Hartburn Grotto (NZ087864)

© Copyright Andrew Curtis and licensed for 

reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Carved out of the sandstone cliff overlooking the Hart Burn, a little upstream from the village of the same name, can be found a curious manmade cavern – created, rather daftly, for use as a changing room for those mad enough to want to bathe in the nearby river. It is known as Hartburn Grotto.

Dr John Sharp was vicar of Hartburn for forty-odd years from 1749, and it was he, with the help of his parishioners (who must have laboured with some puzzlement), who built the said structure in around 1760. It has a high, slit-like entrance, with two niches for statues above; and an internal gothic arch, which separates the inner and outer chambers – one of which contains a fireplace. The said niches used to hold statues of Adam and Eve. And, best of all, there is a 15m-long underground tunnel from the grotto down to the river, allowing bathers discrete access to the watery facilities.

Many believe that the monument’s likeness to a rough-cut chapel may hint at an earlier manmade origin for this strange fold in the landscape – almost certainly expanding upon what would have originally been a natural cave or cleft in the cliff face. Its closeness to the Devil’s Causeway could well mean that a Roman temple may have occupied the site – and if not, then there may well be some other distant spiritual connection to an earlier age.

Coincidentally, the grotto lies a few yards away from the site of a former Roman river crossing of the Hart Burn, where the aforementioned Devil’s Causeway spanned the wooded valley. Faint traces of Roman engineering can still be found in the river, rocks and landscape thereabouts.

Sharp’s Folly (NU058009)

© Copyright J C Ousby and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

Sharp’s Folly, or Tower, is reckoned to be the oldest folly in Northumberland. It is situated near Whitton, a little to the south of Rothbury, and was built in the 1720s by Rev Dr Thomas Sharp, Rector of Rothbury during 1720-58.

When Sharp (the son of the Archbishop of York) moved to the locality he set up his household in Whitton Tower. He was something of an eccentric, for sure, but, taking pity on the unemployed men of his parish, he hit upon the idea of building the 30-odd foot high ashlar structure as a sort of job-creation scheme.

It wasn’t a folly in the purest sense, though, for the tower, after its construction, was thereafter used as an observatory for the reverend’s astronomical interests. You could see the sea from its summit, apparently, until the nearby trees grew to obscure the view.

The tower is privately owned so the visitor cannot climb its internal cantilevered stone staircase. However, as you can see from the picture, passing hikers can get close enough for a good gawp.

North Country Brags (NZ281531 & NZ282552)

The imaginings of our ancestors knew no bounds. Goblins are one such entity said to have haunted the lanes and backwaters of our countryside – and the North-East is no different to anywhere else in the UK. In this part of the world, though, they seem to have been known as ‘brags’, and were able to shape-shift at will, it would appear.

One of the most famous of these unearthly creatures is ‘The Picktree Brag’, which was said to have wandered the countryside around this tiny village between Chester-le-Street and Birtley. The most notable account is that given by a 90-year-old woman in the 1830s – as told to local noble Sir Cuthbert Sharp, who handily commited the tale to print.

As is so often the case, the ‘brag’ was never seen distinctly, but was more often heard or ‘sensed’ in the dead of night. “It sometimes appears as a calf … or a horse … whinnying every now and then. It also came like a ‘dickass’,” she was heard to say. Others, she exclaimed, saw it as ‘four men holding a sheet’, or as a naked man without a head. It would often accompany the midwife on her rounds in the shape of a horse – and if anyone tried to mount it it would throw them violently and run off, ‘laughing’ loudly.

Other northern legends refer to such spirits appearing as a man, an ox or a hound – but it was most often in the form of a horse or donkey, making a terrifying noise, that the ghostly beast would materialise. Strangely, the nearby village of Portobello (a little to the north) also harbours a similar legend. But I mean, come on, let’s be reasonable … it’s probably the same creature ‘doing the rounds’. Common sense, really.