The Unfortunate Railtons (NY994135)

From the Bowes parish register:

Roger Wrightson, junior, and Martha Railton, both of Bowes, buried in one grave. He died of a fever, and upon hearing his passing bell, she cry'd out "My heart is broke," and in a few hours expired, purely (or supposed) [interlined in a different hand] thro' love. March 15, 1714–15, aged about 20 years each.

A lamentable tale indeed; and a short piece of primary source material upon which both a ballad (Bowes Tragedy; or, A Pattern of True Love) and a poem (Edwin and Emma) were later penned.

It seems that the demise of the two young lovers had quite a backstory. In short, the Wrightsons were a cut above the Railtons socially, being landowners – the latter being mere innkeepers. Roger and Martha kept their brief affair secret, but when the former fell ill with a fever Martha was as good as barred from maintaining any sort of meaningful contact with her lover. When the young man died, the young lass was distraught beyond reason and died of a broken heart within hours. The two were, however, buried in the same grave in Bowes graveyard.

In 1717, the local grammar school master compiled his Bowes Tragedy ballad – which was utilised to great financial gain by Martha’s sister, Tamar, who would sing it to travellers passing through the village. Then, in 1760, came poet David Mallet’s Edwin and Emma, which, he acknowledged, was inspired by the Bowes affair.

The curious story of the Railton siblings doesn’t end there. The brother of Martha and Tamar, John, inherited the landlordship of the village pub, The George Inn (now The Ancient Unicorn). Bowes being situated where it is, the establishment’s main source of income was from thirsty travellers crossing Stainmore. John had a thing about investing in road improvements and repairs (he was a Quaker with, therefore, a heightened sense of public duty). He is known to have dabbled (somewhat vaguely and unreliably) in the Carlisle-Newcastle Military Road project of the 1750s; and, closer to home, sought to try his hand in similar affairs in an attempt to improve trade at his pub…

… He is supposed to have ruined himself by improving the road over Stanmore [sic, road now the A66]. . . . The result, however, disappointed him; as formerly, travellers whose horses were exhausted by the bad state of the roads were glad to stop at The George, the first inn after crossing Stanmore, but when the road was improved they preferred going on to Greta Bridge.

Despite his hardships and failed enterprise, John Railton seems to have been held in generally high regard. From The Life of John Buncle, Esq, by Thomas Amory (1756):

... I gave the horses another feed of corn at Bows [sic], at The George, kept by Railton, the Quaker; an excellent inn, and the master of it an instructive and entertaining orator. I mention these things for your benefit, reader, that you may know where to stop to advantage, if you should ever ride over the same ground I went that day.

John Railton sold The George in 1760. He later spent some time in Newcastle where he eventually died and was buried. Despite its hard times, the pub survived – by 1810 it was called The Unicorn, and is now The Ancient Unicorn.

Catcleugh Reservoir and Byrness Church (NT735034 & NT771023)

Catcleugh Reservoir sits in the upper reaches of Redesdale a few miles short of the Scottish Border. It is now dwarfed by its much larger and newer neighbour, Kielder Reservoir, but at the time of its construction during 1884-1905 it was a truly major concern.

It was built for the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company in order to feed the growing and ever-thirsty Tyneside conurbation – a series of tunnels, aqueducts and other reservoirs taking the water thus accumulated the 30-odd miles to its destination to the SE.

The River Rede feeds the sizeable body of water, but such is the remoteness of the spot in question that labour and machinery had to be brought in from far and wide to complete the mammoth task. As a consequence of this, two hutted communities grew up in the shadow of the construction site, and were christened ‘Newcastle’ and ‘Gateshead’ for obvious reasons.

A total of 40-odd huts straddled the two semi-permanent townships, housing more than 700 folk – workers, their spouses and their children. It was a tight-knit, rag-tag collection of individuals, who, nevertheless, maintained all the very basic social necessities of a village-like existence. It must have been tough, but there were dances, sports, drinking and gambling to be enjoyed, too … much of it quite illegal!

Today a single workers’ hut remains, which houses an exhibition of the history of the reservoir and its little community of yore. But, most poignantly, in nearby Byrness Church (said to be the smallest in Northumberland) can be found a commemorative plaque and splendid stained glass window – the former listing the names of the 60+ individuals who died during the construction work, and the latter featuring images of the workers themselves. It was all paid for by the community itself, the window being unique in Britain in terms of its subject matter.

