Who Was Barnard? (NZ049165)

The town of Barnard Castle is, of course, named after its, er, castle – but who, or what, was Barnard? Turns out that the Barnard in question was actually a Bernard, with historical origins stretching back to the time of the Norman Conquest.

Bernard Balliol (or, rather, Bernard de Balliol I), was a twelfth century nobleman whose father, Renard, and uncle, Guy de Balliol, had literally come over with the Conqueror during the Norman invasion. As a reward for his military service in Normandy, Uncle Guy was handed the Lordship of Gainford at the very end of the eleventh century, and he set about building a wood and earthwork fortification on the site of the later ‘Barnard Castle’.  Then, when his nephew, Bernard, succeeded him in the 1130s, the stronghold was rebuilt in stone, like so many others the country over.

Bernard I died around 1150-60 and was succeeded firstly by his son Guy, then almost immediately by a younger son, another Bernard. And though the castle was much adapted over the succeeding centuries, the work done by the two Bernards during 1130-1190 cemented ‘Bernard’s Castle’ as the name for the settlement which developed around the stronghold. In time, this became ‘Barnard Castle’, which is what we’re stuck with today.

I’m sure you don’t need me to remind you that the Balliols had a colourful history, what with their connections in Normandy, England and, of course, Scotland, where John Balliol was king during 1292-96. John, in fact, was most probably born in Barnard Castle around 1249. And the castle also had strong connections to the English throne, being later owned by ‘Kingmaker’ Richard Neville and King Richard III.

Thomas Tredgold, Civil Engineer (NZ233401)

Born in Brandon, Co.Durham, in 1788, Thomas Tredgold was to become an unlikely hero of American history. Though he spent his early years as an apprentice cabinet-maker, by his death in 1829 he had established himself as a leading thinker and exponent in the field of civil engineering; and, thanks to his writings, his ideas and principles influenced many like-minded individuals for decades after his demise. Most notably, his theories held great sway in the early days of railroad construction across North America – which in itself is quite a legacy.

His road to the top was somewhat circuitous. He went from his apprenticeship days to journeyman carpenter in Scotland. Eventually, he found himself working in London for his uncle, William Atkinson the architect, during which time he studied architecture (of course), mathematics and engineering – much of it in his spare time. But from around 1820 he began writing in earnest – and on the topics he knew and loved so well: the principles of carpentry, the properties of materials and, essentially, the science of building.

From 1823, Tredgold became a full-time writer; and during 1825-27 came three important works on the mechanics of that brand new mode of transport: the railways. His final book, The Steam Engine published two years before his death in 1827, was perhaps his most famous, and was reprinted several times in the ensuing decades. Both this and his Practical Treatise on Railroads & Carriages (1825), were pounced upon by American railroad developers of the era as North American pioneers swept into the open spaces of the New World. Many of his recommendations were adopted on an industrial scale, propelling the Brandon boy to an unlikely form of celebrity.

Tredgold’s definition of civil engineering contained the memorable phrase “[civil engineering is] the art of directing the great sources of power in Nature for the use and convenience of man…”. Needless to say, he was an early member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and was its president for a time.

  

Tragically, he died in London in 1829 aged only 40. It was said that his early demise was due to his general ill health following his years of dedicated study, during which he denied himself proper rest and sleep.

Lanchester: Site of the Battle of Brunanburh? (NZ160469)

A few hundred yards to the SW of Lanchester in Co.Durham lie the remains of the Roman fort of Longovicium. And it was here that, possibly, was fought one of the most important encounters in English history: the Battle of Brunanburh.

I say ‘possibly’ as no one really knows where this history-shaping clash took place, only that it happened in the autumn of 937AD. But, my goodness, it was an important one, as King Aethelstan of the recently formed England led his forces to a crucial victory over the combined armies of Scotland, Strathclyde and the Irish Vikings. The battle put the English nation firmly on the map for good.

What is not on the map, though, is the venue. Several sites across the north of England have been put forward, with current thinking favouring a spot on the Wirral peninsula. However, as has already been suggested (here), the North-East of England also lays claim to the battle; but recently it has been proposed that the aforementioned site near Lanchester could well be the spot we’ve all been looking for these past few hundred years.

By studying the word itself, historian Andrew Breeze suggests that ‘Brunanburh’ means ‘the burgh by the Browney’ – that is, ‘the stronghold near the River Browney.’ The stronghold being, of course, the old Roman fort, with the River Browney running around the foot of the hill below. To help seal the deal, the Roman road of Dere Street runs north-south through the site, which, it is suggested, would have facilitated the movement of the respective armies to and from the site. This, frankly, makes a lot more sense than the awkward situate of the Wirral … and may well give the region another important historical claim to fame.

