/ L I and its Tributaries v W.J. PALMER n >ar THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES :«■=• * '<& THE TYNE AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. A TRllll'TAln THE TYNE AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. DE SCR IB ED . I N /> ILIA ' S T I! A TED BY W. J. PALMER. _^~~~ : i "• i LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREE'L', OOVENT GARDEN, 18«Si>. CHISWICK PRESS: — C WHITT1NGHA.M VNDCO lOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. *c INTRODUCTORY. THE basin of a noble river as seen from some elevated point would be a grand spectacle, especially were it possible to take in at a glance the fountain-head, the intricate ramification of tributaries, the broad main-stream, and final absorption by the ocean. In such a view the tree-like character of the river would be conspicuous. But in the nomenclature of a river and its tributaries the unity of this figure is necessarily broken. " The Tyne " stands only for the trunk of the river tree, the two main streams which unite to form it, and all the other branches have their own names; and thus nominally the water of Tyne is divided int<> mam waters, — the rivers North and South Tyne, the Allen, Reed, Kent . I >er- went, and Team, besides lesser streams, burns, and sykes, whose name is legion, though but parts of an indivisible whole. Its bubbling spring is as truly Tyne as its broadest reaches below bridge. "The child is father of the man." Instead of regarding it as formed by the junction of the Rivers North and South Tyne, The Tyne might be described as rising near Cross-fell in Cumberland, and receiving the North Tyne as an affluent. In Cross-fell the great Penine range culminates; the high lands from which it rises on the east side boast in Alston the highest market-town, in Coalcleugh the highest village, and in Ashgillside the highest inhabited house in England. It is in this elevated district that we find near each other the sources of the three great industrial rivers of the North the Tecs, the Wear, and the Tyne. The Tyne Mows northwards as far as Lambley. where it 8G92G5 Vlll INTRODUCTORY. takes to the depression caused by the great fault in the coal-field known as the Ninety-fathom Dyke ; after winch it flows in an easterly direction, until it reaches the sea ; it serves with its tributary the Derwent, as tin- boundary between Northumberland and Durham. The Tees divides Durham and Yorkshire .'whilst the Wear Takes a middle course through the county of Durham. The three neighbouring rivers have much in common — the same industries thrive on their banks; if one of them is flooded, with something resembling human sympathy the others are flooded also : and from the same birthplace they flow all to the eastern sea. Our smaller map shows by a dotted line the water parting of the north of England, where the rivers and burns divide as they flow to the eastern or western seas ; the dividing line is perhaps narrowest where the Tipalt a tributary of the Tyne, and the Irthing a tributary of the Eden, approach each other; but, doubtless, in this land of " many waters,'"' the smaller streams, in the accident of flood, get mixed in plaving round the base of the hills, and change their direction for a time towards the sea opposite to that which usually receives them. We know how great rivers alter their course, and we may cite here an interesting instance in connection with the past history of the Tyne. Mr. David Burn, of the Geological Survey, has discovered that the Irthing, though first of all flowing westward as it does now, must during a long intervening period have flowed eastward and joined the Tyne at Haltwhistle, and so made for the sea at Tynemouth, instead of mixing its waters with the Eden, and flowing past " merrie Carlisle " to the Solway Firth. The water parting in the north has frequently formed the boundary between estates, and is then known as the Heaven-water boundary. Dandy Dinmont claimed such a boundary for his farm in Liddesdale, no! far from the source of North Tyne, which he describes in his own way when laying his case before Mr. Pleydell the lawyer : — " Now I say the march rins at the tap o' the hill where the wind and water shears." " The Tyne waters two dales, both having their hills so boggy with standing water on the top that no horsemen are able to ride over them."' So runs an account of the upper Tyne districts given in the early pari of the seventeenth century. Side by side with the above statement may INTUonrCTOKY. IX be placed the modern report of no less an authority than John Grey of Dilston: — "The valleys of North and South Tyne, with others branching from them, contain land of excellent quality, and afford many specimens of superior husbandry." Cultivation advances surely if slowly, making its way generation after generation upwards towards the fell-tops ; the farmers now point to higher " bits of splendid land which must pre- sently come under the plough, though not perhaps in their time." Nevertheless the country through which this part of the Tyne flows, and through which it is proposed to take the reader, has still primitive features which have an interest for the stranger, — it is yet a land of natural wood and ancient mosses. The district has geological and archaeological features of unusual interest — relics of earlier inhabitants, British camps, barrows, and tumuli. Roman remains abound, many of which, hidden for centuries under the soil, have been brought to light again iu our time by the enthusiastic enterprise of such men as Dr. Bruce and Mr. John Clayton; the latter has acquired the proprietorship and directed the excavation of no less than four com- plete Roman stations in the district, whilst Dr. Bruce is well known as the accomplished author of "The Roman Wall." Traces, too, there are of other invaders who successively visited Britain ; traces of the Danes and of our Saxon fore-elders, in place-names and local phrases ; memorials also of the early introduction of Christianity into Northumberland ; and finally, of the long period of Border warfare : the remains of the latter are such as best illustrate the character of the times, being those of great strongholds with immensely thick walls and strong positions which enabled them to outlast the stormy times in which they were reared. Specimens abound of fortified buildings, military, ecclesi- astical, and domestic, in castles, peels, and fortified farm-houses. Of ordinary dwellings, remains are not plentiful in the district, and what has been said of Elsdon parish appHes to many parts lying near the Border : — " In Elsdon parish, which extends twenty miles, and contains 74,935 acres, there is not a single house 100 years old, except a peel." 1 The same writer says : — " There are in this county of Northumberland 1 See Turner's '• Domestic Architecture." b X INTRODUCTORY. few if any houses, a3 distinguished from places of defence, earlier than James I." Thus ancient castles, keeps, and a few church towers make up almost all that is left to bridge over the gap made by the devastating fire and sword during the centuries which followed the departure of the Eomans; there are remains of British camps and of Roman stations, but scarcely anything to illustrate the mode of living — apart from fighting — of the Borderers until after the Union. The muse of History must have found the times too hot, and handed over the subject to Caliope, who, in inspiring the minstrels, has given for history — ballads ; and if concerning many a frowning fortress washed by the Tyne we can find no word of history, we must rest content with such shadow}- glimpses of the men and the times as the ballads and lcgendary lore of the country afford. The preceding remarks more directly apply to the two vales of the two great branches of the river; the interest changes after the confluence is passed, but does not abate ; ancient keeps and churches still beautify the banks of Tyne, though after passing the " Metropolis of the North " the river assumes for the remainder of its course an entirely industrial aspect, amid all the smoke of which there is nevertheless a weird picturesqueness ; and in the absence of castles and ancient buildings fancy sees looming through the mist " towers and battlements," though they be only chimneys of chemical works, which, in the style and character of their structure, have indeed a considerable resemblance to castles when seen thus. Night, too, has its lurid shows of blast furnaces and coke-ovens, and past all these the river flows to the sea, interesting to the last. The three divisions of the river are about equal in length — from the sea to the confluence thirty-two miles, from the latter to the source of the North Tyne thirty-four miles, and to that of the South Tyne thirty- five miles. This makes the town of Hexham very central. The railway keeps company with the river throughout; the North Eastern line from the sea to Haltwhistle, from whence a branch follows the South Tyne to Alston; while the North British accompanies the North Tyne, and passes its source. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN AND ENGRAVED BY W. J. PALMER. A TRIBUTARY WATER FA LI, Frontispiece Supposed Roman Sculpture of Rivbk Gnu of North Tyne ... 2 North Ttnb Head . 5 Ki elder Caster ........... 12 Driving Sheep into a Stell — Snowstorm 16 W \ l'ER-OUZF.L 17 Junction of Lewis-burn and North Tyne ....... 1'.' Lewis-burn ............ 22 Falstone . . . . . . . . . . • . .23 Whickhope-burn ........... 25 Stannersbukn ............ 31 The Smuggler's Leap . 32 Bellingham friim the Bridge ......... 40 Hareshaw Lynn ........... -11 Bellingham Church ........... 43 Bellingham Church, Interiob of ....... . 43 Salmon Speering from Trows 45 Hesleyside 46 Otterburn Cross ........... 47 On the Reed ............ 53 Rob of Risingham 56 Porch of Chipchase Castle ......... 57 Chipchase Castle ........... 50 A Peep from Chipchase Park ......... 62 Haughton Castle 63 Haughton Castle . . . . . . . . . . .65 Cocklaw Tower as it is 66 *Cocklaw Tower as it was 67 Teckitt Lynn . . . . . . . . . . 68 Remains of Roman Buildings ......... 69 Forum at Ciluknum . . . . . . . . . . .71 Chollerford Weir. North Ttne in Flood 77 Roman Bridge, Eastern abutments ........ 80 C Xll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FA'.E H S :u Ttse ng Hf.ai> Garragill .... 85 Fii:st Bridge on South Ttne I. STfisG Heap. Fortified Farmhouse C 3S Fell Clargill Force '.'1 Clargill Force 92 Ashgill F 93 Nebt Force 96 Old Mine Pump '.'7 N . . . 99 Marketplace, Alston 1"7 Kiekttaugh Church RaXDALHOLME 1"'.' iYFORD . . . . . . . . . . . .111 Williams: 114 Lambley Viaduct 115 Knaresdale Church 118 Dnthahk Hall . . . . . . . . . .119 Featherstone Castle 121 Rums of Bellister Castle 1:24 Blenktnsof Castle ........... 125 Blexkinsop Hall ..... ..... l-<> Thielwall Castle 128 Haltwhistle Castle 131 WttLIMONTSWIKB 133 Beltingham Church . . . . . . . . . .135 Lahglet Castle 135 Langlei Castle 187 Hatdon Church Tower 139 Chbsterholm Bridge 14" I 1. ,H 141 Haltwhistle-btjrn 1 1^ B ■•• Stawabd Peel .... 149 rABD Peel (distant view) 150 Oh the Ai.lex 152 Ox Ti 153 Whitfield Church 154 A Keel of the old ttpi 156 157 The Meeting of the Water- ......... 159 -. Mill-dam 162 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Mil Staircase to Moot II ill, Hi :xb \m Poech OF l>i Ki 's Boi Hexham ..... St. John Lee .... Arcad] of Cloister, Ei sham Abbey The A.bbi s Chi ech, Hexham . THE Ai:i;n (i ur. Hi IXHAM [nterior of Hexham Abbe? Church FrITHSTOL .... Stone Staircase in Hexham Abbet Chi rc Qi i en's Cave .... Dilston Tower Dilston Castle Earl's Apple Tree, Dilston . Swallowship .... * Beaufront Castle Countess' Camp Corbridge Peel Atdon Castle Corbridge Market-Place The Bridge, Corbridge . External Staircase, Aydon Castle By-well Cross .... Bywell Castle Bywell Churches . Minster Acres Oriel Window, Prudhoe Prudhoe Castle Cherryburn .... Ovingham .... Bewick's Grave Ryton Cross .... Road to Ryton New burn . . ... George Stephenson's Birthplai Fountain at Benwell Denton Hall .... Dr. Johnson's Walk, Denton . Ebchester Church . Mill-dam at Swalwell . The Sneep .... Scotswood Suspension-Bridge Pink Tower, Newcastle . 163 L64 1 1 15 L68 17" 171 173 17.". 