An image of the church window can be found here. More info on the extraordinary Catcleugh scheme can also be found here.

Otterburn Mill’s Claim to Fame… x 2! (NY888928)

Though it is some time since Otterburn Mill was a working concern (it ceased operating in 1976), the establishment retains its fame here in the North-East as a popular tourist attraction. For the historically minded, though, it also has two rather neat claims to fame.

You’ve heard of the phrase ‘on tenterhooks’, haven’t you? Well, the idiom, which means to be in a state of suspense, comes from the textile industry. You see, after a piece of cloth had been woven it had to be washed and dried – and this was done by hanging it on a contraption called a tenter frame, which consisted of upper and lower bars studded with hooks. The lower bar was left loose – in a state of suspension – to stretch the cloth whilst it dried in order to prevent shrinkage. Hence the saying. And not only does Otterburn Mill have one of these old tenter frames, but it is actually the last surviving example of its kind in Europe. (Note: ‘tenter’ is from the Latin tendere, meaning ‘to stretch’).

Otterburn Mill’s most famous retail item these days is undoubtedly the Royal Pram Rug. It all started back in the days of Queen Elizabeth II’s grandmother, Queen Alexandra, who, when visiting the region, was presented with a hand-made travelling rug from Otterburn Mill. The royals seem to have then developed a love for the locally-produced textile goods, and in 1926 Buckingham Palace lodged an order with the mill for a pram rug for a very young Princess Elizabeth, our present queen. The resultant tweed affair was duly despatched to the royal household, with a further dozen or so sold to the public via Fenwick department store in Newcastle. You can still get present-day versions of the royal baby covering via the Otterburn Mill shop or website.

Fortress Kirk Merrington (NZ262315)

In the squabbling following King Henry I’s death in 1135, the Scots, under King David I, used the dispute as an excuse to lay claim to vast tracts of Northern England. To cut a long story short, they were largely successful, being granted most of what lay north of the Tyne, including Newcastle. And, though they weren’t actually presented with County Durham, they hoped to exert severe pressure over the Prince Bishops, too.

Scottish rule didn’t last, of course. It spanned what must have been eighteen bizarre years during 1139-57, before King Henry II brought Northumberland and Cumberland back under English rule for good.

In County Durham, though, the period was one of confusion. Scotland’s Chancellor at the time was one William Cumin. And when the Bishop of Durham, Geoffrey Rufus, died in 1141, King David tried to insert Cumin as his successor. The process was only ever half-completed, with Cumin never actually being consecrated – and so began a three year battle for the bishopric.

Cumin had some supporters, but plenty of opponents too, and the dispute was heated to say the least. Accounts of Cumin’s ‘rule’ are pretty severe, as his troops terrorised the city of Durham and beyond. In 1142, King David threw the towel in and abandoned Cumin, but the usurper battled on by producing a forged letter of support for his cause from the papacy. Word was then squeezed out to the pope of Cumin’s shenanigans and he was excommunicated in 1143 – but the fuss carried on unabated. Historian Simeon of Durham tells us of Cumin’s men incessantly making forages; whatever they could lay their hands on they plundered... wherever these men passed it became a wilderness. Their torments were of many and various kinds, difficult to describe and difficult to believe. Men were hung from the walls of their own howses... others... plunged into the bed of the river... everywhere throughout the town there were groans and various kinds of deaths.

The conflict came to a head at the village of Kirk Merrington in 1144, where Cumin’s unholy band of men holed themselves up in the church and, taking advantage of its slightly elevated position, fortified the site – principally by the digging of a ditch around the building. However, it was to no avail, and the ‘enemy’ overwhelmed them without too much fuss. He must have been quite a talker, though, as he managed to negotiate his way out of immediate danger by relinquishing his claim to Durham in return for lands to endow his nephew, Richard. He did spend some time in jail, but eventually found himself restored to prominence of a sort as Archdeacon of Worcester in 1157 – a post he had held thirty years earlier. And the same year in which, coincidentally, the northern counties were taken back by the English.

Nothing remains of the ditch at Kirk Merrington these days. In fact, very little of the original church remains, either, having been almost completely rebuilt in 1850-51.

Uses for Chopwell Wood (NZ136580)

It may now be the area’s prime source of Christmas trees, but the famous Chopwell Wood overlooking the Derwent Valley has had a good few more uses over the years – and, dare I say it, rather more important ones, too. The little patch of green in question has been there for a very long time indeed, once forming part of the original Wild-Wood which blanketed most of Britain in ancient times. It has, however, not changed a great deal size-wise since the days of the Romans.

