How Many Stones at Duddo? (NT930437)

© Copyright Andrew Curtis and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

Originally there were seven (we think), then six, five and, inevitably, four. Then five again. And they are now known as ‘Duddo Five Stones’ – Northumberland’s equivalent of the mighty Stonehenge, you might say.

As has often been remarked, the ancient monument is one of Britain’s finest and enjoys a spectacular setting. The Cheviot and Eildon Hills loom to the south-west and west, respectively, with the stones themselves enjoying an elevated and isolated position to the north-west of the village after which they are named.

Until recently, no one knew quite how old the little stone circle is. It is a modest affair at around ten yards across with none of its components more than eight feet in height, and early speculation suggested a Druidical origin. In time, the locals assumed it to be a memorial laid down after a victory over the Scots in 1558 in which the Percies chased off a party of plundering invaders. Quite where and why this tradition arose no one knows, for the truth is that the landmark is, indeed, ancient, with investigations in 1890 revealing remnants of a cremation burial. In 2008, an archaeological dig at the site unearthed charcoal remains which were radiocarbon dated to around 2000BC. Furthermore, faint traces of man-made cup-and-ring marks have been found carved on the large east facing stone which seem to confirm its Bronze Age origins.

There were at least seven stones to begin with, six surviving into the nineteenth century. Two more seem to have disappeared or toppled over during the ensuing decades, after which they became known as the ‘Four Stones’. Then, in 1903, a fifth was re-erected to ‘improve the skyline’.

The Duddo Standing Stones are certainly a curious lot. They have been known in the past as ‘The Ladies’ (due to their tapering shape) and ‘The Singing Stones’ (perhaps a reference to the wind whistling through their weathered grooves). And, once more, they can be easily and freely visited by the casual passer-by.

The Battle of Humbleton Hill (NT969294)

© Copyright Lisa Jarvis and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

The Battle of Humbleton (or Homildon) Hill took place on 14^th September 1402 on a site a couple of miles NW of Wooler. It pitched the Scots against the English, and was famously mentioned by William Shakespeare in his historical epic, Henry IV, Pt1. It resulted in a resounding victory for the English, but was not effectively followed up, suggesting that the loss of life was largely in vain.

The Scots were getting particularly ambitious at the time due to Henry IV’s preoccupation with the troublesome Welsh further south. An initial set-to at Nesbit Moor in Berwickshire in June 1402 had seen the Scots defeated, but they continued snapping away at the English heels. In August the Earl of Douglas led a 10,000-strong army south, devastating Northumberland as far as Newcastle. Turning back north laden with plunder, they set up camp at Milfield north of Wooler. The English, though, weren’t prepared to let them get away, and the Earl of Northumberland, assisted by his son, Harry Hotspur, cut them off and forced them into battle.

As the two armies circled one another, the Scots settled on the rising ground north of Humbleton Hill in the foot of the Cheviots. They moved into their ‘Schiltron’ formations – thus providing the deadly English archers with mightily easy targets. The victorious bowmen struck most probably from the high land around Harehope Hill, with most of the Scottish casualties finding their final resting places in the plain to the north and east as they sped for safety – and into the arms of the main body of their foe. Many thousands of Scots perished, with only a handful of English dead – and all in the space of an hour or so.

The English, though, didn’t push ahead with a full-scale invasion of Scotland, preferring instead to concentrate on their Welsh problem. The Percy family – Harry Hotspur and his father amongst them – wasn’t best pleased with the tame aftermath and eventually turned against Henry IV. Both father and son ultimately lost their lives in failed rebellions against the English monarch in the ensuing years.

The Bendor ‘Battle Stone’ has traditionally marked the spot of the 1402 conflict – though it is most likely a Bronze Age standing stone, ancient cists having been found thereabouts.

Percy’s Cross & the Bird in Thy Bosom (NU053193 & thereabouts)

 © Copyright David Clark and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

There are two monuments which go by the name of Percy’s Cross in Northumberland. One commemorates the Battle of Otterburn of 1388; the other – and the subject of this article – is situated about 4 miles north of Glanton, near to the site of the Battle of Hedgeley Moor.

