’ e’e
Wi’ kind love dwelling there.”

On his marriage in 1712, the young bride and bridegroom remained for two years at the home of the bride’s father, and preparations were made for restoring the glories of Dilston on an extensive scale. On Derwentwater’s return to his beautiful Northumbrian seat in 1714, the death of Queen Anne had excited the hopes of all the friends of the house of Stuart, and plots and secret meetings were being planned throughout Scotland and the north of England, the objective being the restoration of the exiled Stuarts to the throne. Derwentwater took little part in these attempts to organise rebellion for some time, but at length was drawn into the dangerous game, as he was too valuable an asset to be passed over by the Jacobite party.

At last rumours of the projected rising reached London, and a warrant was issued for the arrest of Derwentwater, even before it was known whether he had actually joined the plotters, his well-known friendship with the exiled Prince making it almost certain that he would be an important figure in any movement on their behalf. For the next few weeks the young Earl found himself obliged to remain in hiding, finding safety in the cottages of his tenants, and in the houses of friends and neighbours. Finally, though his good sense warned him that he was embarking on an almost hopeless enterprise, he decided to throw in his lot with the Jacobites.

Tradition has it that his decision was brought about by the taunts of his Countess, who, like the rest of the Jacobite ladies, was more enthusiastic than the men. Throwing down her fan, she scornfully offered that to her husband as a weapon, and demanded his sword in exchange. The immediate result was seen on that October morning when Derwentwater and his little band of followers rode over the bridge at Corbridge with drawn swords, on their way to Beaufront, which was their first rendezvous; and from there proceeded to Greenrigg, near the great Wall, which had been appointed as a general meeting-place.

There they were joined by Mr. Forster, of Bamburgh, with his contingent, and a few from the surrounding district. Rothbury next saw the little army, which was joined on Felton Bridge by seventy Scots; and thereafter Warkworth, Alnwick, and Morpeth heard James Stuart proclaimed King under the title of James III.

Newcastle was to have been their next objective, but, hearing that the city had closed its gates, and intended to hold out for King George, the Jacobite force, after some indecision, returned northward to Rothbury, where they were joined by a large company of Scottish Jacobites under Lord Kenmure. Northward again they marched to Kelso, where more than a thousand Scots joined forces with them.

The little army numbered now almost 2,000, and a council was held to determine what their next step should be. On its being resolved to enter England, some hundreds of the Highlanders returned home, leaving an army of about 1,500 to march southwards to Lancashire. On their way they put to flight at Penrith a motley force which was raised to oppose them; and, elated with a first success, moved forward to Preston, grievously disappointed on the way at the failure of the people of Lancashire to rise with them, for they had been given to understand that thousands in that county were only awaiting an opportunity to declare for “King James.”

At Preston they barricaded the principal streets, and repulsed General Willis; but the arrival of General Carpenter from Newcastle changed the face of affairs. Young Derwentwater had fought valiantly and worked arduously at the barricades, but Forster—whose appointment as General had been made in the hope of attracting other Protestant gentry to the Jacobite cause—offered to submit to General Carpenter under certain conditions. Carpenter’s reply was a demand for unconditional surrender, and the hopeless little tragi-comedy was played out. The last scene took place on Tower Hill three months later, when the gallant young Earl, then only twenty-six years old, laid down the life which, after all, had been spent in the service of others, with no selfish purpose in view, and which was offered him, together with wealth and freedom, if he would forsake his faith and throw aside his allegiance to the house of Stuart. Refusing to purchase life at such a price, he was condemned, and executed on Tower Hill on February 24th, 1716.

His brother Charles, who had been by his side throughout the rising, had the good fortune to escape from Newgate Prison, and passed most of his life abroad. Thirty years later, on his return to take up arms on behalf of James’ son Charles—“bonnie Prince Charlie”—when he also drew the sword in an attempt to regain the throne of his fathers, Radcliffe was captured and beheaded. (For account of a monument to the memory of these two brothers see in previous chapter paragraph relating to Haydon Bridge.)

The story of General Forster’s escape from Newgate is told by Sir Walter Besant, as all readers of his novel, “Dorothy Forster” know, though the author has taken those minor liberties with unimportant facts which are by common consent allowable in fiction.

James Radcliffe’s friends were allowed to have his body, though they were forbidden to carry it home for burial; for such were the love and esteem borne for the young Earl in the hearts of all his North-country friends and dependents, that the authorities feared a disturbance of the peace should his body be brought amongst them while their rage and grief were still at their height. Notwithstanding the prohibition, however, the body was brought secretly to Dilston, and buried in the vault of the chapel, which, with the ruined tower, are all that remain of the home of the Radcliffes. Standing amidst luxuriant foliage, and overlooking a romantic dell, the ruins of tower and chapel remain as they fell into decay on the death of their luckless owners. The confiscated estates were bestowed on Greenwich Hospital, whose agents administer them still, with the exception of certain portions purchased from time to time by various landowners. No other family took the place of the Radcliffes in the deserted halls; but tradition holds that the unfortunate Earl and his sorrowful lady still revisit their ancient home. The Earl’s body is now at Thorndon, in Essex. Below is Surtees’ beautiful ballad, “Lord Derwentwater’s Farewell.”

