Northumberland Yesterday and To-dayTerry, Jean F. (Jean Finlay)
History
Northumberland Yesterday and To-day
Terry, Jean F. (Jean Finlay)
Northumberland (England) -- Guidebooks; Northumberland (England) -- History
Another walk of three miles along the still beautiful banks of the
Wansbeck brings us to Bothal, another little village of great
beauty, embowered and almost hidden amongst luxuriant woods. Its
curious name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _bottell_, a place of
abode (as in Walbottle). The name conjures up memories of the
knights of old, their loves and their fortunes, fair or disastrous;
for the best-known version of “The Hermit of Warkworth” tells us
that it was a Bertram of Bothal who was the luckless hero of that
tale, though another version avers that he belonged to the house of
Percy.
Wansbeck’s fellow stream, the Coquet, has its birth amongst some of
the wildest scenery of the Cheviot Hills, where the heights of
Deel’s Hill and Woodbist Law look down on the now silent Watling
Street and the deserted Ad Fines Camp. In its windings along the
bases of the hills it is joined by the Usway Burn, said to be named
after King Oswy, between which and the little river Alwine lies the
famous Lordship of Kidland, once desolate on account of the
thieving and raiding of its neighbours of Bedesdale and Scotland.
Hodgson, in his “Northumberland,” says of this region, “All the
said Kydlande is full of lytle hilles or mountaynes, and between
the saide hilles be dyvers valyes in which discende litle Ryvvelles
or brokes of water, spryngynge out of the said hilles and all
fallynge into a lytle Rever or broke callede Kidlande water, w’ch
fallethe into the rever of cockette nere to the towne of
alwynntonn, w’tin a myll of the castell of harbottell.” The reasons
for the desolation of Kidland are graphically set forth:—“In somer
seasons when good peace ys betwene England and Scotland,
th’inhabitantes of dyv’se townes thereaboutes repayres up with
theyr cattall in som’ynge (summering) as ys aforesaid, and so have
used to do of longe tyme. And for the pasture of theyr cattall, so
long as they would tarye there they payed for a knoweledge two pens
for a household, or a grote at the most, though they had nev’ so
many cattalles. And yet the poore men thoughte their fermes dere
enoughe. There was but fewe yeres that they escaped w’thout a
greatter losse of their goodes and cattalles, by spoyle or thefte
of the Scottes or Ryddesdale men, then would have paide for the
pasture of theyr cattail in a much better grounde. And ov’ (over,
besides) that, the saide valyes or hopes of Kidlande lyeth so
distant and devyded by mounteynes one from an other, that such as
Inhabyte in one of these hoopes, valeys, or graynes, can not heare
the Fraye outcrye, or exclamac’on of such as dwell in an other
hoope or valley upon the other side of the said mountayne, nor come
or assemble to theyr assystance in tyme of necessytie. Wherefore we
can not fynde anye of the neyghbours thereabouts wyllinge
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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