Most notably, timber taken from Chopwell Wood has been used to build several important ships over the centuries. The first recorded use of this type was in 1294 when wood was gathered for a galley ship being built at Newcastle for King Edward I’s navy. And then, in 1635, King Charles I tapped the wood for timber for the construction of his fanciful Sovereign of the Seas – his new flagship, which included more than 2,000 oak trees from Chopwell (as well as other woods, too). The tax levied by the monarch to build this showcase ship was one of the major causes of the English Civil War.

Castle builders have also made use of Chopwell Wood’s resources. In 1538, timber for Dunstanburgh Castle’s new roof and floor were sourced there – and soon afterwards Bamburgh’s roofers put out a similar call. In 1593, the constructors of Berwick’s new pier put in an order for 40 tons; and more than twice that was later sent to Norham Castle for general repairs. Berwick was back again in 1620 with a request for 250 tons of timber for bridge work. It is also known that Newcastle’s old Tyne Bridge, in need of urgent post-Civil War repairs, was patched up with Chopwell timber in 1647.

The Napoleonic Wars brought demand for timber to something of a crisis point, too – with Chopwell Wood being reduced to a few hundred specimens come 1820. After that, more careful management of the wood secured its future. In the 20^th century it was used for the training of foresters; and pine grown there was used for pit props down the mines. World War II saw demand for timber rise again, and the wood was heavily utilised. The Forestry Commission’s North-East base was stationed there from 1923 to 1947, and a District office replaced it in 1955. Since then it has been used increasingly for recreational purposes.

Quite apart from all of this, Chopwell Wood has been regularly plundered for the construction and repair of dwellings, bridges and the like by the locals. And Christmas trees, of course.

An Unwelcome Winlaton First (NZ175619)

Hannah Greener, a 15 year-old girl from Winlaton, can claim for both herself and her home town a most undesirable of medical firsts. For this unfortunate young lady was the first person in the world to die after having received a chloroform anaesthetic – for the removal, would you believe, of a toenail.

At the time of her death in January 1848, chloroform was new to the scene as regards anaesthetics – previously, ether would have been the norm. In fact, when Miss Greener stepped forward somewhat gingerly with her seriously in-growing toenails, it was precisely during this ‘changeover period’. In late 1847, ether was used on her to remove the nail of her left big toe (at Newcastle Infirmary); then a few weeks later she was back under the knife – this time at her home in Winlaton – to have the less serious right big toenail detached.

And so Dr Meggison and Dr Lloyd set about the operation. A teaspoon of chloroform was poured onto a handkerchief which was then held to her mouth. An incision was made, and she flinched – so a little more chloroform was administered. The patient then turned a funny colour, spluttered and expired. All attempts at resuscitation failed – the whole process taking little more than two minutes.

The resultant inquest (at the New Inn, Winlaton), concluded that death had most probably been caused by congestion of the lungs – a known side effect of the use of chloroform. The doctors were thus exonerated and young Hannah Greener was laid to rest in Winlaton churchyard.

In 1911, however, medical experiments suggested that the death was most probably due to fatal cardiac arrhythmia (ventricular fibrillation). This would place the point of death at the moment the incision was made, which would have caused a fatal hormonal surge to the chloroform-affected heart.

Debate over which was the best and safest anaesthetic on the market raged for many years after Hannah Greener’s death. Chloroform was very popular in many countries for a very long time, though – until the discovery of barbiturate-based concoctions in the 1940s.

More information on the Hannah Greener case can be found here and here.

Lemington Glass Cone (NZ183645)

© Copyright HelenWilkinson and licensed for 

reuse under this CreativeCommons Licence.

Situated where it is – a few miles upstream from Newcastle on the north bank of the Tyne – the settlement of Lemington was ideally placed to contribute significantly to the economy of Tyneside in its own special way. It was for centuries the point where many local collieries offloaded their coal onto waiting boats for export, and the make-up of the terrain thereabouts triggered the establishment of many other industries. One such speciality was glass-making, and the one remaining glass cone – a famous local landmark – is in itself rather special, being one of only four of its kind left in the UK.