LORD DERWENTWATER’S FAREWELL
“Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall,
My father’s ancient seat;
A stranger now must call thee his,
Which gars my heart to greet.
Farewell each kindly well-known face
My heart has held so dear;
My tenants now must leave their lord
Or hold their lives in fear.
No more along the banks of Tyne
I’ll rove in autumn grey;
No more I’ll hear, at early dawn,
The lav’rocks wake the day;
Then fare thee well, brave Witherington,
And Forster ever true;
Dear Shaftsbury and Errington,
Receive my last adieu.
And fare thee well, George Collingwood,
Since fate has put us down;
If thou and I have lost our lives,
Our king has lost his crown.
Farewell, farewell, my lady dear,
Ill, ill thou counsell’dst me;
I never more may see the babe
That smiles upon thy knee.
And fare thee well, my bonny gray steed,
That carried me aye so free;
I wish I had been asleep in my bed
The last time I mounted thee;
The warning bell now bids me cease,
My trouble’s nearly o’er;
Yon sun that rises from the sea
Shall rise on me no more.
Albeit that here in London Town
It is my fate to die;
O carry me to Northumberland,
In my father’s grave to lie.
There chant my solemn requiem
In Hexham’s holy towers;
And let six maids of fair Tynedale
Scatter my grave with flowers.
And when the head that wears the crown
Shall be laid low like mine;
Some honest hearts may then lament
For Radcliffe’s fallen line.
Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall,
My father’s ancient seat;
A stranger now must call thee his,
Which gars my heart to greet.”

Near to Corbridge the waters of the Tyne lave the ancient piers of the old Roman bridge which led to Corstopitum, the most considerable of the Roman stations in this region. The recent careful excavations have laid bare the evidence of what must have been a most imposing city, and many treasures of pottery, coins and ancient jewellery and ornaments, together with large quantities of the bones of animals, some of them identical with the wild cattle of Chillingham, have been brought to light. The famous silver dish known as the Corbridge Lanx, which was found at the riverside by a little girl in 1734, had evidently been washed down from Corstopitum. It is now preserved at Alnwick Castle. The antiquity of Corbridge is thus superior to that of Hexham, as far as may be known; but on the other hand, while Hexham in Saxon times grew to power, Corbridge declined. Yet, in its time, it was more than the home of a famous Abbey; it was a royal city, albeit the date of its elevation to royal rank coincided with the decline of the kingdom of which it was the final capital. When the fierce and ruthless internal quarrels, which rent Northumbria after Edbert’s glorious reign, had weakened it so that it fell a prey to the gradual encroachments of its northern neighbours, the once royal city of Bamburgh was left in the hands of a noble Saxon family, and the court was removed to Corbridge, which remained the abode of the kings of Northumbria until Northumbria possessed royal rank no longer. The tale of the two hundred years during which Corbridge was the capital city is a tale of red slaughter and ruin, murder and bitter feud, not against outside foes, but between one family and another, noble against king, king against relatives of other noble houses, amongst which might possibly be found the thegn to succeed him, or to murder him in order to bring about his own more speedy elevation to a precarious throne.

So much was this the case, that Charles the Great, at whose court the learned Northumbrian, Alcuin, was secretary, said that the Northumbrians were worse than the invading heathen Danes, who, by this time, had begun their ravages in the land. Amongst the rulers of Northumbria in those days, the name of Alfwald the Just, who was called “the Friend of God,” shines out with enduring light across the stormy darkness of that terrible period; yet even his just and merciful rule and noble life could not save him from the hand of the assassin. He was buried with much mourning and great pomp in the Abbey at Hexham; and during the recent excavations the fact of a Saxon interment was verified as having taken place beneath the beautiful tomb which tradition has always held to be that of King Alfwald the Just. This fact also helped to demonstrate the extent of the original Abbey.

There was a monastery at Corbridge in the year 771, which is supposed to have been founded by St. Wilfrid. Of the four churches which were erected in later times, only one survives—the parish church of St. Andrew, which occupies the site of the early monastery. In this ancient church may be seen part of the original Saxon work, and many stones of Roman workmanship are built up in the structure.

Like most other old churches in the north, it suffered severely at the hands of the Scots, and, as at Hexham Abbey, traces of fire may be seen on some of the stones.

King David of Scotland, on his invasion of England in 1138, which was to end at the “Battle of the Standard,” at Northallerton, encamped at Corbridge for a time, and terrible cruelties were committed in the district by his followers. In the next century, King John turned the little town upside down in his efforts to find treasure which he was convinced must be concealed somewhere in the houses; but his search was fruitless. In the days of the three Edwards, during the long wars with Scotland, Corbridge suffered terribly, being fired again and again; on one occasion, in 1296, the destruction included the burning of the school with some two hundred hapless boys within its walls.[^[4]]

[4] See Bates, p. 149.