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?

Branxton’s Cement Menagerie (NT894376)

© Copyright Andrew Curtis and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Until the last few decades the town of Branxton, North Northumberland, was famous for only one thing: it was the site of the Battle of Flodden. A few short yards to the south, the largest battle ever fought between England and Scotland was played out across a couple of nondescript fields in 1513. Branxton’s church, in fact, acted as a temporary mortuary to many of the thousands of dead that the encounter threw up.

Of late, though – and including through to the present – visitors to the village may well be calling in in pursuit of a very different tourist attraction: The Cement Menagerie. First conceived of in the early 1960s it quickly grew to unfeasibly large proportions and, as a crowd-pleaser, it is surely unique here in the UK, and quite possibly globally.

It’s on display in the garden of The Fountain House: around 300 ‘art brut’ statues crammed into less than an acre of space – and all open to the public, too, for free. It was created by a couple of pensioners, primarily for the entertainment of their disabled son, whom they insisted on looking after themselves at home rather than having him institutionalised. The names of the two eccentrics were John and Mary Fairnington, and that of their only child (who was born late to them), Edwin. Incredibly, the project wasn’t started until after John, who was a joiner, had retired in 1961, aged 80… and they just carried on rolling out the statues for around a decade until Edwin’s death in 1971. A former work colleague of John’s, James Beveridge, lent a considerable hand, too.

The figures were made from wire netting, stuffed with newspapers, then cemented over and painted. The garden has slowly developed around them – the ‘them’ in question being animals, in the main, but also including some local village characters and famous folk such as Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia. There is also a shrine to Robert Burns, as well as many little poems and ditties of his (and others) scattered here and there.

Old John died in 1981, aged 98, and the garden, by a circuitous route, eventually ended up back in the family’s possession – and it is now cared for by his present-day relatives.

A lovely piece of modern-day history…

The River Tweed

The River Tweed near Norham

(© Copyright David Chatterton and licensed for 

reuse under this Creative Commons Licence)

•  At 97 miles, it is the fourth longest river in Scotland (behind the Tay, Spey & Clyde);
• Its name comes from the Gaelic for ‘north’;
• Otherwise known as Tweed Water;
• Its source is at Tweed’s Well in the Lowther Hills;
• Its upper 74 miles are in Scotland, it then forms the border between England and Scotland for 19 miles, and its final 4 miles flow through England;
• Has a catchment area estimated at 1,500-1,800 square miles;
• It is the UK’s premier river for salmon fishing, catching more Atlantic salmon than anywhere else in the EU;
• Produces more fish caught to the fly than anywhere else in Britain;
• The Tweed’s famous autumn salmon run can produce catches approaching 30lb;
• At certain times of the year and in certain places, it can cost several thousand pounds per rod per week to fish the Tweed;
• Fishing for salmon (and sea trout) is strictly prohibited on Sundays;
• And, yes, Tweed cloth derives its name from its association with the river.

Union Chain Bridge: A World First (NT934510)

© Copyright Walter Baxter and licensed for 

reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Spanning the River Tweed about a mile downstream from the border village of Horncliffe lies a little known piece of European engineering history in the shape of the Union Chain Bridge. When opened in 1820 it was the longest iron suspension bridge in the world and the first of its type to carry vehicles.

It stretches for a mightily impressive 449ft, linking England and Scotland, and does so quite majestically. It was built because there was a need for a river crossing at this point – primarily for the transportation of coal and lime (the latter for agricultural use). Financed by the local Turnpike Trusts, the commission for its design and construction was handed to retired naval officer, Captain Samuel Brown, who reckoned he knew enough about iron chains and links and such like to suspend a roadway across the considerable gap. And, at a knock-down price of £6,500 and an eleven month schedule, he delivered as promised.

When it opened on 26^th July 1820, it was quite an occasion. Some of the most important civil engineers of the day were present (including Robert Stevenson and John Rennie, who both had some input into the scheme), and its strength was proven with the crossing of several loaded curricles and carts as well as 600+ pedestrians. The lengths of chain hung from two giant towers, and the bed of the bridge was made of wood.

The bridge’s upkeep was financed by tolls – until 1883, that is, when tolls were abolished. The essentially sound bridge has, of course, been patched up over the years – most notably in 1871, 1902 and 1974 – but it is now in need of around £5million’s worth of repairs to restore it to tip-top condition. And the campaign is on to do just that in time for its bicentenary in 2020 – see here.