177 L79 L80 isl Is.'i L85 L86 L87 L90 191 L93 195 196 L98 199 200 2i >:, 21)7 208 209 21 I 215 219 22 , | 221 224 228 229 232 233 234 241 246 248 XIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The Keep. Newcastle St. Nicholas' Tower * Newcastle from the River . High Level Bridge Old H 3es j N K • *Foed Pottery THE OLD WaLL-EXD Colltbbt . Coal Staith .... * Shtp-Tard .... * Blast Fut.xaces at Xight Ballast-Hell *Chem: The Leafy Month of Juxe — A Summeb Sketch *Ttne I' ... *Palmee*s Wobes, J arrow Timber Sheds, Ttnb Docks Bede's Chair .... J arrow Church ahd Reins oi Mohasteby Jabbow Stocks ix Jareow Churchyard cch Herruxg Boat * "Jemmt Joxesox's Wherry" *x0eth shields *TUG BRIXGIXG IX HeBRING-B South Shields Mabsdeh Rock Lighthouse axd Rnxs. Tyxemouth Mouth of the Ttxt Priory Rurx- ... * Black Middexs Tyxemouth Lighthouse . Sm; - i . C Tug with Ballast-Hopi N Lower T s - pa«;k 251 253 - ■2-". 7 259 260 263 264 . 266 268 _ 270 •J 71 •J 7-2 •273 275 277 270 281 _- 284 285 2-7 290 2ol _ 294 2 " 298 2vo 302 304 A knowledgnieuts are due to the following gentlemen for sketches used in the illustration of the book, as follows : — To Mr. J. P > for sketch of Cbaghough „ „ C. J. Dcbhah Cii.ukxum. „ ,, 3 • „ „ ,. Old Wallsend Pit. „„ Mason Jacksok G B >■■ lck. .. W. H. O .. drawing subjects marked on the above list with an asterisk. ERRATA. Pa ,e si. « List of Illustrations," line nineteen, for *» «* Smmo . Page xiv. Line six from below, for Cr.ghough read Crag Lough. Passim, for Lynn read Linn. Swallwell read Swalwell. NORTH TYNE. RIVER GOD OF NORTH TTNE. " Here * * * * thou mayst perceive The local deity with oozy hair Aud mineral crown beside his jagged urn Recumbent. Him thou mayst behold, who hides His lineaments by day. yet then- presides, Teaching the docile waters how to turn : Or, if need be, impediment t<> spurn, Aud force their passage to the alt Bea tides." Wordsworth. CHAPTER I. NORTH TYNB HEAD. Ii; T. DICK LAUDER'S " Rivers of Scot- land,'' which contains a chapter on " The Tyne," was, by a well-meaning friend, sug- gested to the writer when he began to ar- range notes to accompany his sketches. Lauder's Tyne, however, is that which enters the sea near Tantallan Castle, on the coast of Haddingtonshire. The misleading refe- rence raises a smile when we imagine the resentment of an old-fashioned English Bor- derer on hearing "Canny Tyne" classed amongst Scotch rivers. Nevertheless, our English Tyne has, so to speak, Scotch water in its veins, as its most northerly springs are in Roxburghshire, over the Border. Over the Border ! there is still an exhilarating ring in the words. The last remains of the last of the castles and forts which marked the boundary line are crumbling away, and nearly three centuries of Union have elapsed, yet our interest in the Northern Marches remains unabated. Before starting in quest of the source of North Tyne, one glance at the map will suffice to show the Tweed, the Cheviots, and the Liddel as chiefly forming the boundary. And one line of history will serve to remind, that the Tweed first became the boundary between 4 NORTH TYKE HEAD. Northumberland and Scotland after the battle of Carham, in 1018, when the English sustained a defeat ; and that Cumberland was not finally annexed to England, and the present boundary fixed, until 1237, after a defeat of the Scotch. The most westerly spur of the Cheviot range is Peel Fell, " at the foot of which," says Hodgson, " North Tyne has its source, and runs in a most sluggish manner along a level plain, from which circumstance it is called the Deadwater, until it joins Bell Burn." The natives, however, contest the statement, and the Ordnance Survey bears them out, in placing the source a little farther north than the Deadwater, which they thus make its first tributary. Well-informed inhabitants of the district point out a spot as that of the true rise, within the enclosure of the Xorth British Railway Company between the stations of Saughtree in Scotland, and Kielder in England. It is about two miles north of the latter, near some old stone-cutting sheds connected with a quarry seen on the Fell side, and some yards beyond a sulphur well which here marks the Border, and from which, it being in Scotland, one may help one's self to a draught without leaving England ; so say the "Dalesmen" here. In passing, Chalmers' observation on this spring may be quoted, that " it is much frequented by persons suffering from scrofulous complaints, and only wants proper accommodation to make it a place of greater resort." Old inhabitants speak to having seen many years since round the spot, a cluster of wooden houses for bathing, &c., but these have disappeared long since. Leaving the well behind, the explorer may be sure of his mark when he sees two streams close together — one flowing northwards, which is called the Liddel, the other being the Tyne. Here, then, the same marsh gives birth to two border rivers, brother streams cradled together, but divided henceforth, as were the men of their respective dales for so many centuries ; Liddesdale men against Tynedale men, in many a bloody fray — rivalry, which happily is now only represented in the occasional and harmless contests of athletic sports. The rise of North Tyne can scarcely be called romantic in its immediate surroundings, unless the railway itself may be said to acquire poetry, from the fact that it follows the route formerly taken by the Liddesdale men in their raids upon the Fenwicks of Tyne. For some little distance the river is insignificant in size. A silver thread in a i ^ a ; Alii ijiuiiiiniirti NORTH TYNE HEAD. 7 channel of peat as Mack as night, one might describe it, whilst another would see only a boggy ditch. But sluggish as I lie liordcr Tyne is in its early flow, it does credit to the wild features of its birthplace, receiving soon after its start the tribute of burns superior in size and volume; these come racing down from the fells on either side of the valley to join the river, after a career by hill and dale, and craggy preci- pice, with endless tumblings among mossy stones and boulders. Bach of these tributaries is worth a lingering visit, and many of them are made interesting by history and tradition. The scenery of North Tyne, its far- stretching moors, with drooping skies, drear morass, solitary trees, and lonely houses, has still so much of the primitive, as to make it easy to recall the days of Border story. But beyond every other feature in the landscape, the rivers and burns seem resonant with the romance of the hills that give them birth, and incline one to the bard's invitation, >< # * * * j e j. ug umfoj] This water's pleasant tunc With some old Border song." — Wordsworth. They seem to move to the wild measure of the old minstrels' airs, and with the very rhythm of the ballads themselves, as bounding from moor- land spring they come with gallop and swirl till some big rocks give sudden check, when follows the strife of waters, and all its mingled sounds, with eddyings and murmurings, until by-and-bye there is subsi- dence into the death-like stillness of deep pools, ere they finally lose themselves in the river. After seeing a few of those burns, the visitor will not be surprised at the affectionate interest with which the people regard their native streams, cherishing still in their memories the history or legends attached to them. Near the source of North Tyne some remains may still be seen of the Cat-rail, an ancient work composed of a ditch with a rampart on either side, extending from Galashiels to Peel Fell. There seems some uncer- tainty as to its having been raised by Britons, Picts, or Saxons ; but as Professor Veitch says,' "It is more likely to have been raised by the 1 •■ Poetry of the Scotch Border," p. its. s NORTH TYNE HEAD. Britons dwelling in the plain against the Piets, dwellers on the hills, than vice versa." Dawstane Rigg, on the line of the Cat-rail, and near Peel Fell, was the scene of an important battle, where Aidan, King of Scots, was, with the Britons of Strathclyde, defeated by the Saxons. Peel Fell belongs to the seldom-visited Cheviot range, the general knowledge of which does not extend much beyond that obtained at school, with per- haps a faint remembrance of its outline as hazily seen in the far distance of some favourite view in the northern counties, but no nearer view than that which the Danish sailors had, to whom, as Gray's " Chirographia " informs us, the Cheviots afforded the first sight of land when they visited our shores. From the summit of Peel Fell an extensive prospect in- cludes the line of the Roman Wall to its end at Bowness, and part of it in its eastern direction over Wall Fell ; it shows, too, the course of our river, with Cross Fell in the distance, whence South Tyne comes to meet and join the stream whose small beginnings we have seen at Peel Fell's base. Peel Fell is the highest hill on Xorth Tyne, being 1975 feet above the sea, and is said to be more craggy than most of the Cheviot range, but affords good pasturage, especially suited to the Cheviot breed of sheep peculiar to the district. This sketch would be incomplete without some reference to these prominent natives, which are to be seen dotted over the hills, giving life and brightness to the sombre moorland. The Cheviot breed is the principal one pastured on the farms of Upper North Tynedale. This distinct race of sheep dates from time imme- morial. They are without horns, their faces and legs are white; their wool is short, and, though not of the finest, is used for some kinds of cloth; they are of quiet habits, and, it is said, "possess all the inde- pendence of the mountain race, without the indocility which distinguishes some other races." They feed more on the grass, less on the shoots of heath, than the black-faced breed, and hence they are adapted to the country of Xorth Tyne. where there is a large range of varied pastor There is much to interest in the Cheviot sheep: they arc not so soon scared as others, even the young ones will calmly contemplate a stranger on the moors and let him come quite close to them without moving; they have a sharp look that seems common to all ranks of creatures in these regions. NORTH I'VNK HEAD. \) A noticeable habit of the .sheep in this dale, is that of moving upwards to tho Fell tops towards sunset, where they remain for the aight. Is it the sun's rays that they covet, and so move upwards to secure the last and the earliest F Oris the heather coach of the summit a luxury wanting 1 in the valley, which has, however, sweeter grass ? Or does instinct warn them that hill tops are safest in storms and freest from damp ? This habit of tho sheep may be common to all districts, but we have not noticed it elsewhere, and think it peculiar to this. The precarious life of sheep during the period of Border raids, suggests the possibility that tho present race may have inherited the practice from their ancestors, who may have been regularly driven up the hills at night for protection ; and it will be remembered that we are now in one of those vales over which tho eye of the Scotch riever ranged with keen desire, as tho following snatch from an old song tells us: — " There's walth o' kyc i' bonny Braidlees, / There's walth o' youses i' Tine; There's walth o'gear i' Gowanbuni, And they shall a' be thine." Any one visiting this district will be sure to hear of the terrible winter storms to which it is subject, and will make some acquaintance with the shepherds, and gain some knowledge of their hard lives. " Storms," says the Ettrick Shepherd, " constitute the various eras of the pastoral life ; they are the red lines in the shepherd's manual ; the reminders of years and ages past ; the tablets of memory, by which the ages of his children, the times of his ancestoi - s, and the rise and downfall of his families are invariably ascertained." An extreme instance of the storms which visit these districts, given by the same author, is known as the thirteen drifty days, in 1G20, when on the Eskdale Moor out of upwards of 20,000 sheep, only about forty young weddcrs were left, and five old ewes; and the farm of Phaup was without stock or tenant for twenty years. It was after a similar storm, as an old story gives it, that John Scott, a Border farmer, known as " Gouffin Jock," exclaimed " Ochon ! Ochon ! and