Those heroes of our childhood’s days, William Wallace and Robert Bruce, were far from guiltless in these cruelties, though in justice to them personally, the wild and lawless character of the men who formed their undisciplined hosts must be remembered; and we know that Wallace tried to save the holy vessels in Hexham Abbey, but, as soon as his back was turned, they were swept away in the very presence of the officiating priest.

During these terrible years most of Northumberland was a desolate waste; and divine service had almost ceased to be performed between Newcastle and Carlisle, even Hexham being deserted for a time. After the battle of Bannockburn, matters were worse, if possible, and all the north lay in fear of the Scots, but from time to time spasmodic efforts at retaliation were made by the boldest of the Northumbrian landowners. In the reign of Edward III., however, many of these great landowners thwarted the King’s designs by making a traitorous peace with their turbulent neighbours.

David II. of Scotland encamped at Corbridge for a time during his second attempt to invade England but this expedition ended in his defeat and capture at Neville’s Cross. Thereafter the north had rest for some years, and Corbridge seems to have been left in peace. The Wars of the Roses passed it by; and the Civil Wars in Stuart days also, except for an unimportant skirmish; and the only part Corbridge saw of the Jacobite rising of “The Fifteen” was the little cavalcade from Dilston which clattered over the old bridge on its way to Beaufront. That bridge is the same which we cross to-day; the date of its erection, 1674, may be seen on one of its stones, and it was the only one on the Tyne which withstood the great flood of 1771, when even the old Tyne Bridge at Newcastle was swept away.

Quite close to the church there is an old pele-tower, which is in an excellent state of preservation, little of it having disappeared except the various floors. The vicars of Corbridge must have been often thankful for such a refuge at hand, where they could bid defiance to marauding bands, whether of Scottish or English nationality. In the Register of the parish church may be seen a most interesting entry, showing the Earl of Derwentwater’s signature as churchwarden.

At a little distance from Corbridge, to the northward, is the fortified manor-house of Aydon Castle, standing embowered in trees where the Cor burn runs through a little rocky ravine, down whose steep sides Sir Robert Clavering threw most of a marauding band of Scotsmen who had attacked the grange; the place known as “Jock’s Leap” obtained its name from one of the Scots who escaped the fate of his comrades by his leap for life across the ravine. The Castle, or hall, as it is variously called, has not suffered such destruction as might have been expected, seeing that it dates from the thirteenth century; but the thickness of its walls, and the arrow-slits and narrow windows are obvious proof of the necessity for defence which existed when it was first erected in the days of Edward I. Many features of great interest, notably the ancient fireplaces, remain in the interior of the building.

Returning down the Cor burn to the Tyne, our way lies eastward by the side of the river, which here, after splashing and sparkling over the shallows below Corbridge, narrows again to a deeper stream of swifter current, and flows between green meadows and leafy woods, fern-clad steeps and level haughs, all the way down to Ryton, where the picturesque aspect of the river ceases, and it becomes an industrial waterway. On this reach of the river are several places of considerable interest.

Riding Mill, a pretty village in a well-wooded hollow, enclosed by steep hills which rise ever higher and higher to the moors by Minsteracres and Blanchland, stands where Watling Street, or Dere Street, leading down the long slope of the country from Whittonstall, on reaching the Tyne turned westward to Corstopitum. Further down the stream is Stocksfield, where the aged King Edward I. halted on his last journey into Scotland, on that expedition which was to have executed a summary vengeance upon the Scots; he journeyed forward by slow stages, but was taken ill at Newbrough, where he stayed for some time, before continuing his journey by Blenkinsopp, Thirlwall, and Lanercost to Carlisle.

On the opposite side of the stream from Stocksfield is the lovely village of Bywell, a “haunt of ancient peace,” “sleeping soft on the banks of the murmuring Tyne.” This little peaceful spot was at one time a very busy centre of life and industry on a small scale; in the Middle Ages the inhabitants drove a thriving trade in all the necessities for a people who spent a great part of their lives upon horseback, especially in the making of the ironwork required—“bits, stirrups, buckles, and the like, wherein they are very expert and cunning.” The Nevilles, lords of Raby and earls of Westmoreland, held Bywell at this time; before that it was in the hands of the Balliols, of Scottish fame, who, like the Bruces, were Norman knights high in favour with their kings, Norman and Plantagenet, though they afterwards became their most determined foes.

Long before the advent of the Normans, a church was built here by St. Wilfrid, and in it—St. Andrew’s or the “White” Church—Egbert, twelfth bishop of Lindisfarne, was consecrated by Archbishop Eanbald in the year 803. More than a thousand years afterwards, in 1896, an Ordination service was again held at Bywell, in St. Peter’s church, when five deacons were ordained by Bishop Jacob. And in times yet more remote than Wilfrid’s age, Roman legionaries crossed the Tyne at this point over a bridge of their own construction, of which the piers might be seen until our own day. Bywell, too, had its “find” of Roman silver; in 1760 a silver cup was found in the Tyne, bearing the inscription “Desidere vivas” around the neck of the vessel.