Originally, in 1787, four glasshouses were built on the spot, and four cones were quickly added – the pride and joy of the newly-established Northumberland Glass Company, who had leased the site from the Duke of Northumberland. The chimneys’ striking form was designed to draw air up through underground tunnels to heat the glass to 2000°C. Glass production – originally flat glass – continued there until 1882, when the site was taken over for a short while by an ironworks. A depression in the glass industry had led to the decline, and in fact three of the four cones were demolished in 1837. Only by chance, it seems, did a single specimen survive into the Victorian era.

The industry picked up again in the 1890s and famous glassmaker, George Sowerby, reinstated operations at the ‘cone site’ in 1898. In 1906, the General Electric Company purchased the establishment from the Duke of Northumberland and the site was expanded and refitted for the production of light bulbs and tubes. Another refit/expansion took place in 1920, and the manufacture of light bulbs and related lampware (mainly industrial and technological items) limped on through the 20^th century. The last glass was produced there in 1997.

Lemington glass cone was the last operational glassworks of its kind, and upon closure all but the giant cone was demolished. A little prior to this, the structure – the largest of the set at 120ft and said to contain 1.75 million bricks – was restored and given protected status. It has since been home to a variety of businesses.

Matfen Hall’s Relic of War (NZ032717)

Before the present-day Matfen Hall was built (around 1828) there existed on the spot an old manor house which once belonged to Admiral Lord Collingwood’s father-in-law. John Erasmus Blackett was to die in 1814, but his name lives on in Newcastle’s Blackett Street.

Rewinding a few years to 1797, our hero, Cuthbert Collingwood, was engaging the Spanish in the famous Battle of Cape St.Vincent, off the coast of Portugal – an encounter which the Brits were to win. And during this skirmish, Collingwood, aboard his ship, Excellent, scraped alongside many enemy vessels, not least the largest warship of its time, Santisima Trinidad. The Spanish flagship was a major target of the British Fleet and, though she was not captured, she was badly damaged and hobbled home to Cadiz for repairs after the battle.

During Collingwood’s exchange of fire with the ship he laid his hands upon a 50lb double-headed Spanish bar-shot, which he pocketed and took back home on a rare visit to Blighty. He thought it a rather neat idea to give it to his father-in-law as a gift, whereupon it was put on proud display in both Blackett’s old manor house in Matfen and the later hall which replaced it. The relic is suitably engraved with the ship’s name and the date of the battle (Valentine’s Day) – and, as far as I know, it is still there to this day.

Strangely enough, the Santisima Trinidad would pop up again in Collingwood’s sight-lines in a slightly more famous naval encounter in 1805, where the Spanish giant was to meet its fate.

[image taken from author Max Adams’ website at 

www.theambulist.co.uk/?attachment_id=444 ]

Water to Newcastle (NY968763 & thereabouts)

When we think of the water supply provided to the region, the mighty Kielder Water springs instantly to mind. However, a number of other reservoirs form part of the intricate network of watery connections that keep the North-East quenched – with three of the most important crowded into a few square miles of the Northumbrian countryside about eight miles north of Hexham.

Colt Crag, Little Swinburne and Hallington Reservoirs were all built a long time before the 1970s creation that is Kielder Water, being completed, as they were, in 1871 (East Hallington), 1884 (Colt Crag), 1886 (Little Swinburne) and 1889 (West Hallington). Their construction finally brought to an end centuries of struggle to feed an ever-thirsty Tyneside, all but banishing the threat, finally, of typhus – to say nothing of the needs of fire-fighting. Prior to this, glorified ponds on the Town Moor, Arthur’s Hill and at Carr Hill, Gateshead, struggled manfully against the booming populations either side of the Tyne.

Between the ‘heyday’ of the aforementioned ‘ponds’ and the new complex of 1871-89, Whittle Dene Reservoirs (completed 1848), a little to the SE, carried the responsibility of water supply for the area. And, when it was ready, the Hallington/Swinburne/Colt Crag supply was bolted onto the Whittle Dene system before being piped to Newcastle and Gateshead. The network was further extended in 1904 when Catcleugh Reservoir near the Scottish border was brought into use. And then, seventy years later, there was Kielder.

The really quite amazing (and largely hidden) system of tunnels, pipes and aqueducts that connect these large expanses of fresh water both to each other and their points of service was the result of the work of the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company… and is one of the hidden wonders of the Great North-East.

Winter’s Gibbet (NY962908)

Winter’s Gibbet, or Stob, at Steng Cross, near Elsdon, is one of the region’s most infamous landmarks. It stands, somewhat eerily, in an isolated spot high in the midst of the bleak Northumberland Moors – a reminder of the hanging of one William Winter in 1792.