is that the gate o't ? a black beginning makes a black end." Then, taking down a rusty sword, ho addressed it thus: "Come thou c 10 NORTH TYNE HEAD. awa, ruy auld frien, thou and I mun e'en stock Bourhope-law ance inair." The Border clans, however, needed no such visitation to induce a raid on a neighbour's flocks. A North Tyne tradition tells how the Robsons — of whom we shall find more in the next chapter — once made a foray into Liddesdale, to harry the Grahams, and drove off a flock of their sheep down into North Tyne. Unfortunately, the sheep proved to be scabbed, and communicated the disease to the other sheep of the Robsons. Upon this, the latter made a second raid into Liddesdale, and took seven of the most substantial of the Grahams they could lay hands upon, and hanged them forthwith, with the warning, that the " neist tyme gentle- men cam to tak their schepe, they war no to be scabbit." Good types of the shepherd are met with here; simple, earnest, serious, and strong, as is consistent with the nature of their employment, which brings them face to face with the sublime in nature. Hereditary shepherds, for the most part, they have in their families strange tradi- tions of harder times in contrast with the more peaceful era in which they themselves Hve. Hutchinson's unfavourable remarks about the shepherds of the district have been objected to, but as when he wrote (1776) the Border was still in an unsettled state — the moss-troopers and cattle-lifters having scarcely disappeared from the scene — and since, as John Grey, of Dilston, once said, it was not until after the accession of George III., in 1760, that the king's writ could be said to run through this part of the country, it is not surprising if Hutchinson did not find the hereditary shepherds of these wilds such as we find them a century later. When Macaulay's History appeared, much indignation was raised in North Tynedale by his description of the natives, so coloured, as it evidently is, by his imagina- tion. On this subject we give the following remarks by Dr. Charlton : — " Macaulay's reference for the truth of his assertion is to the journal of Sir Walter Scott's visit to Alnwick in 1827, when he was received by the then Duke of Northumberland, in which is the reference to a conver- sation with His Grace. ' He tells me his people in Kielder were all quite wild the first time his father went up to shoot there. The women had no other dress than a bed-gown and petticoat. The men were savage, and could hardly be brought to rise from the heath, either NORTH TYNE HEAD. H through sullenness or fear. They sang a wild tune, the burden of which was " oivina, orcina, orcina." The females sang, the men danced round, and at a certain part of the tune they drew their dirks, which they always wore.' It is well known Sir Walter Scott loved to improve any story which gave an air of additional romance to his wild Border descrip- tions. The old gipsy king of Yetholm declared he did not recognize Ins own stories when they came back to him from Abbotsford, and we strongly suspect the late worthy owner of Kielder would not have dis- covered his own plain tale of his particular first visit to that place, under the cloak of romance thrown over it by the great novelist. " Sir J. Swinburne writes, in 1856 : — ' I have been landed proprietor at the head of North Tyne for seventy years and more ; my acquaintance commenced some twelve years before. I remember old people who in- habited that country before the rising under Lord Derwentwater (1715) ; but I never witnessed myself, nor ever heard a word from any person, of such customs as Macaulay alludes to. The Borders were as quiet in my earliest youth as they are at the present day." North Tyne shepherds, if they be " silly shepherds " in the Miltonic sense, are not generally so in any other ; they maintain a shrewd reticence as to their masters' affairs. A recent fact was communicated about one of them at Hareshaw Head who had been rather persistently questioned by a visitor in the shooting season about the number of sheep that there were on his master's farm. " How many scores ?" persisted the sportsman. " Well, sir," was the reply, " there be more half scores than scores." It is said that no one knows but the shepherd how many sheep are owned by his master. Kielder Castle is not one of the ancient Border strongholds, but simply a castellated shooting-box belonging to the Dukes of Northumber- land, by one of whom it was built about a century ago. The moors surrounding it abound with grouse, both black and grey, and for the angler there is good sport in the Kielder Burn. On alighting at Kielder Station a glimpse is caught of the tower above some trees, and no other guide is needed. Leaving the wilds, a little vale is entered, delicious with the scent of the pines and meadow-sweet, vocal with the plash of the stony-bedded river, and presently passing on without encountering 1 2 NORTH TYNE HEAD. any disappointing prohibition, one is made aware of the house, which stands on a green knoll near the confluence of two streams, Kielder Burn mingling its larger stream with that of the Tyne, which is still small, three miles from its source. The change of scene is very noticeable here, and the contrast complete, as many trees of various kinds surround the castle, which is sheltered, and suggestive of comfort, shut oft' from the wilderness of moor and bog, its foreground made bright by the sunny haugh and the sparkling bum. Some birds common to semi-Alpine K1ELI1EU CASTLE. districts are found by the North Tyne, and the late Ur. Charlton noted many habitats of species becoming every year rarer in England. The eagle at long intervals has been observed at different points as far as twenty miles down the river. The osprey has been seen in late years fishing in the upper part of the river, but there seems no instance known of the osprey building in the district, though many specimens of the bird have been shot. The same authority mentions the peregrine, which will soon, howerer, be extinct, owing to the unceasing war waged against it by keepers. The kestrel is more fortunate, owing to its preying chiefly NORTH TYNE HEAD. 13 on mice. Both tho long and short-oared owl breed lure Many sea-birds are frequently found on the moors; and the loser black-backed gull, which breeds on a muddy Sat at Ealy-pikes, with the familiar lapwing, make tho valleys resonant, with melancholy notes, which harmonize per- fectly with the landscape, when tho sky is low and the sun is down. The pretty water-ouzel has its habitat in many places oil North Tyne. On speaking of tho bird in the neighbourhood it was found to be better known as the " water craw," by which name it was known to a native ornithologist of the county, who described it in 1544. A tradition of this district gave Leyden subject for his ballad of " The Cout of Kielder," in the " Border Minstrelsy." The epithet " Gout " or " Colt," according to Leyden, had reference to his strength, stature, and activity. The scene of the encounter described in the ballad was the banks of the Hermitage; the time, the reign of King Bruce; the chief personages, the Cout of Kielder and his foe, Lord Soulis of Liddes- dale. Tradition represents the latter as combining prodigious strength with cruelty, avarice, and treachery. In the poem, young Kielder, being near the castle of his adversary on a hunting excursion, was decoyed with his train into the festive hall to partake of refreshment. The treache- rous Lord Soulis in time unmasks himself, and in tho fray which follows, Kielder, who wears charmed armour, takes no hurt, but stumbling in his retreat across the river, his enemies hold him down below the water, and the charm not being waterproof he perished. Tho scene of his death is still pointed out as " The Cout of Kieldcr's pool." The Ettrick Shepherd lays the scene of his pathetic poem, " Sir David Graeme," on North Tyne, some verses of which we quote. The lady awaits in vain the coming of Sir David to take her from her father's tower. •• The dow flew east, the dow flew west, The dow flew far ayont the fell ; An' sair at e'en she seemed distrest, But what perplex'd her could not tell. " But aye she coo'd, wi' mournfu' croon, An ruffled a' her feathers fair ; An lookit Bad as she war liouii' To leave the land for evermair, 1-i NORTH TYKE HEAD. "The lady wept, an' some did blame. — didna blame the bonnie dow, But sair she blamed Sir David Graeme, Because the knight had broke his vow. •• For he had sworn by the stains sae bright An by their bed on the dewy green, To meet her there on St. Lambert's night, Whatever dangers lay between. * * * * •• The day arrived, the evening came. The lady looked wi' wistful ee ; But 0, alas ! her noble Graeme, From e'en to morn she didna '■ An' she has sat her down an' grat. The warld to her like a desert seemed, An' she wyted this, an' she wyted that, But o' the real cause never dreamed. •• The sun had drunk frae Kieldar fell His beverage o' the morning dew : The deer had crouched her iu the dell, The heather ojied its bells o' blue : •• The lady to her window hied, Aii' it open'd o'er the banks o' Tyne : • An' 0, alak ! ' she said an' sighed. ■ Sure ilka breast is blythe but mine '. " • Where hae ye been, my bonnie dow, That I hae fed wi' the bread an' wine ? As roving a" the country through, 0, saw ye this fause knight o' mine ? ' " The dow sat down on the window And she carried a lock o' yellow hair : Then she perched upon that lady's knee, An" carefully she placed it there. ■• ' What can this mi an ? This looks the same That aince was mine. Whate'er betide NOUTII TYNE READ. ] '> This lock F gave to Sir David (Iracmc, 'riio flower of a' the Border side.' " The dow flew east, the dow flew west, Tho dow she flew ayont the fell, An' hack Bhe came wi' panting In-east Bre the ringing o' the castle bell. " She lighted ahiche on the holly-tap, An' she cried, ' cur-dow,' an' fluttered her wing Then flew into that lady's lap, An' there she placed a diamond ring. " ' What can this mean ? This ring is the same That aiuce was mine. Whatc'er betide, This ring I gave to Sir David Graeme, The flower of a' the Border side.' " An' she has sat her down an' grat," &c. " When lo ! Sir David's trusty hound, Wi' humpliug back, au' a waefu' eye, Came cringing in an' lookit around, But his look was hopeless as could be. " He laid his head on that lady's knee, An' he lookit as somebody he would name ; An' there was a language in his howe e'e That was stronger than a tongue could frame. " She followed the hound owre inuirs an' rocks, Through mony a dell an' dowie glen, Till frae her brow an' bounie goud locks, The dewe dreepit down like the drops o' rain. " An' aye she eyed the gray sloth hound, As he windit owre Deadwater fell, Till ho came to the den wi' the moss inbound, An' O, but it kythed a louesomo dell ! 16 NORTH TYXE HEAD. •■ An' he waggit his tail, an' he fawned about. Then he cowied him down sae wearilye, • Ah ! you's my love, I hae found him out. He's lying waiting in the dell for me.' 3ae softly she trends the wee green swaird, WI' tlie lichens an' the liny a' fringed around, • My eeu are darkened wi' some west-weird, What ails my love, he sleeps sae sound? ' " She gae ae look, she needit but ane, For it left nae sweet uncertainty : She saw a wound through his shoulder bane. An' in his brave breast two or three. " There's a cloud that fa's darker than the night, An' darkly on that lady it came ; There's a sleep as deep as the sleep outright, Tis without a feelins or a name." • JHilWNG SILEEP INTO A STELL. SNOWSTORM, CHAPTER II. HOPES, BURNS, AND HAUGHS.