When the Nevilles were lords of the manor of Bywell, they began to build a castle here, which, however, was left unfinished; the ancient tower still standing, with its picturesque draping of ivy, was the gate-house of the intended fortress. On the rebellion of the northern earls in 1569, Westmoreland’s forfeited lands passed to the crown, so that Bywell was held by Queen Elizabeth for a year or two, until she sold the estate to a branch of the Fenwick family.

Bywell is unique in Northumberland in possessing two churches side by side yet in different parishes. The town of Bywell, we are told by the same authority before quoted, lay in a long line by the north bank of the Tyne, and was “divided into two separate parishes” even then, so that there ought to be traces of former buildings westward from the present village. In connection with the two churches which adjoin each other so closely, tradition tells the well-known story of the two quarrelsome sisters who could not agree on the building of a church and therefore each built one. One might have imagined, with some show of reason, that there being two parishes, the two churches were placed there in sheltering proximity to the castle, were it not for the fact that the churches were in existence long before the stronghold of the Nevilles was contemplated.

St. Andrew’s, called the “White” church from the fact of its being served in later days by the White friars, is the more ancient of the two. As we have seen, a church erected by St. Wilfrid stood on this site, and a goodly portion of the Saxon work remains in the tower. The hagioscope, or “squint” in this church, and the “leper” window in St. Peter’s are interesting relics of the Middle Ages.

St. Peter’s, or the “Black” church which once belonged to the Benedictines or Black friars, is of much later date than its neighbour, though still an ancient building, being supposed to date from the eleventh century. Its most interesting possessions are two very old bells, bearing Latin inscriptions, one announcing “I proclaim the hour for people rising, and call to those still lying down,” and the other reading “Thou art Peter.”

Bywell suffered greatly in the flood of 1771, when the bridge was swept away, many houses destroyed, several people drowned, and both churches greatly damaged.

It is not surprising that this tranquil little village—“the retreat of the old doomed divinities of wood and fountain, banished from their native haunts,” to quote Mr. Tomlinson’s happy phrase—has always been beloved of artists, many of whom have transferred to their canvasses the beauties of its mingled scenery of graceful woods and sparkling waters, ancient fortress, peaceful meadows, and gray old towers. Many noteworthy and fine old trees are to be found in and around this artists’ haunt.

On the opposite side of the river, Bywell’s younger sister, Stocksfield, grows apace, reaching out towards the lulls and along the eastward lanes, though not as yet in such measure as to cover the hillsides with any semblance of a town, being still almost hidden amongst the profusion of trees that clothe most of the district in their leafy greenery. On the north bank of the stream the village of Ovingham now rises into view, its name telling us plainly that there was a settlement here in Saxon times “the home of the sons of Offa”; and the slope above the river is fittingly crowned by the ancient church of St. Mary, whose tower, with its curiously irregular windows, is the work of the Saxon builders of the original church. The rest of the building, except some Saxon work at the west end of the nave, dates from early Norman days. Here is the burial place of the famous brothers John and Thomas Bewick, who were born at Cherryburn House, just across the river. In this delightful spot the boy Thomas Bewick grew up, absorbing unconsciously the natural beauties that are to be found here by the Tyne and in the little ravine through which the Cherry Burn flows, which beauties he so lovingly reproduced on his engraving blocks later in life.

At the fords of Ovingham, Eltringham, and Bywell, the Scots under General Leslie crossed the Tyne in 1644, and made their way into Durham, leaving six regiments to watch Newcastle.

The picturesque ruins of Prudhoe Castle, whose lofty towers dominate the valley for some distance up and down the stream, stand on a commanding rocky ridge above the Tyne. The lands of Prudhoe were given, soon after the Norman Conquest, to one of Duke William’s immediate followers, Robert de Umfraville; and it was Odinel de Umfraville who built the present castle in the twelfth century. Its strength was soon put to the test, for a few years after it was built William the Lion of Scotland found that the place baffled all his attempts to capture it. In his anger he determined to reduce the fortress of Odinel, who had spent much time at the Scottish court in his youth, the Kings of Scotland being at that time lords of Tynedale. The attempt ended in total failure, the greatest harm the Scots did on that occasion being to destroy the cornfields and strip the bark from the apple trees near the Castle; while, a day or two afterwards, Odinel de Umfraville, with Glanvile and Balliol, captured the Scottish monarch himself at Alnwick.

Another Umfraville, Richard, quarrelled with his neighbour of Nafferton, on the opposite side of the river, for having begun to erect a fortress much too near Umfraville’s own. He sent a petition to the King on the subject and King John commanded Philip de Ulecote’s building operations to cease. The unfinished castle, known as Nafferton Tower, remains to this day as Philip’s masons left it so many centuries ago.

Sir Ingram de Umfraville was by the side of Edward II. at Bannockburn, when, before the battle, Bruce ordered his men to kneel in prayer. Edward looked on the kneeling host, and turning to Umfraville, exclaimed “See! Yon men kneel to ask mercy.” “You say truth, sire,” answered the knight of Prudhoe; “they ask mercy—but not of you.”

The last Umfraville, who died in 1381, left a widow, the Countess Maud, who married a Percy of Alnwick, and so the castle passed into the hands of that family, in whose possession it still remains.

