Chapter VI: The Cheviots

From the crowded, bustling scenes of Tyneside to the solitude of
the Cheviot Hills is a “far cry,” even farther mentally than in
actual tale of miles. Yet the two are linked by the same stream,
which begins life as a brawling Cheviot burn, having for its
fellows the head waters of the Rede, the Coquet, and the Till, with
the scores of little dancing rills that feed them.

Nowhere in this land of swelling hills and grassy fields can one
get out of either sight or sound of running water. Every little dip
in the hills has its watercourse, every vale its broader stream,
and the pleasant sound of their murmurings and sweet babbling fills
in the background of every remembrance of days spent upon the green
slopes of the Cheviots. You may hear in their tones, if you listen,
the shrill chatter and laughter of children, soft cooing voices,
and the deeper notes of manhood, and might fancy, did not your
sight contradict the fact, that you were close to a goodly company,
whose words met your ear, but whose magic language you could not
understand.

One little burn of my acquaintance, which runs through field and
dell to join the Till, I have hearkened to again and again for
hours, unable to break away from the spell of its ever-varying, yet
constant music—a sort of wilder, sweeter version of Mendelssohn’s
Duetto, with the voices of Knight and Lady alternating and
intermingling amidst a rippling current of clear bell-like
undertones.

Down from Cheviot itself, the lovely little Colledge Water splashes
its way, issuing from the wild ravine called the Henhole, where the
cliffs on each side of the rocky gorge rise in some places to a
height of more than two hundred feet. Concerning this ravine, there
is a legend that a party of hunters, long ages ago, were
deer-stalking in Cheviot Forest, when on reaching the Henhole their
ears were greeted by the most ravishing music they had ever heard.
Allured by the enchanting sounds, they followed the music into the
ravine, where they disappeared, and were never again seen.

The range of the Cheviot Hills stretches for about twenty-two miles
along the north-west border of Northumberland; and as the width of
the range is, roughly speaking, twenty-one miles, we have a tract
of over three hundred square miles of rolling, grassy, and
heath-clad hills, of which about one-third is over the Scottish
border in Roxburghshire. The giants of the range, The Cheviot
(2,676 feet high), Cairn Hill (2,545 feet), and the striking cone
of Hedgehope (2,348 feet), are all near to each other on
Northumbrian soil, a few miles south-west of Wooler, which is a
most convenient starting place for a visit to any part of the
Cheviots, as the Alnwick and Cornhill Railway brings within easy
reach the heights which lie still farther north.

The quiet little market town lies pleasantly among green meadows
almost at the foot of the Cheviots; its low substantial stone
houses, with few gardens in front, give the place a somewhat
monotonous appearance, but the newer streets try to make amends by
blossoming out into brilliant flower-plots in summer-time. Still,
one would not quarrel with the older buildings; solid and
unpretentious, they must look much the same as in the days of
Border turmoil, when the first requisite in house or town was
strength, not beauty.

Near to Wooler are many interesting places; within the limits of
quite a short stroll one may visit the Pin Well, a wishing well of
which there are so many examples to be found wherever one may
travel; the King’s Chair, a porphyry crag on the hill above the Pin
Well; Maiden Castle, or, less euphoniously, Kettles Camp, an
ancient British encampment on the same hill, the Kettles being
pot-like cavities in the ravines surrounding it; and the Cup and
Saucer Camp, just half a mile distant from Wooler. The Golf Course
is now laid out on these same heights.

To reach the Cheviots from Wooler, the most usual way is by the
beautiful glen in which lies Langleeford. The bright streamlet
known as the Wooler Water runs through it from Cheviot on its way
to the town from which it has taken its present name; formerly it
was known as Caldgate Burn. It was at Langleeford that Sir Walter
Scott stayed, as a youth, in 1791, with his uncle, after they had
vainly attempted to find accommodation in Wooler. Here they rode,
fished, shot, walked, and drank the goat’s whey for which the
district was famous in those days and for long afterwards.

Cheviot itself, or “The Muckle Cheviot,” is a huge cumbrous-looking
mass, with rounded sides and flat top, boggy and treacherous,
where, nevertheless, many wild berries brighten the marshy flats in
their season. The name “Cheviot” is said to mean “Snowy Ridge” and
well does this highest summit of the range merit the name, for on
its marshy top and in the rocky chasms of Henhole and Bazzle, the
winter’s snow often lies until far into the summer. Down through
the weird and fairy-haunted cleft of Henhole, as we have seen, the
little brown stream of Colledge Water splashes its way, breaking
into golden foam between mossy banks as it reaches the outlet, and
turns northward to join the Till.