— FALSTONE AND THE MOORS. ||MONGST Border terms, those at the head of this chapter are familiar, and as our way lies amidst scenery which abounds in hopes, burns, and hauglis, we may refer to the deri- vation of the words before examining the features in the landscape for which they stand. Hope and haugh, with fell aud force, arc 5 old Norse; indeed Woraaae tells us that t exactly similar words are in use in Norway to-day. When the Norwegians visited Britain they generally settled in those parts of the country that were hilly like their own, and they called our hills, fells ; our waterfalls, fors or fosses ; and the flat pastures among the hills and by the river, haughs. " The word hope, among Norsemen," says Mr. Carr, " was generally applied to the mouths of rivers, and to havens into which rivers discharge themselves. On Tyneside, hopes are side-vales, having generally an outlet in the larger valley of the river. Most of the hopes are watered by burns, which have much to do with their conformation." Mr. Carr points out that "hopes" give their names to the burns, and so diifer from the larger valleys, which have theirs from the rivers which flow through them ; thus we have Thornhope-burn, and Harthope-burn, not Thornburn- D L8 hope, &C. The names of some of them are interesting, such as Hind- hope, Hart-hope, Row-hope, and Hare-hope, which point to their having been the secluded haunts of these animals. Burn — pure Saxon — the Border word for a brook, is applied to nearly all the tributaries of the Tyne ; the term brook, by which we designate small flat country streams, would seem misapplied in reference to these of mountain birth. As Thames and Tyne differ, so do their tributaries. Thames head is about 170 miles from London Bridge ; the river is at the latter place about 370 feet lower than at its source. Tyne — South Tyne Head — is from thirty-five to forty miles from Hexham, and the difference of elevation between the two points is from 1,700 to 1,800 feet, the Tyne having a fall more than four times greater over a distance four times less. The Thames and its brooks flow over tolerably even beds, whilst the Upper Tyne and its burns, meet with many rocks and impediments in their course. Julia, in a passage expressing the force of her passion for Sir Proteus, describes the burn and the brook side by side. •• The- more thou damm'st it up, the more it burns ; The current, thai with gentle murmur glides. Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth ra But, when his fair course is not hindered, He makes sweet music with the enamell'd stones, Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge He overtaketh iu his pilgrimage; And so by many winding nooks he stray-. With willing sport, to the wild ocean." ' And Robert Burns tells a secret when he sings — " The muse, nae poel ever land her Till l>y himsel he learned to wander Adown some trotting burns meander And na' hunk lamg." There is seldom anything about the spot where they enter the river, suggestive to a stranger of the nature of these beautiful streams, which 1 "Two (.icntlemcn of Verona," act ii. scene 7 1ALST0NE AND THE Moults. 2] only exhibit their charms to those who will take the trouble to follow them into their deep sequestered vales. As the stranger travels over high ground through North Tynedale, he observes in the dips between the fells, and filling in the lines of the ravines, sometimes a plantation of dark pines, more often woods of primi- tive oak, ash, and alder; these tell us that a burn Sows there, and it' it be within ear-shot-, something of the musie of the burn may lie caught on the breeze ; and when, thus invited, a stranger allows himself to be enticed, beauty unthought of, meets his eye in theso fairy glens. The fairies have ceased to visit them, but they are still the habitats of rare birds and plants. Geologists find fossils in their rocky banks, the sports- man the otter, whilst the fortunate fisher fills his creel. The border word haugh, Mr. Brockett traces from the Icelandic hagi, flat ground by a river, but this description falls short of the value these meadows have in the landscape. The haughs are the bright spots in these grey northern vales, where they are found fenced oft' from the fell land, full of freshness derived from neighbouring burn or river, and for the most part alluvium. Resuming now our Tyneside course, leaving Kielder behind, and crossing the river by the bridge, Bewshaugh farm is passed, and on the opposite side of the river is the farm musically named, after the stream which flows by it, the Gowan-burn of the old song quoted in the last chapter. Lewis-burn bridge is about two miles below Kielder; the stream has a greater breadth, force, and volume than has yet been attained by North Tyne itself. The confluence is shown in the sketch as it appeared from a point one mile further down ; both streams are shallow where they meet in the flats of a wild valley, the burn working a sort of delta in the haugh in joining the river. Shallow as it is at this point, a short way up it runs broad and deep, with its still water darkened the more by an overshadowing pine wood ; a few yards further, and it makes a passage like that shown in the sketch. Going on we find the fells stony and barren, closing in upon the stream with high precipitous cliffs at one side, and the further the stream is followed, the wilder it becomes. Lishope-burn, one of its feeders, flows through a district famous as 22 HOPES. BURXS. AND HAUi.H-. having been a great stronghold of Border thieves in the sixteenth century. " a marvellous strong place of woods and waters.'' This Lewis-burn is a favourite one with anglers, and the otter haunts its banks. From Lewis-burn mouth across the wide valley looking south-east, Plashetts is seen ; to reach it the river is crossed by an unusual kind of suspension-bridge, the suspenders passing under the footway in-tead of above it. The vale is very pleasing here, and the river-side walking delightful. Plashetts-burn is worth exploring, with its lynn at Wane- hope. YVanehope, with Kielder, Tarset, and Emithope belonged in the I EWIS-BUKK. time of Edward I. to the estate of John Comyns, the competitor for the crown of Scotland, who was assassinated by Robert Bruce in the cloister of Grey Friars, Dumfries, in 1360. And about here can be traced, it is said, the limits of Kennel Park, an ancient hunting ground of the earlier feudal barons, " and there is," says Dr. Charlton, " a tradition >till current that the ruined east wall of the park was the last spot that harboured a wild red deer in this district." The colliery at Plashetts has no detractive effect on the scenery: it lies hidden away among the hills, and is approached by a railway incline FALSTONE AM) THE MOORS. 23 connected with the " North British." The pit village attached is like no other that the writer has ever seen. Its position is most secluded among the hills that d'rA the Belling burn ; the rows of houses are not so formal as usual, and the effect of the nice long gardens attached to many of them, most of which were well stocked and tended, was very striking amid sterile surroundings. Conversing with one of the in- habitants at work in his garden, the writer had confirmed, a statement which had been made to him at Kalstone, that prior to the construction of the railway, coals were carried from Plashetts aei'oss the Border by ponies, one man having charge of a score of them, more or less, the coals being carried iu "pokes;" they made their way over the tops of the fells, passing the night on the moor, and foraging as they went, on the land where they happened to be, "Cheerful Ned" was a well- remembered character in Falstone, who had been driver of such a team. It must have been a picturesque sight from the top of Black Belling to watch them trailing over the fell. Mr. Lebour says of Plashetts : " Here one of the oldest (geologically) seams of coal in the carboniferous rocks is being worked ; this coal is the thickest known in the limestone series." The road which was diverged from to see Plashetts leaves the river for a space, and passes through a noble pine wood at the back of Mouuces, a shooting-box of the Swinburnos. On the side of tho wood exposed to 24 HOPES, BURNS, AND HAUGHS. the westerly winds, the number of fine trees which lie as they fell, torn up by the roots, give a definite idea of the force of the gales to which they have succumbed. Mounces past, there is a very pretty bit of North Tynedale about Otterstone Lee. A little further south is Euimet- haugh. Looking now down stream to a spot where anglers are almost always to be found at work during the season, the confluence of Whick- hope burn with Tyne is seen. The greater Whickhope burn flows through a tree-studded valley, resembling that of the Trossachs, with birch and ash, and tree-topped purple rocks, island-like, rising out of the long-grassed and ferny plain, where numerous cattle graze. By the side of the burn, the stratified face of a small abandoned slate quarry is curiously stained by the iron in the water which drains through it from the moors. All the burns are strongly impregnated, and the thirsty soul has to try other sources. There is a well-known spring near the entrance of the Whickhope Valley, of a most refreshing character. A solitary house — a shooting- box belonging to the Duke of Northumberland — is seen higher up the valley, and that passed, a farm comes into view, backed by high fells, tV. im the summit of which may be seen the vale of the Annan, and large tracts of moorland, with some of the most extensive sheep-farms in the county. At the top of the fell, by the shooting-box, a good view i- obtained of the Lynn, which is on the lesser Whickhope burn, a tributary of the greater. Between Whickhope aud Falstone the road passes over hill and dale, and the most pleasing sort of moorland is seen from the high ground, looking across the Vale of Tyne, where lie the haughs, so characteristic of Northumberland. From the road, midway between Whickhope and Falstone, Emmet-haugh was seen by the writer, with an additional joy about it : it was " # * * Lammastide, When the muir men make their hay." It was too far down in the valley to see clearly the haymakers or their implements, but not too far to mark progiv.-s, which was seen in the changing colour of the haugh under the scythes of the mowers, pale green taking the place of red, as the dock and field-flowers fell with the FALSTONE AND TIIK MOORS. 25 grass ; and in no place do the meadows sliow a more brilliant and varied display of wild flowers than are present in the haughs of North Tyne. Head-quarters at Falstone must next lie described. The place is a small rustic centre of few houses irregularly clustered about iis two churches, English and Presbyterian — the Scotch church on the north side of the village, the Hnglish on the south, their lowers facing each other, between thein a road coming up from the river, which it crosses by a strong stone bridge of three arches. The sketch given was taken WHICKHOFE-BHRN. from the rif tho ancient flora, which have held their ground hero through unbroken generations until now ; but the men and women who once animated the scene, where are their descendants ? Vanished, the last of them, out of this district centuries since, before the conquering foreigner. Something of the veritable background of an ancient picture we have before us, but for the figures, wo must have recourse to imagination. Wordsworth, it has been said, was the first to give poetic expression to tho thought which associates with a modern landscape those who in a former age had been witnesses of the same scene. Many of his poems express it, but none more exquisitely than the well-known stanza com- mencing — " Hail, Twilight ! sovereign of one peaceful hour Thus did the waters gleam, the mountains lower To the rude Briton, when, in wolf-skin vest Here roving wild, he laid him down to rest On the bare rock, or through a leafy bower Looked ere his eyes were closed. By him was seen The self-same vision which we now behold, At thy meek bidding, shadowy power brought forth j These mighty barriers and the gulf between ; The floods, — the stars, — a spectacle as old As the beginnings of the heavens and earth ! " In another vein we are more impressed with the signs of change which lie on tho surface of the earth and beneath it. The ancient Briton knew a forest-covered land of which there remain but scattered hints. " Those mighty forests, once the bison's screen, Where stalked the huge deer to his shaggy lair Through paths and alleys roofed with sombre green, Thousands of years before the silent air Was pierced by whizzing shaft of hunter kern." 34 FROM FALSTONE TO BELLIXGHAM. Our maps contain traditions of such, in retaining the word forest for large districts now perfectly treeless ; and when the old peat-bogs among . the fells are explored they are found to hold the relics of many such ; wide-spread