When Odinel de Umfraville was building the keep of his castle, every one in the neighbourhood was pressed into the service, and all lent their aid except the men of Wylam. Wylam had been given to the church of St. Oswyn at Tynemouth, and, as was customary, was freed by charter from the duty of castle building, or any other feudal service excepting such as were rendered to the Prior of Tynemouth as occasion arose. So, in spite of the angry surprise of the lord of Prudhoe, the Wylam men quietly held to their charter, and not all Odinel’s threats or persuasions moved them one whit.

The Stanley Burn, which enters the Tyne close to Wylam railway station, divides this part of the county of Durham from Northumberland, so that from Wylam to the sea the south side of the Tyne is in the county of Durham. The most noteworthy object at Wylam, or, to be precise, a little way along the old post-road, leading to Newcastle from Hexham, is the red-tiled cottage in which George Stephenson was born in 1781. It stands on the north bank of the Tyne, where it can be distinctly seen from passing trains. Its neighbour cottage has been repaired and re-roofed, but Stephenson’s cottage remains unaltered.

Mr. Blackett, who owned Wylam Colliery at the beginning of the nineteenth century, took the keenest interest in the question of locomotives, and had tried more than one on his estate before George Stephenson brought them to the point of practical use. At Newburn, just four miles down the Tyne, George Stephenson passed many years of his youth; here he learned to read and write, when he was old enough to earn a man’s wage and could afford the few pence necessary; and here, in the parish church, may be seen, with an interval of twenty years between them, the entries of his two marriages.

Newburn is important nowadays for its steel works, within whose workshops is incorporated an old building formerly known as Newburn Hall; but in days long past its importance arose from its being on the ford of the Tyne nearest to Newcastle. This ford was frequently made use of, notably by the Scots in the reign of Charles I. Their chief camping ground is pointed out to us by the name of Scotswood, which also describes what Scotswood was like in those days—a great contrast to its present appearance, when the lines of brick and mortar stretching out uninterruptedly from Newcastle make it practically one with that town. In 1640, the Scottish army, under General Leslie, faced the Royalist troops, under Lord Conway, on the south side of the river. The Scots mounted their rude cannon on Newburn Church tower, and the English raised earthworks along the bank of the river, which was here fordable in two places. The two armies calmly watered their horses on opposite banks of the stream all the next morning, but a shot at a Scottish officer from the English ranks precipitated the battle; and the Scottish army, having made a breach in both earthworks with their artillery, waded across the fords and drove the Royalist troops up the bank, after one spasmodic rally, which, however, failed to check the Scottish advance. The way was now open for the Scottish army to continue down the south bank of the Tyne and attack Newcastle from Gateshead. It had been Lord Conway’s task to prevent this, but owing to his incapacity or want of whole-hearted enthusiasm for his cause, he failed entirely.

Not until 1644, however, was a Scottish attack on Newcastle actually made, for on this occasion Leslie, as we have already seen, led his men across the fords higher up the river and marched southwards. The earthworks thrown up by Conway’s troops may still be seen on Stella Haughs.

It is supposed that the Romans had a fort here, commanding the passage of the river; indeed it would have been strange had this not been the case, for the Romans were not the people to disregard any point of strategical importance, especially one so near their stations of Pons AElii and Condercum. Many stones of Roman workmanship have been used in the building of the Newburn church.

From this point to its mouth, nearly fifteen miles away, both banks of the Tyne present an unbroken scene of industry. Between the steel works of Newburn and the iron and chemical works, the brick and tile works of Blaydon and past the famous yards of Elswick, down to the wharves and shipyards of North and South Shields, the Tyne rolls its swift dark waters through a scene of stirring activity; the air is dusky with soot and smoke, and reverberant with the clang of hammers and the pulsing beat of machinery. Some old and world-famed works have been closed or removed, like Hawks’ and Stephenson’s, but others, many others, have opened; and the map of the positions of Tyne industries, published under the auspices of the Newcastle and Gateshead Chamber of Commerce, is a record of resolute toil and brilliant achievement in the many aspects of industrial life represented on the river.

And, apart from the mere prosperity and commercial supremacy of the district, there is another cause for pride in the many notable inventions which hail from Tyneside; from the locomotive and the “Geordie” lamp of Stephenson, the hydraulic machinery and the big guns of Armstrong, to the wonderful turbine engines of Parsons; the invention of water-ballast, too, belongs to the Tyne, for it was the idea of a Gateshead man, and first used at Jarrow.

And, in connection with ships and seafarers, though not in any commercial sense, we may proudly recall the fact that the first Lifeboat was launched on the Tyne and named after the river; and the first Volunteer Life Brigade was formed at Tynemouth. The Worth Eastern Railway is carried across the Tyne by the Scotswood Bridge; and it was on this part of the river that the boat-races, for which the Tyne was once famous, were rowed. At Newcastle, the river is bridged by four huge structures—The Redheugh Bridge, the new King Edward VII. bridge, the High Level, and Swing Bridges,—all connecting Newcastle with the sister town of Gateshead. An interesting sight it is to see the Swing Bridge gradually turning on its central pivot, until it lies in a straight line up and down the stream, allowing some huge liner to pass, or some new battleship, fresh from Elswick, to sail down the river, on its way to make its trial trip over the “measured mile” in the open sea at the mouth of the river, and thereafter to take its place among the armaments of the nations.