Winter was a highwayman and a wanderer who, one night in late 1791, sought shelter from an old woman by the name of Margaret Crozier (some sources give her name as Elizabeth) in her cottage near The Raw Farm on the Rothbury-Elsdon road. During the night Winter and his accomplices robbed and killed the woman – but they were tracked down, tried and executed at Westgate, Newcastle. After sentence had been passed, the judge ordered Winter’s body to be hung in chains until it rotted in the hills above Elsdon.

The original gibbet has been replaced on at least one occasion with a replica, and a concrete head now hangs from the noose rather than the morbid remains of Mr Winter! Slivers from the original gibbet were sought by nearby villagers as they were reputed to be a cure for toothache.

Near the site can be found the base stone of an Anglo-Saxon cross – the original ‘Steng Cross’, a boundary stone which marked the highest point on this former drove road.

The illustration is taken from the Monthly Chronicle of North Country Lore & Legend of March 1890 (artist Robert Wood), which shows the spot a few years after the original gibbet had been replaced. It looks pretty much the same today.

Woeful Wreighill (NT977019)

Of the stories concerning the many ‘lost villages’ that lie scattered across the North-East the saddest of them all is surely that of the cursed township of Wreighill in the parish of Rothbury, Coquetdale. Today only a farm bearing the ancient name clings to the lofty prominence to the north-west of Hepple; the sole reminder of the tragic little village whose name was once synonymous with death and destruction.

Its roots lie deep in the mists of antiquity.  Lying yards to the east of the Roman road which links the Devil’s Causeway to Dere Street, 5½ miles west of Rothbury, many ancient bones have been discovered high on its hill.  The Romans – invariably occupiers of settlements previously conquered – have left their own faint remains of a camp, too, in the area. For a millennium after the Romans departed its progress remains a mystery, indeed its very existence throughout the Dark and Middle Ages remains in doubt.  Suffice to say that by the late fifteenth century it was known as Wreigh- or Wreck-Hill – for reasons I will now attempt to explain.

Being situated on the western-most extremity of the Coquet valley, the few dozen inhabitants were frequent victims of the infamous Border reivers.  On countless occasions Scottish raiders descended the Cheviot foothills around the turn of the fifteenth century only to find the poor village in their way.  It became a way of life for the villagers, but they simply refused to be beaten, regularly standing up stoically to their foe.  The Scottish freebooters, though, vowed to some day make them pay for their determined resistance.  Undaunted, the villagers defiantly stood their ground as best they could over the months and years, but pay they finally would on the fateful night of 25th May 1412.

On that terrible Wednesday evening a mighty Scottish band appeared on the horizon and the troubled locals braced themselves again, fearing the worst.  A fierce encounter ensued but, overpowered by numbers and might of arms, the village was overrun.  Its inhabitants were slaughtered, many being pursued long into the night until not a soul remained, the village itself being burnt and laid waste.  Until the early years of the twentieth century the phrase “the Woeful Wednesday of the Wreck-Hill” was an oft used metaphor in those parts to all that pertained to cruel, total and mindless slaughter.  Thus, on account of its fateful existence, the village came to be known as Wreck-Hill.  “Wreigh” was a convenient enough derivative, and the reasoning for the development of the present-day place-name held good for a long while.  But this story is not the source from which the village’s name is drawn, and the truth, though quite different, remains equally as morbid.

“Wreigh” is, in fact, derived from the Old English wearg, meaning a felon or wrong-doer; and Wreigh-Hill, or Felon’s Hill, was where such offenders were put to death – not by hanging but by strangulation!  It is likely that nearby Wreigh Burn was simply named after the village, but not impossible that its meaning is identical to that of Throckley’s Wreigh Burn, i.e. the burn where undesirables were summarily drowned.

By and by, as the violent age of the Border reivers and the moss troopers passed into history, so the village recovered.  In 1665, however, came a second great calamity, as the isolated settlement was tragically and almost entirely wiped out by the Plague.  The story goes that a small parcel was opened by a Miss Handyside which had been sent to her by a young gentleman in London – where, of course, the terrible disease was then raging – whereupon the deadly pestilence sprung out and spread over the whole village, poor Miss Handyside being its first victim.  By all accounts almost everyone suffered, with only a few hardy folk surviving, who themselves interred their dead where neither plough nor spade would ever turn them up.  A century later, though, when the potato arrived in the area, the steep slopes under which the dead lay were put to use and countless brittle bones were unearthed.