remains are there of birch, oak, and alder, — the trees named in Prof. Rolleston's sketch above, — also there are found the fossilled remains of fauna and flora now extinct in the district. About a mile north-west of Falstone is an ancient peat-moss, visited by the writer, and probably that referred to by Hodgson. From accounts given to the latter by natives, it would appear that twenty years before his visit, the tree stems and stumps standing out of the bog must have been considerable, as the people were in the habit of resorting to it for wood to be used in various ways ; the final use to which these venerable relics were applied is said to have been in the making of brimstone matches during the last days of the tinder-bos. Air. Lebour referring to this subject and locality says: " The largest and thickest stems known to me are to be seen in great numbers in the thick moorland capping the fells immediately to the south of Shillingburn- hauo-h in the fork between Whickkope-burn and the North Tvne Rii In connection with the history of the peat-mosses, Dr. James Geike tells us of the great Ice Age, when the summit of the Cheviot range formed the parting of the glaciers flowing to the north and the south ; he tells us of alternating periods when Britain was covered with ice, and of inhabitants in interglacial times, and of the landscape they beheld ; he speaks of the age succeeding the last glacial epoch, when great forests covered the land, that in its turn being followed by one too humid for their continuance, which dying down, the close thick cover of peat-moss sprang up, which still covers so large a part of the beautiful county of Northumberland. Now he tells us another change is iu progress. " The rate of increase of peat-moss is much exceeded by its decay, and there is good reason to believe that the eventual disappearance of the peat that clothes our hill tops and valley bottoms is only a question of time." The initial to this chapter gives a sketch of Smales-burn, near Fal- stone, to which tradition has linked a story of smuggling times. 1 See articles ou " The Cheviots " in •• Good Words," for 1876. FROM FALSTONE TO BELLINI ; II A M. .",.'. A mile from its mouth the burn passes between precipitous rocks, sufficiently close for an exceptionally agile man to leap from one ride to (lie other, but Hie risk of an ugly fall of thirty feci or so had hitherto deterred the prudent from the attempt. Love of dear life, or libert \ , tradition says, nerved a man to take the leap in smuggling days, when hard pressed by the officers, and he thus earned his escape, as his pur- suers lost time by a more circuitous route. The scene of this adventure is now called " Sinalcs' Leap," or the " Smuggler's Leap." Apart from the story, it is a strangely wild bit. Smuggling, as is well known, was ripe i'ii the Herder for a long period, the habit arising out of the differen- tial duty levied on whiskey. And many are the talcs of the ingenuity displayed by those engaged, in evading the vigilance of the exciseman. A company of mourners following a rude country hearse would be pur- veying in the latter a cargo of spirit, instead of the more material part. The ponies employed in taking coals over the Border would return laden with kegs of whiskey, the latter freight bringing a larger profit than the former. The descendants of rievers would make hardy smugglers, and doubtless their method of gaining a livelihood, like that of their an- cestors, was regarded with a lenient eye by themselves as well as some others, and when change of legislation took away their living, many would be as ready to press claims for compensation as the blacksmith parsons when the Gretna Green marriages were done away with a few years since. Hitherto this chapter has treated only of the country around Falstone, or to the north of it. We now proceed down stream, and soon, Grey stead Church comes in sight. It is sufficiently elevated to make it visible from many points in the road — church, river, and trees composing well in many a pretty view. The square-towered church resembles that of Falstone. The parishes of Greystead and Falstone formed originally, part of Simon-burn parish, which, until it was subdivided was the largest parish in Northumberland. The livings remain in the gift of Greenwich Hos- pital^ and have generally been bestowed on navy chaplains. One of the most interesting features of the village of Greystead is its school-house ; it is come upon unexpectedly by the wayside. A babbling burn runs 36 FROM FALSTONE TO BELLINGHAM. by one end of it, across which a simple plank bridge conducts to a moor- land track. So unassuming is the aspect of the low building that no thought of a school would cross the mind, if there were not heard, above the music of the burn, the unmistakable utterances of scholars in class. The road passes so close to the building that a passing glimpse shows how many are gathered within, and that the School Board insist on more space being provided here creates no surprise. It is a pleasure bo hear only expressions of esteem for the accomplished Dominie who has devoted himself to the mental training of the boys and girls of this district. The track spoken of above leads over the moor to Dally Castle Mill. The Ordnance map marks the spot as Dally Castle, but there is now much more mill than castle, for of the latter only a few stones remain, incorporated with the former. About a mile below Grcystead there is a fine wide stretch of country, where three valleys and their streams are united. Tarset-burn on the left, and Chirdon-burn on the rierht. comins: into the Tyne nearly opposite to each other; the burns are considerable, and their vales are wide. Tarset-burn flows under a railway bridge of three arches just before the confluence, near which formerly stood the castle, named after the burn. Dally Castle is similarly situated on the Chirdon-burn. When the writer visited the site of Tarset Castle he found it garrisoned by three ancient cows, peacefully chewing the cud in the midst of a severe storm. Grass covers the whole of the eminence, ami even the few stones which have been allowed to remain; the lines of the walls may still be made out, and also the moat. When Mackenzie visited it he found the walls partly standing, " of about four feet thick, and of the finest ashler work," "being almost surrounded by a moat tin yards wide." A native of the district, whom the writer met, was exercised as to how the water had been conveyed to the moat, pointing out that though there were the remains of three dams which appear to have conducted water from the hills, only one would have flowed naturally into the moat. Possibly Tarset Hall may have had it- Esh-ponds. Very little is known of the history of this stronghold. In 1526 it appears to have been garrisoned by Sir Ralph Fenwick, who had gone thither, seeking t" apprehend one William Ridley, an out- FROM 1 A I. STUNT, TO BELLINOIIAM. 37 law, as Dr. Charlton says, "probably one of the Ridleys of South Tyne, concerned in the murder of Nicholas Featherstonehaugh." The men of Tynedale, espousing the cause of Ridley, attacked Sir Ralph under Charlton of liellingham, ami ii is believed thai on this occasion Tarset Castle was burnt down. It was never rebuilt. Of Dally Castle scarcely more remains than of Tarset. Eistory may be silent about them, but around their ancient walls there grew up fanciful stories in which the two were associated; it was believed that a subterranean way connected them, passing under the bed of the river; their sites were long regarded as haunted spots, and old people used to say that chariots and horsemen had been seen driving through the air between one building and tho other at the charmed hour of midnight. From high ground on Hareshaw Common a distant view takes in the sites of these two castles, and at Hareshaw Head there formerly stood Gibb's Cross, one of the numerous small stone crosses which were at one time common in these secluded districts. A popular legend counected the castles with the cross. The gaunt lords of Tarset and Dally loom giant-like through the mists of story. It would appear that whilst no love was lost between these neighbours themselves, a secret attachment was formed by Gilbert of Tarset for the sister of his rival of Dally ; their clandestine intercourse was detected at last, and in the fight which ensued, Gilbert suffered defeat, crossed the Tyne, and made for tho wilds of Hareshaw, where his enemy overtook him, and Gibb's Cross is said to mark the spot where Gilbert fell, mortally wounded. About three miles up Tarset-burn, the Black-burn falls into it; the lynn of this burn is said to be one of the highest in the vicinity, falling over high precipitous crags. An excursion to the spot should include a visit to the two Border Peels, which are there close at hand, and may be reached by following up the burn from the railway station, or from Falstone over the moors past Highfield. There is a story still current in North Tynedale with which the Tarset peels are closely connected ; it belongs to the latter end of the seventeenth century, when one of the Milburn clan known as "Barty of the Comb" occupied the peel at the Coomb in Tarset. Barty was a skilful swords- man, and possessed of great strength, and needed it in holding his own 38 t FROM FALSTOSTE TO BELLINGHAM. against the not infrequent visits of Scotch rievers ; and Corbit Jack, whose peel stood a little higher up the burn, was his faithful ally in many a return raid across the neighbouring Border. Here is the story as the late Dr. Charlton used to tell it : — " One morning, when Barty arose, his sheep were all missing ; they had been driven off by Scottish thieves during the night. He im- mediately summoned Corbit Jack, and arming themselves, they followed the track of the sheep over the hill, down the Blakehope-burn into Reed- water, and thence across the border north of the farter, into Scotland; here they lost the trace, and they seem to have been unprovided with a ' sleuth-hound ' to track the thieves. Barty, however, insisted that they should not return empty-handed, and, after a short council, they decided that the Leatham wethers were the best, and accordingly they drove off a goodly selection of these and commenced their retreat. The loss was soon perceived by the Scottish men, who immediately despatched two of their best swordsmen to recover the booty. They overtook Barty and Corbit Jack at Chattlehope Spout, and insisted that the wethers should be given up. Barty was willing to return half the flock, but he would not go back ' toom-handed ' to the Comb. The two Scots being picked men would not hear of a compromise, and the fight began directly, in the long heather above the waterfall. Barty called out, 'Let the better man turn to me ! ' and the Scot, after a few passes, ran his broadsword into Barty's thigh. He of the Comb jumped round, and wrenched the sword, so that it broke, and at the same moment he was attacked from behind by the other Scot, who had already slain his comrade, Corbit Jack ; Barty made one tremendous back-handed blow, caught the second Scot in the neck, and, as ho expressed it, ' garred his heid spang alang the heather like an inion.' His first assailant tried to make off, but was cut down ere he had run many yards. Barty took both the swords, lifted his dead companion on to his back, and, in spite of his own wound, drove the slice]) safely over the height down to the Comb, and deposited Corbit Jack's body at his own door." Muckle Jock of Bellingham, who claimed to be a descendant of Uartv of the CVmb, is still remembered by some of the oldest inhabi- tants; lie used to boasi of more than once having cleared Bellingham FROM FALSTONE TO BELLINGIIAM. 39 Pair with the Tarset and Tarret-bura men at liis back, t<> the old Border cry of "Tarset ami Tarret-burn, I [ard and Leather lircd, *i et — yet — yet." Mr. M. A. Denham, in his " Slogans of the North of England " gives ;i variorum reading of the above: — •■ Up wi' Tarset and Tarret-burn, And down wi 7 the Reed and the Tyne ; " a cry which down to recent times has been often the occasion of broken heads, as the lads of the insulted Tyne and Reed cannot possibly hear their native streams and dales depreciated by those who dwell on the borders of such insignificant streams as the Tarset and Tarret. 