The encounter resulted in an important Yorkist victory over their Lancastrian foe in April 1464 during the Wars of the Roses – the triumph enabling the Scots to safely travel south to conclude an agreement with the Yorkists. Several nobles took to the field, of course, including one Sir Ralph Percy who had thrown in his lot with the wrong side.

As his aristocratic colleagues fled the field in the midst of their ignominious defeat, Percy carved a name for himself in history by refusing to join them. He and his men fought to the death in a brave show of loyalty to the Lancastrian cause. Surrounded, his horse stumbled and he was overpowered by the enemy. His last words were said to have been: “I have saved the bird in my bosom”…

This enigmatic utterance has kept the historians guessing over the years, but is now thought to have meant that he died an honourable death by remaining loyal to his cause until the very end – “keeping safe the bird in thy bosom” being a metaphor of the time for such shows of fidelity and allegiance in the face of adversity.  Curious, then, that Percy and his family should have so regularly switched sides during the wars!

Near the spot where Sir Ralph fell was thereafter erected a stone cross in his honour carved with Percy emblems, the head of which is now missing.

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Flodden: Full Muster at Little Bolton (NU105136)

© Copyright Phil Thirkell and licensed for reuse 

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What exciting and worrying times they must have been. The build-up to, and preparations for, any historical battle on home soil must have been quite an experience for all concerned. The influx of fighting men into what were often small, rural backwaters, the drain on local resources, the fear of defeat and the aftermath – to say nothing of the small matter of loss of life. And in September 1513, the villagers of little Bolton, near Alnwick, braced themselves. For it was here, in the days leading up to the immense battle at Flodden Field, that the English army descended for their first full muster to the number of some 26,000 men.

The leader of the English army, Sir Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, arrived at Bolton on 3^rd September 1513, some six days before hostilities, where, the following day, “all the noblemen and gentlemen met with him with their retinues … among whom were Lords Clifford, Coniers, Ogle, Scroope and Lumley, Sir William Percy, Lionel Percy, Sir George Darcy, Sir William Bulmer of Brancepeth Castle and Richard Tempest Esq.” All of the aforementioned (and a few others besides) would have crammed into little Bolton Chapel on a number of occasions to offer up prayers for the fighting ahead.

They stayed for a couple of nights before moving further north to Wooler Haugh, and thence to Barmoor and beyond. Then, on 9^th September, Surrey and his English forces inflicted a crushing defeat on the Scots in the largest ever battle between the two kingdoms … and the villagers of little Bolton thereafter picked up the pieces of their quiet existence.

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Battle of Neville’s Cross (NZ260424)

© Copyright GordonGriffiths and licensed for 

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This most famous of military encounters – perhaps the most notable in County Durham’s history – took place between the English and (of course) the Scots on 17^th October 1346. On this occasion, it was the former who emerged victorious, placing the latter on the back foot for many years thereafter.

The battle took place during the Hundred Years’ War between England and France. The French, keen to divert the enemy away from hostilities in the south, persuaded King David II of Scotland to open a second front – which he duly did (if a little late) in the autumn of 1346. In early October, he led 12,000 troops over the border and into the northern counties of England, expecting little in the way of opposition.

After a week or so of pillage, they arrived on the outskirts of Durham City on 16^th October and camped at Bearpark, to the west. The English, however, had drawn together a military presence in the area, and, under the command of the likes of the Archbishop of York and the Lords Ralph Neville and Henry Percy, skirted around the threatened city considering their options.

Early on 17^th October 1346, a Scottish raiding party fell upon a branch of the English army, were duly routed, and were then followed during a hasty retreat to the site of the main invasion force. Various manoeuvrings followed in the ensuing hours, until the two forces were drawn up against one another at roughly the spot where the present-day railway line crosses the Great North Road (now the A167). A procession of monks from Durham Cathedral then performed a ceremony within sight of the brooding Scots to raise the spirits of the English ranks.

The English, though fewer in number, were better positioned than the Scots; and their longbow salvos soon overwhelmed the enemy’s pike. After three hours, King David of Scotland slipped away wounded, but was found hiding under a narrow bridge which still crosses the River Browney to the east of Bearpark. The day, for the Scots, was lost, and their king taken south – where he languished in Odiham Castle, Hampshire, for more than a decade. He wasn’t released (on payment of a hefty ransom) until 1357.