Thankfully, however, little Wreighill is most recently remembered as being the birthplace of the once nationally famous mathematical genius, young George Coughran.  Born in 1752, the son of a Wreighill farmer, Coughran showed signs of his extraordinary talent in his infancy.  Thrust uncompromisingly into the fields of his father’s business as a child (where he also excelled), he continued his studies part-time at every opportunity.  He began to correspond with the Newcastle Courant, anonymously, arousing great public interest and admiration.  His identity revealed, he became the subject of great local and national acclaim, securing many awards.  He eventually became Calculator to the Astronomer Royal (a sort of human computer), rising to the height of his fame as the country’s outstanding genius of his time, before being tragically struck down at the age of 21 by smallpox in Newcastle in 1774.  He was buried in the town’s St. Andrew’s churchyard.

After the turn of the nineteenth century Wreighill’s population never topped 30.  As the Industrial Revolution gathered pace and the masses flocked to Newcastle for work, Wreighill, and villages like it, emptied.  Only the old stayed, and when they died so the villages died – and this is the real reason behind the deaths of so many hamlets and villages across the country.  Thus Wreighill went under for the third and final time, contracting to a small farm by 1900, which it remains to this day.

[this article has appeared in several forms and various publications over the years, including among the pieces contained in the still-available Aspects of North-East History, Vol.2 – see here]

Flodden: What Happened to James IV? (NT890371)

Most history fans will know all about the Battle of Flodden of 1513. Big English victory, crushing Scottish defeat … and the Scots lost their king on the battlefield, too, of course. However, in the blood, mayhem and general confusion that followed, no one seems to quite know for sure what became of James IV’s body. If he died at all, that is.

Accounts of almost all aspects of the story vary – sometimes wildly. What is known for sure is that his army lost heavily and his reign very much ended on that fateful autumn day a little over 500 years ago. He was almost certainly slain in the field, possibly after having stripped himself of his royal regalia to prove he could and would fight as fiercely as any ordinary soldier. He was known to be fearless in the fray and such a demise would not have been out of character.

In the mess that was left after the battle it could not have been easy identifying the ex-monarch, especially if he’d removed his royal garb. Lord Dacre was supposed to have found the corpse, probably on the small hill on Branxton Ridge overlooking Branxton Church. Dacre then had the body taken to Berwick, where it was identified by two Scottish courtiers, before it was embalmed and taken, firstly, to Newcastle, then York, and afterwards onto London (Sheen Priory in Surrey). In the meantime, what was left of the late king’s royal gear found its way to Durham Cathedral.

There was a suggestion that the body be forwarded to English King Henry VIII, but this seemingly never happened. Then rumours of James’ survival began circulating. In Lucan-esque fashion, he was spotted abroad on several occasions, having slipped away at the height of the battle and thence into exile in far off lands; and there were counter-rumours that he had escaped the battlefield and was caught and killed during the Scottish retreat. Some claimed that the recovered corpse was actually that of a ‘Lord Bonhard’.

The ‘official’ body lay at Sheen Priory, London, for a good while. Henry VIII wanted to show some respect and have it interred at St.Paul’s, but as James had been excommunicated this proved difficult and it seems to have just kicked around the priory for years. After the Reformation it seems to have gone missing, though another story has it that the head was secreted away and hurriedly buried in the charnel pit of St.Michael’s Wood Street in the centre of London. This church has long since disappeared, and the site is now occupied by a pub (ironically called The Red Herring). Sheen Priory, on the other hand, is now a golf course.

But check out these, too:-

• Two Scottish castles claim (without any evidence) to be the true burial site of James;
• In the 18^th century, the owners of Hume Castle in Berwickshire found a skeleton with an identifying chain belt down its well – which then either went missing or was whisked off for burial at Holyrood Abbey;
• … Roxburgh Castle has made a similar claim;
• And then there was the story of the ‘royal body’ pulled out of the ground somewhere near Kelso;
• Oh, and there is also a tall tale involving spectral riders snatching the body from the battlefield to prevent the English getting their hands on it.

Deary me.

At last, though, a fact: if King James IV of Scotland was slain in the mud and blood of Flodden Field, which is very likely, then he achieved the notable feat of being the last Scottish – or, indeed, British – monarch to be killed in battle. But can we have such a fact without a body?