1 Chirdon-burn boasts a rare sight in the savage gorge of the Seven Lynns, where the nest of tho kestrel, it is said, may still be found. Hareshaw Lynn is the most beautiful of any waterfall connected with the Tyne, and if Hareshaw Head be reached by way of the vale of Tarset, tho burn may then be traced over one of the choicest bits of Nature's undisturbed domain, — Hareshaw Common, — long famed for the grouse which abound upon it. The Lynn, however, is the " lion " of Bclling- ham, and is best approached from that town, which has a station on the railway next to Tarset. The road to Bellingham on the other side of tho Tyne is a good one, and about two miles from Tarset passes through the beautiful park of Hesleyside and by tho ancient home of the Chaiitons, one of the oldest families of North Tynedale. The old tower of Hesley- side, which was pulled down at the end of the last century, was that re- ported by Sir R. Bowes as in 1542 the only one in the country of Tynedale, a district which did not extend lower than the junction of the Tyne with the Reed just below Bellingham. Tho modern house stands but slightly above the level of the river, but is conspicuous for a long distance down stream, backed as it is by dense towering woods which extend over many acres. We have here the first sight of thickly- 1 Tarrot burn is a tributary of tho Reed, as Tarset is of tho Tyne. 40 FROM FALSTONE TO BELLINGHAM. timbered land, and signs of cultivation are more abundant at every turn of the stream. Tramping one day from Greystead to Bellingham, the writer overtook a weary trio of women, the oldest one leading a horse and cart. Just then an ugly turn in the river came into view, swollen and wild after a day's rain, and the road had there the appearance of leading down to the river. The old woman turned to inquire if they were right for Belling- ham, and on being reassured, expressed a reasonable satisfaction on finding that they would not have to go through " that water." There is UELLIXGIIAM, FBOM THE BRIDGE. something simple and pretty in this Border use of the word " water " for a stream ; in Cumberland, lakes are so called ; on the Border, rivers. The expression recalls many an old song ; and in this way, on the above occasion, — the wayfarers left behind, there came to mind a verse from " The Water o' Tyne : "— •• I caunot get to my love, it" I would dee, The water of Tyne runs betweeu him and me, And here I must stand with the tear in my e'e, Both sighing and sickly, ury sweetheart to see. ■■ ( ), where is the boatmau my bouny honey ? O where is the boatmau ? bring him to me, To ferry me over the Tyne to my honey, And I will remember the boatmau aud thee." The three wayfarers were doubtless of the tribe of Tinker- or "Potters;" the latter, vendors, not makers, wandering descendants of KKO.M !•' VI.STuNE TO ISICI.Ll M , II A M. 41 the former inhabitants of the North Tyne, Coquet, and Reed valleys, many of whom had squatted down about Bellingham, in times past giving some troublo to the authorities. Two miles below Ilcslcysidi: i> the small market-town of Bellingham ; its general aspect is only moderately busy, but since the middle of the sixteenth century it has been known as providing a market for the people of North Tynedale. It has now seven llvl;i.Mli\\ LTNN. annual fairs, the most important being for lambs and wool, the Bellingham wool fair being the largest in the county. There is a miniature Town Hall. A castle once occupied a site which is now grass-covered, near the railway station ; it was held by the family of the BelUnghams, one of whom, Sir Allan, was deputy warden of the .Marches in the reign of Henry VIII. G i'2 FROM FALSTOXE T< i BET.T.INGHAM. The stone bridge is a feature here; there were great rejoicings at its opening in 1835. Many lives had been lost through the want of such a convenience at this part of the river, and a bridge, with most people a favourite object in the landscape, has certainly added a pictorial element here of which the natives are justly proud. Hareshaw Burn enters Xorth Tyne opposite Bellingham : the Lynn is reached by following the course of the burn to where it emerges from a thickly-wooded dene, in the bottom of which it runs. By a wicket- gate the wood is entered, and paths cross and re-cross the burn over rustic bridges. There are about two miles of sylvan track, the stream showing at each turn more activity, small falls being succeeded by larger, until the waterfall is reached. When seen against the sky, as it comes rushing through the passage it has worn for itself, closed in by vertical rocks on either side, the trees meeting overhead, the Lynn has the effect of a torrent streaming though a vast open window. Before it shoots the rock, it< streams intercross in a manner which distinctly characterizes it. The Sandstone Rock, picturesquely broken and iron impregnated, makes a glowing setting for the burn as it falls white to the shelving rock below, from which it presently makes the lower fall. Mr. Le Boer says : " There is no better instance of the power of erosion (possessed by even such a little stream) or of the immensity of time required for the effects of that power to become appreciable, than this deep cleft of Hareshaw Lynn, which the rushing of the water is continually though imperceptibly deepening Abont fourteen years since a fire occurred which destroyed a large part of the village of Bellingham ; the thatched roofs which had prevailed e place to slate, giving a modern appearance to the old place. Some ancient stone buildings are still standing, the most interesting being the church. In the churchyard here, the celebrated physician, Sir John Fife, lies buried, and looking over his tranquil resting-place there is seen a pleasant view, taking in a pretty turn in the river, with its wooded hanks on the opposite side. The curious little church is thus described by Dr. Charlton:^ "Bellingham Church is an ancient structure consisting of a chancel and nave, with a chantry on the south side. The nave is covered l>y a I-'i;<>,\! lAl.sr. ink TO BELLING II AM. i:; remarkable stone root', of which very few examples exisl in England. It is semicircular, and traversed from aide to side by hexagonal ribs of stone, about 2 ft. 10 in. apart. These ribs are covered by heavy "roy <&§&' HI I MM. MAM c IIL'KCII. stone slabs, and the whole is so ponderous a structure that numerous buttresses are required outside to support the roof. The chancel has had a wooden roof, and is without buttresses. The tradition of the country is that the chancel was twice burnt down by the Scots during the Border INTERIOR OF HELLIM JIAM IIURCII. wars, but we find no record of it in the State-papers of that period. The chancel was, however, unroofed and ruinous in 1609. The extremely narrow windows of the nave (they were formerly even narrower than at present) would make the nave available for purposes of defence, as in 44 from falstonf; to bellingham. some of the Cumberland Border churches, where the steeple was appa- rently built with this intent. The doors, which were probably barred with iron, were secured internally by three massive bolts. The chantry chapel on the south side (it is probably the chapel of St. Catherine men- tioned in old records) is likewise stone-roofed, and contains a piscina and a bracket for a statue. The altar of the chantry stood under the east window of the chapel. Within the last few years the floor of the church lias been raised some few feet, to the utter destruction of its internal pro- portions, aud a building — for we can give it no other name — has been erected at the west end. The earth round the church has been raised by repeated interments to a great height.'' As devastators, the Danes have quite as bad a name as the Scots, in the annals of the Border counties, in which the entry " burnt by the Danes " occurs repeatedly. Villages, abbeys, and monasteries bear marks of their visitation : possibly, however, as Worsaae says, his country- men were not more of firebrands than the Saxons (our forefathers), but coming later, their acts were more distinctly handed down ; he would impress upon us that it was the resistance of the Danes that hindered William the Norman from conquering Northumberland and Cumberland, as he had other parts of this country. When Worsaae visited our northern counties in 1846 he met faces exactly resembling those at home, and says : " Had I met these persons in Norway or Denmark, it would never have entered my mind that they were foreigners." The English language has not borrowed many words from the Danes ; neither the place, names, nor the local phraseology of the Tyne districts include many words of Danish origin. >urnames ending with son or sen are extremely common, however, and this termination, says Worsaae, never used by the Saxon, is quite peculiar to the Scandinavian races, " Johnson " being one of the commonest names in Iceland ; notably over the shops and inn doors of Bellino-bam, and other villages in the north of England, are such names found. The Danes settling in flat country, and often near the coast, have "iven us words having reference to the sea, shipping, &c, and here on the North Tyne river there has been a method pursued of salmon killing, FROM FA I.STONE TO BEI.LINGHAM. 45 which, if not itself of Danish origin, vet used bouts and implements with Scandinavian names. In the neighbourhood of Bcllingham, and higher up tlic river where salmon cannot be taken with the net, spearing from a l>oal was formerly a common practice. The boat used was double, united only at stem and stern by a eross-piece. Stephen Oliver the younger, who saw them in use about 1835, writes thus : " In spearing salmon from these ' trows/ as the country people call them, there arc usually two men employed, one to guide them by a pole railed a ' bang,' and the other, armed with a 'leister/ -lands with one SALMON SPEARING FROM " TROWS. leg on each ' trow ' looking down into the water between them ready to strike when a salmon shows himself." Mr. Worsaae tells us that " leister " is from the Danish lyster or Icelandic ljoster, a barbed iron fork on a long pole ; and trow is a Jut- land word for ferry-boat: — two small boats, originally trunks of trees, hollowed out and held together by a cross-pole. He who wishes to pass over, places a foot in each trough or boat, and rows himself forward with an oar or pole. (Was it a Jutland tailor who introduced the word trousers to this country ?) It is said that Edmund Ironsides and Canute the Great rowed over to the Isle of Olney in the Severn in such bi I(i KKHM FALSTOXK TO BELLINGHAM. at the time when they concluded an agreement to divide the country be- tween them. The above method of taking salmon was a favourite one with poachers, of whom at one time Belli ngham housed not a few, who could tell many a racy story of leistering adventure and frequent fray with the watchers ; but coming down to our own times it is pleasant to recur to the honourable testimony to the people of Bellingham and neighbourhood contained in the Report of the Parliamentary Commission on the Employ- ment of Women and Children, 18(37. Among the printed answers to questions put by the Commissioners are the following : " The people value education very much, and many of the children come several miles to school." " A few shepherds in the hills keep a schoolmaster among them ; Tirgil, Horace, and Caesar are not strange to them. 5 ' " Children of agricultural labourers remain at school until fourteen or fifteen years of age." And Mr. Charlton, of Hesleyside, said : " There appears no necessity for enforcing any amount of education." Happy Bellinshuin ! HESLEYSIDE. CHAPTER TV. REEDS WATKH. UST below Bellingham, our river, whilst re- flecting increasing signs of culture on its banks, is beginning to keep a steadier pace, when its waters are disturbed by the entrance of the turbulent Reed, the most important affluent of North Tyne, the springs of which are to be found as far back in the Cheviots as those of the Tyne itself. The Reed receives most of its tributary streams from land lying east of it, and thus aa an auxiliary it raises levies for our river in districts more removed. First among these tributaries are Otterburn, and Elsdon burn, which are within the com- pass of a walk from Reedsmouth station. The way to Otterburn lies through West Woodburn, and on bv Watling Street, the ancient Roman Road, which, passing through Reeds- dale, crosses the Cheviots into Scotland. This road will be seen again at Corbridge, near which it crosses the Roman Wall at right angles, and where it had a bridge over tho Tyne, and then passed southwards, through Ebchester and Choster-le-Street. Keeping to Watling Street, about two miles from Woodburn, Troughend Hall is seen on hijrh ground ' O Do to the left, begirt with dark trees. It formerly belonged to the Reeds, OTTERBURN CROSS. 