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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Longframlington: Birthplace of English Presbyterianism? (NU127015)

Amidst the complex web that is the history of British religious nonconformity lies that curious creature known as Presbyterianism. Put simply, it is essentially a Scottish creation – or it at least took root there - before spreading south and, to a certain extent, worldwide from the 16^th century onwards.

In 1662, nearly two thousand ‘dissenting’ clergymen were thrown out of the Church of England, leading to the establishment of ‘proper’ dissenting places of worship – or at least gatherings or ‘congregations’ who met in private houses. One of these little assemblies had been meeting somewhat informally at Swarland Old Hall since around 1640 under the guidance of a Mr William Hesilrigge, and immediately following the ‘Great Ejectment’ of 1662 the establishment of the ‘Longframlington Presbyterian Church’ was officially announced by Hesilrigge and his followers. And it was pretty quick off the mark, too, with the construction of England’s very first Presbyterian chapel or meeting house five years later at the village’s Hole House Farm.

The Longframlington Presbyterian Meeting House, established in 1667 and probably the first of its kind in England, held regular services until a new chapel was built at the North End of the village in 1739, complete with accommodation for the presiding minister. The final (and present) incarnation – on the same site and pictured below – dates from 1854.

It is worth mentioning that after the 1689 Act of Toleration life for practising dissenters became a good deal easier. However, permanent bases for worship were rare before this date, so the original, purpose-built Longframlington meeting house, dating from the 1660s, really is an early call and a notable ‘first’ for Northumberland.

The present chapel became a United Reformed Church in 1972 when the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches united.

The present URC Church, built 1854

© Copyright Walter Baxter and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

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Joseph Whitehead (NZ615160)

One of Canada’s greatest railway pioneers, Joseph Whitehead was born in Guisborough in 1814. He began his engineering career very young, reportedly serving as a fireman on Stephenson’s famous Locomotion in the 1820s, before progressing to railway construction – most notably having a hand in the Caledonian Railway in Scotland.

He made the bold move to Canada in the late 1840s, dragging his young family with him, where he helped build sections of the Great Western and Grand Trunk Railways and many more besides. Whitehead also dabbled in politics, becoming mayor for Clinton, Ontario, and serving as a Liberal MP in the 1^st Canadian Parliament during 1867-72.

He was an entrepreneur, too, building a sawmill, among other things. Sensationally, in 1877, he brought the very first steam locomotive to the Canadian prairie provinces when he bought the Countess of Dufferin and transported it to its new home by boat up the Red River to Winnipeg. The train is today a museum piece in the city.

Whitehead eventually retired to Clinton, Ontario, and died there in 1894 – aged 80 and a very long way from his native parish. His daughter, Charlotte, became a pioneer female doctor; and his gt-gt-granddaughter, Val Meredith, served as a Canadian MP as recently as 1993-2004.

Vanishing Rock (c.NU245230)

Among the rocky protuberances in and around Embleton Bay lies a famous lump of sandstone known as ‘The Vanishing Rock’. As the tides come and go and the sands shift to and fro, so this feature moves into and out of view, as befitting its name. Nothing unusual in that, you may think; but this particular rock has the name “Andra Barton” (among others) chiselled into its surface, in rough but distinct lettering. Sir Andrew Barton was High Admiral of Scotland around the turn of the 16th century, who, acting under the protection and in the name of the Scottish Crown, made something of a nuisance of himself to the Portuguese and the English upon the high seas. In short, he was considered a pirate by non-Scots, or a privateer, at best. He was defeated in battle with the English in 1511 – some reports have him slain in the fight, others that he was captured and beheaded. The loss of Barton did not go down well with the Scots – one of many grievances which led, eventually to the clash at Flodden in 1513.

As for the ‘Vanishing Rock’, I shouldn’t rush to Embleton’s sandy expanse hoping to catch a glimpse. For the last time it was seen was in 1974.

Scotch Vagrants (NU053404)

Another classic quote, this time from Cobbett’s Political Register of 1832:-

When at Newcastle I learned that Scotch vagrants were regularly sent from that place back into Scotland by pass-carts; that the conveyance of them was contracted for; and that the contractor received two pounds two shillings for each journey; that this contractor put them down at a place called Kyloe, a place five miles distant from Belford, on the road to Berwick; that the vagrants were delivered into the custody of a police-officer, who saw them deposited in the parish in Scotland named in the pass; and that the contractor had sometimes taken the same individuals as often as ten or twelve times!