Henry Ogle: Not to be Messed With (NU104195)

Eglingham Hall, like most buildings of its type, started small and has been added to considerably over the years. It began as a pele tower and today looks like this:

© Copyright Stephen Richards and licensed for 

reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

When its development was somewhere in between, one Henry Ogle lived there for a time prior to his death in c.1669. He was a staunch Parliamentarian, and was at his most boisterous – nay, cocky – during the days of Cromwell. Around 1649-50 he was involved in two instances for which we have precious little information, but which nevertheless provide a neat little window into what was, at the time, a pretty crazy world.

The first occurred in the wake of the famous Newcastle Witch Trials of 1649. From Thomas Oliver’s A New Picture of Newcastle-upon-Tyne of 1831:

1649 – The Magistrates of Newcastle sent to Scotland for a man who pretended to discover who were witches: on his arrival the bellman went through the town, crying “all persons who would bring in any complaint against any woman for a witch, they should be sent for and tried by the person appointed.” Thirty women were brought into the town-hall, stripped there, and had pins thrust into their bodies, and most of them condemned for witches!

As a result, fourteen witches and one wizard were executed. The account continues…

The witch-finder went from Newcastle to Northumberland, when [magistrate] Henry Ogle, Esq. laid hold of him and required bond to answer at the sessions, he escaped into Scotland, where he was apprehended, cast into prison, and condemned; when on the scaffold he confessed that he had been the death of 220 women in England and Scotland, for the gain of 20 shillings each!

No one knows for sure who this notorious witch-finder was, but it may have been the infamous John Kincaid (however, Kincaid was not collared and executed until 1662, so there may be some confusion here).

Henry Ogle of Eglingham Hall may have played a prominent role in the casting out from the region of the pesky witch-hunters, but a year later he had a run-in with his ‘hero’ Oliver Cromwell, who, on the way to the Battle of Dunbar in 1650, stayed over at Henry’s house. Legend has it that the next morning the two of them quarrelled (over exactly what we don’t know), and that they may even have duelled over the disagreement.

I should think that their differences were soon patched up, though, as Henry was elected MP for the county in 1653 and 1654. But the story of the little dispute lived on, and inspired the poem Cromwell’s Visit: An Eglingham Legend by James Hall … and if anyone out there has the text of the said ditty I’d like to hear from them!

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The Birth of Be-Ro, Longhorsley (NZ148947)

© Copyright C Massey and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

We have already seen how a nondescript terraced house in Longhorsley played a small but notable role in British history (see here) – and it is scarcely believable that the very same building should have played host to another significant event in our cultural/social history. For what was until recently the Post Office building in this Northumberland village was the base from which one very enterprising local man took the first steps towards the invention of Be-Ro, the most famous of our self-raising flours.

1 South Road, which stands directly opposite the Shoulder of Mutton pub in Longhorsley, was, before it was taken over by Emily Davison’s mum, the home of the Bell family for several decades. It was a bakers and general dealers in those days and the chap who lived there with his parents, William and Ann, was one Thomas Bell. Born in 1848, his father died when he was young, leaving Ann to raise the sizeable family – and run the business – on her own.

Thomas was clearly an enquiring sort, and began experimenting with flour, baking powder and various ‘raising agents’ in an attempt to improve the family’s lot. The exact sequence of events is unclear, but he is thought to have hit upon the ‘magic formula’ around 1875, and in the 1880s left the village to set up a grocery and tea business in Newcastle. Here he sold his new self-raising creation under the name of Bell’s Royal. It may not have been the very first ‘self-raising flour’ (a chap in Bristol claimed to have beaten Bell to it), but it certainly proved to be the most successful. Forced to drop the ‘Royal’ part of the name, Bell rebranded his creation as ‘Be-Ro’ (short for Bell’s Royal – his wife’s suggestion) in around 1895, and never looked back.

Originally sited in the Groat Market, Newcastle, the business grew and moved – firstly to Low Friar Street, then Bath Lane. Thomas died in 1925, presumably a fairly wealthy man, but Be-Ro continued to grow in popularity, spreading across England and into Scotland – greatly assisted by the publication of the famous Be-Ro recipe books from 1923. In time, the firm was swallowed by Rank-Hovis, then, most recently, by Premier Foods.

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The Morpeth Missionary (NZ195864)

Robert Morrison, the first Protestant Missionary to China and the man responsible for translating the Bible into the Chinese language, was born at Buller’s Green, Morpeth, in 1782. He was the youngest of eight children born to a Scottish father and an English mother. Little is known of his early life in the town, his family moving to Newcastle when he was three years of age.