48 REEDSWATER. and is an ancient place, about which there hangs a tale referred to here- after. Leaving Watling Street by a field path to the east of Troughend, the river is crossed close to where the Otterburn empties itself into the Reed. This burn gives name to the quiet village on its banks, which is sheltered by fine trees, and is on the old Chevy Chase Road, from Newcastle to Edinburgh. It contains a substantial inn, called the Percy Arms. Otter- burn is famous in Border history as the site of the great battle of August 19th, 1388. " Following the rivulet northwards, one comes to a stretch of benty upland that extends from the Fawdoun Hills for two miles west- ward, to a ridge that runs down to the present public road through the vallev of the Reed. On that benty upland did the fight of Otterburn rage through that August nio-ht till morniny. At first the Scots were driven back, suffering severely, but gradually they pressed their antago- nists westward in a line along the valley of the Reed. Fully a mile and a half from where the battle began, the Douglas fell. The spot is marked by what is inappropriately called ' Percy's Cross,' now sur- rounded by a small plantation. But the real spot, and the one originally marked by the cross, was about seventy-three yards north-east of its present site. A recent discovery made at Elsdon Church, about three miles distant from the scene of conflict, may be regarded as throwing some light on the slaughter. There, skulls to the amount of a thousand have been disinterred, all lying together. They are of lads in their teens, and of middle-aged men ; but there are no skulls of old men, or of women. Xot improbably these are the dead of Otterburn." 1 The story of the Battle of Otterburn comes down to us immor- talized in the two well-known ballads, one of which, giving the Scotch version of the affair, is printed in the "Border Minstrelsy," that in "Percy's Relics " being the English version ; the minstrels flattered their respective nationalities, ascribing the victory accordingly. "Chevy Chase," and the "Hunting of the Cheviot," although very similar to "The Battle of Otterburn " are ascribed to a later date, and it has been suggested, may refer to a subsequent fight also between a Percy ami a 1 " The History and Poetry of the Scottish Border," by .1. Vtitch. LL.D.. p. :'*S. REEDSWATEE. Ill Douglas, which occurred at Popperdon, near the Cheviots, in I 136, about fifty years after the Battlo of Otterburn. "Chevy Chaso " was the ballad to which Sir Philip Sidney referred, when he exclaimed, in his " Defence of Pootry," " I never heard tho old song of Percy and Douglas that 1 found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet." How much more must these stirring strains have moved the hearts of the hardy men who lived among the scenes of these heroic deeds, and whose own struggles from generation to generation wcro not forgotten in the songs of the minstrels who magnified tho deeds of Douglas and Percy. No wonder that among the more degenerate Bor- derers of Post-Union times there lingered with the old traditions a glint of the ancient chivalry ! Elsdon burn is crossed on tho return from Otterburn. Elsdon villago, which is reached by a cross road, lies among hills which stretch away to tho north, east, and south of it, all moorland of the wildest. Many objects of interest are found here ; in addition to the church, which is ancient, there is tho old tower, now the rectory house, but formerly the residence of the Lords Warden of Reedsdale. The arms of tho Umfravillo family, who for a long period held tho lordship, are still pointed out on the face of tho building ; they are also to be seen on the front of Whitton Tower at Rothbury, on the Coquet. Both these towers are now rectory houses. " ' Cedant anna togas' " (writes Stophen Oliver the younger) " was the notice to quit, served upon the warlike tenants of Elsdon Tower, when Cheviot Hills ceased to be the boundary line between two hostile nations. Tho occupation of the Lord of Reedsdale was gone, for there were no longer wolves in the county, nor enemies of the king to encounter within the four seas ; and the Border rider, clad in a rusty steel jack, and armed with a long sword, stalked out, and the rector, having on a new cassock and a clean band, walked in, and hung up his goodly beaver in the hall, where the former tenant used to hang up his helmet." ' In 1870 we saw that the byre of the Peel had been transformed into the drawing-room of the rectory house. Tho Castle is known to have been in existence at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Of greater 1 " Rambles in Northumberland," by Stephen Oliver the younger, p. 109. H 50 KEEDSWATEE. antiquity is the artificial mound, generally called the Mote Hill, a short distance from the tower, and supposed to be of British origin ; but what purpose it served, whether for worship or defence, public meeting, or burial, nothing certain is known. Elsdon parish was, until recently, one of the largest in England ; its length was twenty-one miles, and its breadth about five ; on the north it reached to the Scottish Border, but its population was as sparse as the area was great. Following Elsdon burn to the Reed, and past where Black-burn falls wildly over a confused heap of grey boulders, East Woodburn is ap- proached. The river divides it from West Woodburn, the starting- point of this excursion. Between Woodburn and Reedsmouth is the spot that « * * * * gave Bertram name, The moated mound of Risingham." So Sir Walter Scott in " Rokeby," in which also he does honour to " sweet Woodburn's cottages and trees." Risingham is the modern Habitancum, for here was a Roman station on Watling Street, the grass-covered site of which is still plainly marked. Camden mentions an altar which was removed from the Reed, bearing the name Habitancum. Dr. Bruce re- marks that the name does not occur in the older writings, or in the " Notitia," an ancient document which contains an account of the principal dignitaries, civil and military, of the Roman Empire throughout the world ; the learned, however, conclude that such was the Roman name of Rising- ham. The site of the station, about half a mile S.W. of Woodburn, can be clearly made out : it has now the distinction of being one of the sweetest bits of grass land in the vicinity. The stump which is all that remains of the curious figure of Robin of Risingham, mentioned by Horsley and others, was still to be seen in situ in 1877. It is in rudely- sculptured bas-relief, cut on the face of one of the sandstone rocks, on the >ide of a hill in a field near Woodburn railway station. The proprietor of the field, in a fit of anger, caused by the number of visitors to see the figure, broke off the upper part ; it was during the lifetime of Sir Walter Scott, who, in a note to " Ivanhoe," referred to the churlish proceeding in terms of strong disgust. The engraving taken from Horsley shows REEDSWATER. 51 tho wholo figure; the mark across bhe lower part indicates tho frac- ture, the part under tho line being all that remains. Many conjec- tures have been hazarded as to tho signification and origin of tho figuro. Sir Walter gleaned a local tradition of two brothers, giants, who lived, the one at Woodburn, tho other being Rob of Risingham. From Horsley's figure it- might well have been a rude " Diana," although Horsley himself thought it a figure of tho Emperor Commodus as Hercules. Geologist, artist, angler, and antiquary aliko find their pleasure by the banks of the Reed. Tho Ridsdale ironstone beds which belong to Sir William Armstrong, abound with fossils, and Mr. Lebour gives a list of nearly one hundred different specimens collected there, and now placed in tho Museum of the College of Physical Science at Newcastle. The North Tyno and Reed valleys are rich in traces of early inhabitants. Cairns, ancient camps, torracos, hut circles, and tumuli abound in the district, and these remains throw some small light on the nature of their pre-historic occupants, and scientific investigation finds in them partial answers to the Poet's questioning — " What aspect bore the rnau who roved or fled First of his tribe to this dark fell, who first In this pellucid current slaked his thirst?" River Duddon, stanza xvii. According to Canon Greenwell, barrows long-shaped, and barrows round, contain burials, tho skulls in which correspond in shape to the mounds under which they lie ; the oldest are the long barrows, which contain remains of the earliest known race in Britain akin to the Basque or Iberian ; while associated with the round barrows we have the broad or oval skull of the ancient Celt. The only barrow opened by Canon Greenwell in this neighbourhood was one about a mile east of Chollerton, the upper part of which was en- tirely made of stones. At Warks-haugh, near tho village of Wark, a little lower down the Tyno than Reedsmouth, a low and flat barrow was found to contain burials both of burnt and unburnt bodies, one of tho former being de- 52 KEEPSWATER. posited in a cinerary urn, whilst there was associated with one of the latter a peculiarly marked food vessel. In the immediate vicinity of Swinburne, several cairns have produced cists, one of them containing a jet necklace and other articles. Canon Greenwell possesses " a very fine specimen of a drinking cup which was discovered at Smalesmouth in a cist with an unburnt body." In a cairn on Chesterhope Common, the unusual' occurrence of gold was met with in the shape of a necklace of globular beads. Very interesting are the traces of terraces on the fell sides, believed to have been planned and cultivated by pre-historic races. Such are to be seen near Plashetts station opposite Mounces, and at other places. A stone monolith at Swinburne is amongst the few monuments found on the Tyne of a class generally ascribed to the Druids. But our faith in Druid temples of stone, &c, is much shaken since reading Mr. Fergusson's interesting work on " Ancient Rude Monuments.'" There are numerous camps of British as well as Boman construction in Beedsdale, and good examples on both sides of "Watling Street ; and at Blue Crag there is one described by Mr. MacLaughlan as a large and strong fortress with twelve hut circles distinctly traceable, and others there are nearer to Woodburn, as at Steele and Broomhope. At the last-named spot, the Camp hill is a wedge-like promontory defended on each side and towards the Reed by natural precipices, and approached by a spiral ascent kke that of old Sarum Hill in miniature. Besides those mentioned above, there are others — indeed, the word camp is dotted over the district in all directions on the Ordnance Map. The river scenery affords good subjects for the artist. A high eulogium is paid to it by Professor Veitch, when he saya of the Reed that in all its features of hill and glen it is another Yarrow. The following descriptive verses are selected from Roxby's " Lay of the Reedwater Minstrel : " — " He'll sing licedswater's muirlauds wild. Where whirring heath-cocks flee, Where limpid wells and heather bells Delight the sportsman's e'c. REED8WATER. •• The dreary Darden's misty moor, Rude rocks, and 'murky tarn,' The cl i fly cove, the craggy doure, Nun-moss and lone Hare-cairn. " ITe'll sing of Raylee's woody vale, When,' rippling streamlets flow, Where eglantines and lilies pale, And ratho primroses grow ; " Where waving birks and hazels brown O'erhang the flowery brae, Where throstles hail the blushing morn W'i' many a baneful lay." 53 <>N Till: REED. The reader must fain linger a while longer in this valley, with its peaceful pictures, and its hospitable folk, for