This little burn is one of the prettiest of mountain streams; and
in the district surrounding it are perhaps more points of interest
than any other stream of such inconsiderable dimensions can show,
saving only its neighbour, the Till. The whole of the surrounding
country, wild, lonely, and romantic, teems with memories and
reminders of the past. Sir Walter Scott, while on the visit already
referred to, found an additional pleasure in the presence of so
many relics of ancient days in the neighbourhood. “Each hill,” he
wrote to a friend, “is crowned with a tower, or camp, or cairn, and
in no situation can you be near more fields of battle.”

Indeed, the whole district of the Cheviots, and the lower lines of
swelling hills into which the land subsides as it nears the sea, is
crowded with the memorials of an earlier race; from every hill-top
and rocky height they speak with tantalising half-revelations of
that race which the Romans found here when their galleys brought
them to the land which was to them Ultima Thule. No convincing
explanation has yet been found of the concentric circular markings,
with radiating grooves from the cup-shaped hollow in the middle,
which are scored on the rocks wherever traces of an ancient camp
are found; and the numbers of these traces are proof that this
district was once a very thickly populated part of Britain.

And when Angle and Saxon were driving the early inhabitants before
them, westward and southward, these hills and valleys still
sheltered a considerable population; and Bede tells us of a royal
residence not far away, at the foot of the well known Yeavering
Bell, one of the more important hills of the range. It rises to a
height of more than 1,100 feet, and then abruptly ends in a wide,
almost level top, grass-grown and boulder-strewn, and crowned near
the centre with a roughly-piled cairn. The ancient name of
Yeavering Bell, as given by Bede in his account of the labours of
St. Paulinus, was Ad-gefrin.

To recall the days when King Edwin and his queen, Ethelburga, came
here from the royal city of Bamburgh, we must go back to a time
nearly forty years after the Bernician chieftain, Ida, established
himself in that rocky fortress, from whence he ruled a district
roughly corresponding to the present counties of Durham and
Northumberland, and known as Bernicia. One of Ida’s successors,
Ethelric, overcame the tribe of Angles then established in the
neighbouring district of Deira—the Yorkshire of to-day. His
successor, Ethelfrith, ruled over the united district, and married
the daughter of Ella, the vanquished chieftain. Her brother, Edwin,
he drove into exile, and the young prince found refuge at the court
of Redwald of East Anglia, where he remained for some years.

Redwald’s friendship, however, does not seem to have been above
suspicion, for we find that Ethelfrith’s bribe had on one occasion
nearly induced him to give up his guest, whose life, however, was
saved by Redwald’s wife who turned her husband from his purpose. In
his exile the thoughts of the young prince often turned towards his
own land; and, once, as he sat brooding over his misfortunes, he
saw in a vision one who came and spoke comforting words to him,
saying that he should yet be king and that his reign should be long
and glorious. “And if one should come to thee and repeat this
sign,” said the stranger, laying his right hand on Edwin’s head
“wouldst thou hearken to his rede?” Edwin gave his word, and the
vision fled. Some little time after this, Ethelfrith of
Northumbria, as the united districts were now called, fell in
battle against Redwald, and Edwin, returning northward, became
ruler of Northumbria, the sons of Ethelfrith fleeing in their turn
before the new king. Edwin wedded, as his second wife, Ethelburga,
daughter of that king of Kent in whose days Augustine came to
England; and being a Christian princess, she brought with her a
priest to her new home in the north. The priest’s name was
Paulinus; and one day he went to the King and, placing his right
hand on Edwin’s head, asked if he knew that sign. Edwin remembered,
and redeemed his promise. He hearkened to the teaching of the
earnest monk, with the result that before long he and his court
were baptised by Paulinus, Edwin’s little daughter, it is said,
being the first to receive the sacred rite.

This was at York; and when the king and queen went to the royal
city of Bamburgh, or to their country dwelling at the foot of the
Cheviots, Paulinus accompanied them; and wherever he went, he
laboured to teach the North-country Angles and Saxons the gospel of
Christ. This country dwelling, to which came Paulinus and his royal
friends, was Ad-gefrin, or Yeavering; and though it is extremely
unlikely that any traces of it could remain until our day, yet
tradition points out a fragment of an old building still standing
there, as a remnant of the royal residence.

In the region of Kirknewton, a pretty little village to the
north-west of Yeavering, where Colledge Water joins the Glen, which
gives its name to the romantic district of Glendale, Paulinus
baptised many hundreds of Edwin’s people; and the name of
Pallinsburn—which is now confined to a house at some little
distance from the burn—enshrines the memory of yet another scene of
the labours of the indefatigable monk.