Details of his Morpeth days may be sparse, but the Nothumberland town does receive a mention in the man’s lengthy and highly descriptive epitaph. From his memorial in the Old Protestant Cemetery in Macau, China:

Sacred

to

the memory

of

Robert Morrison DD.,

The first protestant missionary to

China,

Where after a service of twenty-seven years,

cheerfully spent in extending the kingdom of the blessed Redeemer

during which period he compiled and published

a dictionary of the Chinese language,

founded the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca

and for several years laboured alone on a Chinese version of

The Holy Scriptures,

which he was spared to see complete and widely circulated

among those for whom it was destined,

he sweetly slept in Jesus.

He was born at Morpeth in Northumberland

5 January 1782

Was sent to China by the London Missionary Society in 1807

Was for twenty five years Chinese translator in the employ of

The East India Company

and died in Canton 1 August 1834.

Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth

Yea saith the Spirit

that they may rest from their labours,

and their works do follow them.

The house in which Morrison was born no longer stands, having been demolished and replaced in the Victorian era. A suitably engraved stone slab marks the spot over an archway in North Place.

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Cale Cross, Blagdon (NZ218775)

© Copyright Stephen Richards and licensed for 

reuse under this Creative CommonsLicence.

Head north on the Great North Road and, a little short of Stannington, you will stumble upon an old relic of Newcastle. The strange classical form standing near the roadside, and within the bounds of Blagdon Hall, is Cale Cross, looking more like a daft rich man’s ornament than anything else.

Unusually, though, we have here a ‘folly’ that has – or rather had – a practical use. For it once stood at the heart of old Newcastle, marking the spot where cale (cabbage)* and other foodstuffs were once sold – a sort of mini-market which gathered at the town’s Sandhill area, near the present-day Guildhall on the Quayside. It also acted as a conduit head for some time.  A commemorative plaque now marks the site, attached, as it is, to the modern-day Cale Cross House near the footings of the Tyne Bridge. But however did this old landmark find its way to the grounds of a stately home several miles away?

Well, Blagdon Hall, as you may know, has long been the home of the White Ridleys; and the Sandhill area of Newcastle has long had a ‘Cale Cross’ – at least as far back as 1309. For many years a more ancient ‘cross’ structure marked the spot, but this was replaced by a fancier design in 1783 – drawn up by architect David Stephenson and paid for by Sir Matthew White Ridley. However, nice though it was, it soon got in the way of the local traffic and a decision was made in 1807 to dismantle it.

The White Ridleys, presumably somewhat miffed at the corporation’s change of heart, ended up carrying the said structure stone-by-stone to their ancestral home and throwing it up at the side of the main road north – for no other reason than it seemed a shame to ‘hoy it oot’. And so, like a nineteenth century Angel of the North, it sits in a prominent spot near a major thoroughfare so that passers-by can have a good gawp.

And why not. It is rather splendid.

* Some think the word ‘cale’ is derived from kail wort, a herb used in making broth and which may have been sold at this spot in Newcastle.

Newcastle Airport: the Basics (NZ186714)

1929 – City council first discuss the idea of an airport;

1935 – Small airport opens at Woolsington (“Woolsington Aerodrome”), managed by the Newcastle Aero Club;

1939-45 – Taken over by the RAF;

1946-52 – Charter & private flights only;

1952 – First scheduled flights begin on the appointment of long-term Commandant, Jim Denyer;

1967 – New terminal opens;

1978 – Attains Regional Airport Status;

1982 – More major development work;

1989 – Retirement of Jim Denyer;

1991 – Metro rail link opened, connecting airport to Newcastle Central Railway Station;

1993 – More terminal expansion;

2000-04 – Yet more improvements to the terminal buildings;

2013 – Airport Master Plan unveiled, itemising development proposals up to 2030.

Passenger numbers (approx):

1951 – 5,300;

1957 – 34,000;

1960 – 119,000;

1965 – 254,000;

1970 – 417,000;

1975 – 695,000;

1980 – 1,027,000;

1988 – 1,500,000;

1993 – 2,000,000;

2000 – 3,209,000;

2007 – 5,651,000 (peak);

2012 – 4,366,000.

[taken from Small Enough to Conquer the Sky by John Sleight (Newcastle City Libraries & Arts, 1993), with supplemental information from Wikipedia]