there is nothing here but the wild river itself to suggest the turbulence of former times, for was not Reedsdale worse even than North Tynedale itself for lawlessness and rapine ? A chat with some of the old folks here is calculated to make rest more restful after climbing the hills, especially if fortune seat the weary traveller beside one of the legend-loving natives of the dale. Such an one, for the information of the writer, pointed to where ovor the hills " was Girsonsfield, the place the Ha's lived at;" and then came tho 54 REEDSWATER. story of the death of Percy Reed, a tragedy, the minutest details of which are given. The victim, Percy Reed, soldier and huntsman, was proprietor of Troughend Hall, opposite to Otterburn, an estate of high lands in the centre of Reedsdale, of which he was a warden or keeper, his betrayers being the brothers Hall of Girsonsfield, who, impatient at his honest vigi- lance towards the law-breakers, and knowing that they themselves were not among the most loyal, laid a plot for his life, and found willing tools in the Crosiers, a moss-trooping clan from Liddesdale across the Border. The " fause hearted Ha's " (so were they and their descendants called ever after) kept their resentment quiet until opportunity offered in the shape of a hunting expedition, in which they accompanied their victim. After the day's sport they retired to a solitary glen at Batehope, near the source of the Reed, and here the Crosiers came down on the party and slew their victim, helpless as he was, for tradition says his com- panions in the chase had watered the barrel of his long gun, and fixed his sword so firmly in the scabbard, that it could not easily be drawn. Such is the story which the Reedsdale narrator gives us in his own, or in the words of the old ballad, and goes on to speak of the haunted banks of the Reed, between Todlawhaugh and Pringlehaugh, where — " Oft by the Pringle's haunted side The shepherd sees Reed's spectre glide." Boh Some talk there might be of the " Raid of the Reedswire." The ballad recounts a skirmish, which took place in 1575 at one of the Border meetings. Sir John Carmichael was the Scottish warden, and Sir John Forster held the same office on the English Middle March. These meetings for redressing wrongs done on the Border frequently led to fighting, as on this occasion, when a true bill had been found against Farnstein, who was a notorious English freebooter. The statement that he had been allowed to fly from justice led to high words between the wardens ; then quickly followed a discharge of arrows from Sir John Forster's men, who were a reckless band, chiefly from Reedsdale and REEDSWATER. 55 Tynedale, and the Fenwicks were there in great force, as :i verse from the spirited Scotch ballad tells us :■ — " We smv come marching over the knowea I'ivc hundred Fenwicka in a flock, With jack and speir and bowes all bent, And warlike weapons at their will." In the contest that followed, the English at first had the best of it, but the Scots, relieved by the well-timed arrival of a company of Jedburghcrs, changed the aspect of affairs, and eventually gained the day, making prisoners the English warden, Sir Cuthbert Collingwood, Francis Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, some of the Fenwicks, and other well-known Border Chiefs. Such work as this made up the every-day life on the Border, and to it gravitated the reckless and dissolute, to whom the steady cultivation of the soil was attended with so much difficulty, that they preferred the more congenial way of " making the Border feed them." In the course of time, Borderers became a distinct race, but it was only the worst of them who lost their sense of nationality and the ties of kindred, and were outlaws to both nations. The government of neither country was zealous in putting down offenders here, as they found it convenient when at war, to have on the spot men born and bred to strife to receive the first brunt of the attack. In those days there was a large population on the Border, but little notice was taken of the fact that there were more poople than the land could maintain in honesty. In the reign of Edward VI., Sir Robert Bowes reported that it was possible to raise 1200 able men in Reedsdale and Tynedale ; and in the previous reign the Duke of Northumberland, writing to the King, promised to " lette slippo them of Tyndaill and Riddisdail for the annoyance of Scotland." The Duke seems to have regarded " them " as so many sleuth-hounds. Surely as long as the authorities continued to press into their service notoriously lawless clans in their own scarcely more reputable raids on the hereditary foe, it was not surprising that these wild elans should consider themselves, in a manner, licensed to carry on their private feuds and plundering. Perhaps the most corrupt times on the Borders were those just pre- ceding the Union. After the Union, as might be expected, some gene- 56 REEDSWATER. rations passed away before the worst habits of the Border clans were era- dicated : as late as the beginning of the present century a strong taste for wild living prevailed among them ; and the Reedsdale farmer of the period has been described as careless, boisterous, unlettered, and half civilized, but happy, free, and hospitable, withal hard as the hills his sheep grazed on, ready at all times to shake hands, or break a head ; he had a bite and a bottle for any one, and was wont to say " he would rather treat a beggar than lose good company." " Elishaw," says Roxby, "was a place of note in Reedsdale for merry makings and nights of revelry, and the rendezvous of vagrant trains of faas and tinkers. Lord Cranstoun of convivial memory had a place here, but alas ! these days are gone and the grandeur of Elishaw is no more." Let us hope, however, that the times will never change the people of these northern dales in respect of the hospitality, keen sense of humour, and enjoyment of life which characterize them ; and as for their ancestors, we cherish their memory in association with words printed by Gray on the title-page of his " Chorographia : " NORTHUMBERLAND THE BULWARK OF ENGLAND AGAINST THE INROADS OF THE SCOTS. ROB OF RISlNi.M \M. CHAPTER V. NORTH TYNE CASTLES. CHIPCHASE AND HAUGHTON. jIVE miles below Rcedsmouth is the quiet little vil- lage of Wark, not to bo confounded with that other moro famous hamlet, in the same county, whose castle, battered by the Scots in many a siege, still shows remains on the banks of the Tweed. Around our Wark, once the capital of North Tynedale, memories of a different kind are gathered of the days when it was the assize town of the district. The Record Offico preserves two valuable documents which give account of law proceedings held at Wark six hundred years ago. The earHest of these docu- ments refers to a session of tho Scottish courts held here in 1279, under Alexander III., during tho last period of Scottish occupation ; the other, referring to tho Courts of the Liberties of Tyne- dale, held at the Mote Hill, Wark, under Edward I., in 1293, Tynedale being then under English rule again. These records afford a lively picture of the rude life of tho period ; in them tho present representatives of old Tynedale families, high and low, may got a glimpse of their ancestors and their mode of living. Estates are frequently mentioned as being in tho possession of families whose descendants own them at tho present day ; in them, also, we obtain somo information of the notable families about whom, familiar as their names TORCH OF CHirCHASE CASTLE. 58 NORTH TYKE CASTLES. are in Border lists, history has very little to tell us ; but what these documents have to say concerning these families does not raise them in our estimation much above their fellows ; they were the heads of society, whose chiefs, landed proprietors, country squires, and country parsons, too, were more or less tarred with the same brush as the rievers them- selves; nevertheless, it would appear there was a better show of justice in Tynedale at this period than in the later times referred to in the last chapter. To about the date of these records many of the old Border castles are ascribed, and some of these are the subject of this chapter. How rich Northumberland is in castles, the remains of castles, and the sites of strongholds, is generally known. A list drawn up in the year 1460 contains the names of 115 castles and towers existing in the county at that time; and, says Mr. Sidney Gibson, of the thirty-seven castles, eleven have disappeared, eighteen are more or less in ruin, and only eight are maintained for use and habitation ; and of the seventy- eight Border towers or peles, only a small number are maintained in habitable condition. As we follow the course of the Tyne to the sea, its banks will not be found wanting in fine specimens of feudal castles, as well as Border towers, and among the latter on North Tyne, Chipchase and Haughton are characteristic examples, the largest, most perfect, and interesting of their kind. Professor Veitch has the following in reference to the word pele : " The Border keep bears the same name peel, or pile, as the Cymri gave to their hill dwellings (pill, moated or fossed fort) .'"' Many of their circular and oval forts, popularly called camps and rings, can be traced on the hills on both sides of the Border, and in them the Cymri defended themselves against the Picts, Scots, and Saxons. And (we quote the same author) " the people who had displaced these old Cymri settled on the hills, almost in the very spots where they had lived, and borrowed from them the names of their dwelling's." Chipchase Castle is on the left side of the North Tyne, about one mile from Wark. It represents in the ancient and modern part of its structure the reigns of Edward I. and James I., and each part charac- teristic of the time in which it was erected. In this combination the Jacobite architect contrived for us a memorial structure commemorative CHIPCHASE AND IIATfiHTON. 61 of tho cloao of tho Bonier wars. The old fortress with all its warlike ap- pliances was wanted no more, but so long as tho last of its grey walls re- sist decay, there will ben reminder of the times left behind ; of the fighting lords of Chipchase; of Peter de Insula,' who probably built it, of the Um- t'ravilles, and of the Herons, a branch of the powerful family of Ford Castle associated with the field of Flodden. Of the Chipchase branch was the Sir George Heron, who was slain in the raid of the Redeswire before referred to. One of tho family was sheriff eleven years in suc- cession, and to one, Cuthbert Heron, we owe the modern structure, for whom it was built in 1G21. It has been said of this building that "it would be attractive amid tho best specimens of the Jacobean style." in how much better taste does the old pile appear than in some ancient buildings with modern attachments, where tho new is out of harmony with the old; or we find the ancient and modern so jumbled together as to spoil all. The following description of the ancient part of Chipchase is by Mr. Hartshorne :" — " The pele, properly so called, is a massive and lofty building, as large as some Norman keeps. It has an enriched appearance given to it by its double-notched corbelling round tho summit, which further serves the purpose of machicolation. Tho round bartisans at the angles add to its beauty, and are set in with considerable skill. The stone roof and the provisions for carrying off the water deserve careful examination. Over the low winding entrance-door on the basement are the remains of the original portcullis, the like of which the most experienced archaso- logist will in vain seek for elsewhere. The grooves are also visible, and the chamber where the machinery was fixed for raising it is to be met with, even, as at Goodrich, where the holes in which the axle worked. and the oil-way that served to ease its revolutions, may be seen; but at Chipchase there is the little cross-grated portcullis itself, which was simply lifted by the leverage of a wooden bar above the entrance, and let down in the same manner." A few years since in exploring the keep, there was discovered a little 1 Godwin'? "English Archaeologist's Guide" says ii was built by 1'. de Ensula about 1250. '-' Quoted by Rev.