The High Level Bridge allows ships of any height to pass under its lofty and graceful arches, which look so light, but are yet so strong. This splendid bridge is an enduring monument of Robert Stephenson, whose work it was; and the story of its erection, at the cost of nearly half a million of money, makes most interesting reading. It took nearly two and a half years to build, and was opened for traffic in 1849—little more than three years after the first pile was driven in. A few months later, in 1850, the newly built Central Station, with its imposing portico, was opened by Queen Victoria.

Passing down the Tyne from Newcastle, which requires separate notice, and Walker, with its reminiscences of “Walker Pit’s deun weel for me,” we arrive at Wallsend, which in twenty-five years has grown from a colliery village with a population of 4,000 to a town of 23,000 inhabitants. Here are great shipbuilding and repairing yards, chemical works and cement works; here, too, are Parsons’ Steam Turbine Works, where was designed and built the little “Turbinia,” on which tiny vessel the early experiments were made with the new engines; and here are the famous mines which have made “Best Wallsend” a synonym for best household coal all over the land. These mines, after having been closed for many years, were reopened at the beginning of the century, and now turn out upwards of one thousand tons of coal per day.

The church of St. Peter, at Wallsend, is little more than a hundred years old; the old Church of Holy Cross, now long disused, was built towards the end of the twelfth century. But Wallsend itself, as all the world knows, is of much greater antiquity, for was it not, as its name proclaims, situated at the end of the Great Wall? Its name then, however, was not Wallsend but Segedunum.

Willington Quay, further down the river, was, for a time, the home of George Stephenson, and here his son, Robert, was born. At Howdon, which used to be known as Howdon Pans, from the salt-pans there, the painter John Martin and his brothers once worked when boys, being employed in some rope-works. Here, too, the Henzells, a family of refugees who settled in the district in the days of Elizabeth, founded some glass works, for which industry the Tyne has been famous from that day to this.

The River Tyne at Newcastle (showing Swing Bridge Open).

Before the railway on the south side of the river was laid down, passengers who wished to reach Jarrow had to alight at Howdon and cross the river; and a racy dialect song—“Howdon for Jarrow” with its refrain of “Howdon for Jarra—ma hinnies, loup oot”—commemorates the fact. Willington Quay and Howdon carry on the line of shipbuilding yards to Northumberland Dock and the staithes of the Tyne Commissioners, where the waggon ways from various collieries bring the coal to the water’s edge. Tyne Dock, just opposite, and the Albert Edward Dock near North. Shields, provide abundance of shipping accommodation, besides what is afforded by the river itself; and now the river flows between the steep banks of North and South Shields. As the names declare, these two growing and prosperous towns once consisted of a few fishermen’s huts, or “shielings”; but that was long ago, when the north shore of the Tyne was owned by the Prior of Tynemouth, and the southern shore by the Bishop of Durham, and the citizens of Newcastle complained to King Edward I. that these two ecclesiastics had raised towns, “where no town ought to be,” and that “fishermen sold fish there which ought to be sold at Newcastle, to the great injury of the whole borough, and in detriment to the tolls of our Lord the King.” These quarrels between Newcastle and the other settlements on the Tyne continued with varying results, until in the days of Cromwell, Ralph Gardiner of Chirton, a little village close to North Shields, took up the cudgels for the growing towns; and by dint of great perseverance, and in spite of much persecution and ill-will, succeeded in getting most of the unjust privileges of their stronger neighbour abolished.

There were salt-pans, too, on both sides of the mouth of the Tyne, which were worked in connection with the monasteries from very early days; and Daniel Defoe, when he visited the north in 1726, declared that he could see from the top of the Cheviot “the smoke of the salt-pans at Sheals, at the mouth of the Tyne, which was about forty miles south of this.”

North Shields clings haphazard to the steep bank of the Tyne, and spreads away up and beyond it, reaching out towards Wallsend on the river shore and Tynemouth along by the sea, the older parts by the river looking black and grimy to the last degree; but there is a silver lining to this very black cloud—not visible, it is true, but distinctly audible—in the great shipbuilding and repairing works known as Smith’s Dock, one of the largest concerns of the kind in Great Britain, where so many hundreds of men earn their daily bread; and in the fishing industry, which was the foundation of the town’s prosperity, and bids fair to be so for many years to come, as it is increasing year by year. The Fish Quay at North Shields is a sight worth seeing; and, in the herring season, it is increasingly frequented by Continental buyers.