As for the commemorative cross, this was erected by Lord Neville shortly after the battle. It has been periodically vandalised and altered over the years – but a small fragment remains in the nearby suburbs.

Warkworth Hermitage (NU241059)

One of the most famous – and curious – of beauty spots in the whole of the North-East is the hermitage hewn into the sandstone bank of the River Coquet near Warkworth. This fascinating corner of the region is accessible only by boat, following a short walk westwards along the river from the castle.

Ascending a short flight of stone steps brings the visitor to the spot in question, amounting to a chapel (complete with ribbed vaulting and an altar), a sacristy and a couple of small rooms presumed to be the hermit’s old living quarters. A quick image search of the internet will bring adequate results for the curious reader, and far more information than I could by way of written description. Either way, one may wonder just how this place came to be. The answer, naturally, lies in legend. Or so we are encouraged to believe.

Sir Bertram of Bothal, one of the Earl Percy’s knights, was betrothed to Lady Isabel, the daughter of a local noble. Wounded in battle, he sent for Isabel, but was dismayed when she failed to show. When he had recovered, he made for her home, only to find that she had set off to meet him upon his original call – so must have been kidnapped. Sir Bertram and his brother then set off in different directions to search for her, and eventually the former tracked her down to her place of captivity – a tower in a remote castle. During a night-time vigil, Bertram spotted a shadowy figure helping his betrothed from her tower and down a ladder. He drew his sword and leapt to her defence, unaware that the other man was his brother. Isabel threw herself between the men in an attempt to prevent the clash, and the sword swept through them both, killing them instantly.

Wracked with guilt, Bertram returned to his Warkworth home and gave all his property and land away to the poor. He built the Hermitage with his bare hands, and there he lived in solitude for the rest of his days in self-imposed penance. Over the doorway he carved an inscription, which, translated, reads: “My tears have been my meat night and day”. The original hermitage was greatly added to by subsequent occupiers over the centuries.

It is now thought that the tale was compiled by a chancing bishop who wanted to be accepted by the Percy family as one of their own. He failed in his aim, though his yarn has survived through to the present. In all truth, the place was more likely built as a simple chantry in the fifteenth century, and was known to have been occupied by a series of clergymen in the decades leading up to the Reformation. But that’s just plain boring.

The Smithsonian Museum and its North-East Connection

I can’t possibly leave the subject of the life of the 1st Duke of Northumberland without claiming a neat little piece of glory for the region. For the very famous Smithsonian Institute and all its related museums and educational centres throughout the US owes its very foundation to the man – or rather, the man’s son.

Or, to put it more brusquely, the Duke’s illegitimate son.

The mighty American organisation was founded thanks to a bequest left in the will of one James Smithson, a British mineralogist and chemist, who died in 1829. Smithson had been a wise investor, amassing a huge fortune which he left, initially, to his nephew. However, it was stipulated in the will that if the beneficiary were to die without issue (which he thoughtfully did, in 1835), then the money should be passed “to the United States of America, to found at Washington, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.”

James Smithson – or Jacques Louis Macie, as he was originally known – was born in Paris in 1764 to one Elizabeth Hungerford Macie (nee Keate), following an affair with a prominent English landowner, Sir Hugh Smithson. Sir Hugh, who would eventually become the 1st Duke of Northumberland, was, at this time, married to Elizabeth Seymour, a Percy heiress, and had actually changed his name to Hugh Percy in order to inhert the earldom of Northumberland on his father-in-law’s death in 1750 – and would eventually be created 1st Duke in 1766.

Heavily influenced by his mother’s side of the family (his father, Hugh, never acknowledged him), James took the scientific route, being elected to the Royal Society in 1787 aged only 22. In 1802, a little after his mother’s death, he changed his name from Macie to Smithson. He died in Genoa in 1829, his remains being later moved and reburied in Washington D.C. at the Smithsonian Institution Building.

Astonishingly, James Smithson had never set foot in the US during his lifetime, and the reason for his bequest is unknown.