If we stand on the wind-swept top of Yeavering Bell, we are
surrounded by the evidences of still more remote days, for the
whole of the summit was once a fortified camp of the ancient
Britons. A roughly-piled, but massive wall, now almost all broken
down, surrounded it, and within its grass-grown oval are two
additional walls, at the east and the west ends of the enclosure,
and many hut-circles, evidences of the rude dwellings of our remote
ancestors. Excavations here many years ago brought to light a
jasper ball, some fragments of a coarse kind of pottery, and some
oaken armlets. Evidently the enclosure on the summit was intended
to be a last resort in time of danger, for traces of many huts are
to be found outside its encircling wall, which is surrounded by a
ditch and a low rampart of earth. At the east end, where the
porphyry crag juts out from the hilltop to a height of about twenty
feet, full advantage has been taken of this naturally strong
position.

Now, instead of advancing foes, the spreading heather climbs
steadily up the sloping sides of this ancient stronghold, and
invades the central enclosure at its will; a few hardy sheep that
have wandered up here from the richer pastures below, and now and
again a stray tourist, anxious to make acquaintance at first hand
with one of the more famous of the Cheviot heights, and more than
satisfied with the glorious view spread out before him, are all
that disturb the brooding peace of its grassy solitudes. Up here
the wind blows keenly around us with an exhilarating freshness in
its breath, and we think regretfully of coats left behind at the
shepherd’s hospitable dwelling, which, with the rest of the
cottages clustering round the old farm house, lies sunning itself
in the warm glow of the September afternoon, in the green fields at
the foot of the sheltering hills.

Looking southward now, up the stream, there is stretching away to
the left the long ridge of Newton Tor, and away behind it Great
Hetha and Little Hetha; while half-way down the vale the Colledge
Water tumbles over the rocks at Hethpoole Linn (or Heathpool, as
the modern rendering has it), breaking into amber spray deep down
beneath overhanging trees and boulders and golden bracken.

This brings our thoughts to days comparatively modern, for when
Admiral Collingwood was raised to the peerage of Great Britain, it
was by the title of “Baron Collingwood of Caldburn and Hethpoole,
in the county of Northumberland.” The brave Admiral was fond of
planting an oak tree whenever he found an opportunity, to secure
the continuance of those wooden walls which in his hands, and in
those of his life-long friend, Nelson, had proved such a sure
defence to his country. In a letter dated March, 1806, he wrote to
his wife, “I wish some parts of Hethpoole could be selected for
plantations of larch, oak, and beech, where the ground could best
be spared. Even the sides of a bleak hill would grow larch and
fir.” In another letter some months later he told her what
“agreeable news” it was to hear that she was taking care of his
oaks, and planting some at Hethpoole; and saying that if he ever
returned he would plant a good deal there; adding, however, that he
feared before that could take place both he and Lady Collingwood
might themselves be planted in the churchyard beneath some old yew
tree.

Hethpoole presents us with a link not only with history, but with
romance as well. An ivied ruin near at hand, with walls of enormous
strength, is said to be the remains of the castle where the final
tragedy in “The Hermit of Warkworth” took place. Here, it is said,
the distracted lover came upon his lady and his brother, who had at
that moment effected her escape, and not recognising the youth,
rushed upon the pair with drawn sword, only to discover too late
his terrible mistake, and lose both brother and bride—for the lady
received a mortal wound in trying to save her rescuer.

Turning our eyes now northward across the Glen from Yeavering Bell,
we are looking towards Coupland Castle, and the fact that it was
built so late as the reign of James I. bears eloquent testimony to
the insecurity of life and property on the Borders even at that
period. The barony either gave its name to, or took its name from,
a well-known Northumbrian family, of which one of the most
prominent members was that Sir John de Coupland who succeeded in
capturing David of Scotland at the battle of Neville’s Cross—not,
however, before he had lost some of his teeth by a blow from the
mailed fist of that doughty monarch!

Beyond Coupland Castle we look across Milfield Plain lying in the
angle formed by the meeting of the Glen with the deep and sullen
Till, whose slow windings can be traced as it gleams at intervals
between the undulations of the lower hills through which it flows
northwestward to the Tweed. Though a brisk and sparkling stream in
certain parts of its course, the general characteristics of the
Till are well borne out by the lines—
Tweed says to Till “What gars ye rin sae still?” Till says to Tweed
“Though ye rin wi’ speed And I rin slaw; Where ye droon ae man I
droon twa.”