The fortunes of South Shields and Jarrow, though these towns are not in Northumberland, are yet so bound up with the story of the Tyne that no one would ever think of that river without them. Especially is this the case with Jarrow, which “Palmer’s” has raised from a small colliery village to a large and flourishing town. In those famous yards, everything that is necessary for the building of the largest ironclad, from the first smelting of the ore until the last rivet is in place, can be done. All Northumbria—Northumbria in the ancient and widest sense of the word—owes a debt of gratitude to Jarrow, for was it not the home of Bede? The monk of Jarrow, who spent all his long life in the same monastery by the Don, coming to it when he was a child of ten, made that spot of Northumbrian ground famed to the farthest limits of the civilized Europe of his day; and scholars from all over the Continent came to learn at the feet of the Northumbrian teacher. Beloved and revered by all, and in harness to the last hour of his busy life, he died in the year 735, just one hundred years after the coming of Aidan to Lindisfarne. “First among English scholars, first among English theologians, first among English historians, it is in the monk of Jarrow that English literature strikes its roots.”—J.R. Green.

The Jarrow of to-day, and all its neighbours of industrial Tyneside, possess no beauty of aspect such as the towns that are more fortunately situated on the upper reaches of the river; they are muffled in clouds of smoke and soot, and darkened by the necessities of their toil in grimy ores and the ever-present coal. But no one who has ever looked on these smoky reaches of the Tyne with a seeing eye, or steamed down the river on a day either of gloom or sunshine, can refuse to acknowledge that it has a certain grandeur, a stern beauty of its own, that can stir the heart and the imagination more deeply than any mere prettiness.

From the numberless hives of activity on both sides of the river clouds of smoke roll heavily upward, and jets of steam from panting machinery leap up in momentary whiteness on the dark background; the white wings of flocks of wheeling gulls flash in the occasional sunshine which lights up the scene, and between the clouds there are glimpses of blue sky. Towards sunset, the evening mists drape the darkening banks and crowded shipping in a soft robe of gray, which, together with the glowing sky behind, produces most wonderful Turneresque effects; and the fall of night on the river only changes the aspect without diminishing the interest of the scene. The blaze from a myriad workshops and forges glows against the darkness, the lamps twinkle overhead on the steep banks, and the lights from wharf and steamer are reflected in a thousand shimmering lines on the dark water, which flows on soundlessly, like the river of a dream.

On a day of wind and sun all these beauties are intensified a thousandfold; the smoke is blown hither and thither in flying clouds, the current seems to rush more swiftly, and a sense of vigorous life permeates the whole scene, giving to the beholder a feeling of keen exhilaration, as of new life rushing through his veins. Especially is this the case on reaching the mouth of the river and meeting the dancing waters of the open harbour, where the twin piers of South Shields and Tynemouth reach out sheltering arms. Within the wide bay they enclose, the storm-driven vessel may always find comparatively smooth water, how wildly soever the waves may rage and roar outside.

It is difficult to believe that so lately as the years 1858-60, the “bar” at the mouth of the Tyne was an insuperable obstacle to all but vessels of very moderate draught; and that ships might lie for days, and sometimes weeks, after being loaded, before there came a tide high enough to carry them out to sea. The river was full of sand-banks, and little islands stood here and there—one in mid-stream, where the ironclads are now launched at Elswick. Three or four vessels might be seen at once bumping and grounding on the “bar” unable to make their way over. Well might the old song say—

“The ships are all at the bar,
They canna get up to Newcastle!”

An old map of the Tyne shows a number of sand-banks down the lower reaches of the river, with ships aground on each, of them.

But the River Tyne Commissioners have changed all that, and their implement of warfare has been the hideous but necessary dredger. No longer need vessels of heavy tonnage desert the Tyne for the Wear, as they were perforce driven to do during the first half of the nineteenth century, for the Wearsiders had set about deepening and widening their river long before the Tynesiders did the same by theirs. Considerable and continuous pressure had to be brought to bear on the civic authorities at Newcastle before they finally took action; but having once done so, the future of the Tyne was assured. Now it ranks second only to the Thames in the actual number of vessels entering and leaving, and owns only the Mersey its superior in the matter of tonnage.

CHAPTER IV.
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

“Her dusky hair in many a tangle clings
About her, and her looks, though stern and cold,
Grow tender with the dreams of by-gone days.”
—W.W. Tomlinson.

The outward signs of “by-gone days,” in the Newcastle of to-day, with the one notable exception of the Castle, must be diligently sought out amongst the overwhelming mass of what is often called “rampant modernity,” of which the town to-day chiefly consists. The modernity, however, is not all bad, as this favourite phrase would imply; much of it is doubtless regrettable and a very little of it perhaps inevitable; but no one will deny either the modernity or the beauty of Grey Street, one of the finest streets in any English town; or the fine appearance of Grainger Street, Blackett Street, Eldon Square, or any other of the stately thoroughfares with which Grainger and Dobson enriched the town within the last eighty years—no one, that is, who has learned to “lift his eyes to the sky-line in passing along a thoroughfare” instead of keeping them firmly fixed at the level of shop windows.

The grim old building which, when it was new, gave its name to the town, is one for which no search needs to be made; its blackened and time worn walls are seen from the train windows by every traveller who enters the city from the south. So near is it to the railway, that in the ultra-utilitarian days of sixty or seventy years ago, it narrowly escaped the ignoble fate of being used as a signal-cabin. It was rescued, however, by the Society of Antiquaries, and carefully preserved by them—more fortunate in this respect than the castle of Berwick, for the platform of Berwick railway station actually stands on the spot once occupied by the Great Hall of the Castle.

The site of the New Castle, on a part of the river bank which slopes steeply down to the Tyne, had been occupied centuries before by a Roman fort, constructed by order of the Emperor Hadrian, who visited Britain A.D. 120. He also constructed a bridge over the Tyne at this spot, fort and bridge receiving the name of Pons AElii, after the Emperor (Publius AElius Hadrianus). This became the second station on the Great Wall erected by Hadrian’s orders along the line of forts which Agricola had raised forty years before. This station shared the fate of others on the abandonment of Britain by its powerful conquerors, who had now for more than two hundred years been its no less powerful friends and protectors. Pons AElii fell into ruins; but so advantageous a site could not long be overlooked, and we read of a Saxon settlement there, apparently that of a religious community, from which fact it was known as Monkchester. All the records of this period seem to have perished, for we hear nothing of the settlement during the Danish invasions; but a Saxon town of some kind was evidently in existence at the time of the Conquest, though in 1073 three monks from the south who came to York, and, obtaining a guide to “Muneche-cester,” sought for some religious house in that settlement, could find none, and were prevailed upon by the first Norman Bishop of Durham, Walcher, to stay at Jarrow. The years from 1069 to 1080 were evil years for Northumberland, for at the first-named date the Conqueror devastated the North, and left neither village nor farm unscathed; and, as the desolated land was beginning to recover again, Odo of Bayeux and Robert of Normandy relentlessly laid it waste once more, partly in revenge for the murder of Bishop Walcher at Gateshead, and partly to punish Malcolm of Scotland for his invasion of Norman territory.

It was on his return from this expedition, which had penetrated as far north as Falkirk, that Robert, by his father’s orders, raised a stronghold on the Tyne on the site of the old Roman fort, in the year 1080. His brother, William Rufus, erected a much stronger and better one, the Keep of which, re-built by Henry II., stands to-day dark and grim, looking out over river and town, as it has stood since the Red King ruled the land, and, like his father, the Conqueror, found it desirable to have a stronghold at this northern point of his turbulent realm, around which a town might grow up in safety.

The roof and battlements of the Keep are modern, but the rest of it—the walls, 12 to 18 feet thick; the dismal dungeon, or guard chamber, with iron rings and fetters still fastened to the walls and central pillar; the beautiful little chapel, with its finely-ornamented arches; the little chambers in the thickness of the walls; the well, 94 feet deep, sunk through the solid masonry into the rock beneath; the arrow slits in the walls; the stones in the roof scored with frequent bolts from the besiegers’ crossbows, one of which bolts is firmly embedded in the wall opposite one of the narrow windows; the ancient weapons and armour—all these breathe of the days when the Red King’s castle took its part in the doings of our hardy ancestors in those stormy times in which they lived and fought.

The last time the old Keep was called upon to act as fortress and refuge in time of war was in Stuart days, after the ten weeks siege of Newcastle by the Scottish General Leslie, Earl of Leven, in 1644, when brave “Governor Marley” and his friends held out in the castle for a few days longer, after the town was taken. In memory of this stout defence and long resistance King Charles gave to the town its motto—Fortiter defendit triumphans, which Bates gives as having originally been Fortiter defendendo triumphat—“She glories in her brave defence.”

Two of the original fireplaces still remain in the Castle, and there are besides many objects of great interest which have been bestowed there from time to time for safe keeping; and many more are to be seen at the Black Gate, formerly the chief entrance to the Castle Hall and its surroundings. The Great Hall of the Castle, in which John Baliol did homage to Edward I. for the crown of Scotland, stood on the spot now covered by the Moot Hall. The Black Gate, the lower part of which is the oldest part of the building, which has many times been altered and repaired, is now used as a museum. There were nearly a dozen rooms in it, and not so many years ago the Corporation of Newcastle let these out in tenements, until this building also was rescued from degradation by the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, who took down most of the dividing walls, and converted it into a museum. Here may be seen stored many sculptured stones, altars, and statues, which have been brought from the various Roman stations in the north.

Around the walls of one room are to be seen facsimiles of the famous Bayeux tapestry; there is also a model of the Castle as originally built, and there are many more exhibits and loans of the very greatest interest.

Northumberland Yesterday and To-day

by Jean F. Terry, L.L.A.

(St. Andrews), 1913.

Contents

List of Illustrations

INTRODUCTORY.

NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY

CHAPTER I.THE COAST OF NORTHUMBERLAND.

CHAPTER II.NORTH AND SOUTH TYNE.

CHAPTER III.DOWN THE TYNE.

CHAPTER IV.NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

CHAPTER I.
THE COAST OF NORTHUMBERLAND.

CHAPTER II.
NORTH AND SOUTH TYNE.

CHAPTER III.
DOWN THE TYNE.

CHAPTER IV.
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.