There is yet more of historical and traditional interest to note in
this view from the top of Yeavering Bell, which, as I saw it last,
lay warm in the glow of a September afternoon. Nennius is our
authority for stating that on Milfield Plain took place one of the
great conflicts in which King Arthur
“Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame The heathen hordes, and
made a realm, and reigned”

And, as we gazed, the level spaces seemed peopled once more with
charging knights, flashing sword and swinging battle-axe, and the
intervening centuries dropped away, and Arthur’s call to battle for
“our fair father Christ,” seemed curiously befitting that romantic
scene. But, as the shadows lengthened, and the streams took on a
golden glow in the rays of the September sun, then slowly setting,
“the tumult and the shouting of the captains” died away, and the
figure of an earnest monk seemed to stand by the riverside, with
prince and serf, peasant and warrior for his audience, and the cold
bright waters of the Glen dripping from his hand, as he enrolled
one after another into the ranks of an army mightier than the hosts
of Arthur or Edwin.

Milfield again emerges into notice out of the obscurity of those
dark ages, in the days of the Bernician kings who succeeded Edwin;
for Bede tells us that “This town (Ad-gefrin) under the following
kings, was abandoned, and another was built instead of it at a
place called Melmin,” now Milfield. Nothing, however, remains here
of the buildings which once sheltered the royal Saxons and their
court. In later days, Milfield has a melancholy interest attaching
to it from its connection with the battle of Flodden; for, on the
heights above, King James fixed his camp, in the hope that Surrey
would lead his troops across the plain below. Of the other
considerable heights of the Cheviot range, Carter Fell and Peel
Fell are the best known; they both lie right on the border line of
England and Scotland, between the North Tyne and the Rede Water. As
we have already seen, the men of Tynedale and Redesdale bore a
reputation for lawlessness in the time of the Border
“Moss-trooping” days, and until nearly the end of the eighteenth
century the tradesmen and guilds of Newcastle would take no
apprentice who hailed from either of these dales. The tracks and
passes between the hills, once alive with frequent foray and wild
pursuit, are now silent and solitary but for the occasional passing
of a shepherd or farmer, and the flocks of sheep grazing as they
move slowly up the hillsides. A quaint survival of the remembrances
of those days was unexpectedly brought before me one day. A child
presented me with a bunch of cotton-grass, gathered on the moors
not far from the Roman-Wall. I asked if she knew what they were
that she had brought. “Moss-troopers,” she replied.

Many of the Cheviot heights bear most suggestive and interesting
names, such as Cushat[7] Law, Kelpie[8] Strand, Earl’s Seat,
Stot[9] Crags, Deer Play, Wether Lair, Bloodybushedge, Monkside,
etc., etc.

[7] Cushat = a wood-pigeon.

[8] Kelpie = a water-witch.

[9] Stot = a bullock.

In these lonely wilds, which occupy all the northwest of the
county, one may travel all day and meet with no living thing save
the birds of the air, and a few shy, wild creatures of the
moorlands; curve after curve, the rounded hills stretch away into
the distance, grass-grown or heatherclad, with occasional
peat-mosses; above is the “grey gleaming sky,” and, all around, a
stillness as of vast untrodden wastes, and a sense of solitude out
of all proportion to the actual extent of this lonely region. The
fascination of it, however, admits of no denial, even on the part
of those newly making its acquaintance; while those who in
childhood or youth roam over its wild fells, and feel the spell of
its brooding mystery, retain in their hearts for all time an
unfading remembrance of its magic charm.
COLLEDGE WATER.
My sire is the stooping Cheviot mist, My mother the heath in her
purple train; And every flower on her gown I’ve kissed Over and over
and over again.
The secret ways of the hills are mine, I know where the wandering
moor-fowl nest; And up where the wet grey glidders[10] shine I know
where the roving foxes rest.
I know what the wind is wailing for As it searches hollow and hag and
peak; And, riding restless on Newton Tor, I know what the questing
shadows seek.
I know the tale that the brown bees tell, And they tell it to me with
a raider’s pride, As, drunk with the cups of Yeavering Bell, They
stagger home from the English side.
I know the secrets of haugh and hill; But sacred and safe they rest
with me, Till I hide them deep in the heart of Till, To be taken to
Tweed and the open sea.
—_Will. H. Ogilvie_.
BY PERMISSION OF MESSRS. W. AND R. CHAMBERS

[10] Glidders = Patches of loose stones on the hillside.