Whittingham Fair, now Whittingham Sports, a well-known rendezvous of the whole countryside, has lost some of its former splendour, but is still looked forward to with great enjoyment in the surrounding district. The old coaching road from Newcastle to Edinburgh passed through the village, crossing the Aln by the stone bridge, from whence it went on through Glanton and Wooler to Cornhill. In the vale of Whittingham, the little Aln flows placidly along, its waters murmuring a soothing refrain, a peaceful interlude between its busy bustling beginning and its ending. Before reaching Alnwick it flows past the ancient walls of Hulne Abbey, the monastery of Carmelite friars so romantically founded by the Northumbrian knight and monk after his visit to the monastery on Mount Carmel. A considerable portion of the ancient building is still standing, and few sites chosen by the old monks, who had an unerring eye for beauty as well as safety and convenience in their choice of abode, can surpass this one, surrounded by fair meadows, and standing on the green hill-side, with the rippling Aln flowing through the levels below. In Hulne Park is also the Brislee Tower, erected by the first Duke of Northumberland in 1781, on the top of Brislee Hill. [Illustration: Alnwick Castle] Alnwick itself, with its quaint, uneven, narrow streets, and grey stone houses, looks the part of a Border town even in these days; and the grim old Hotspur tower, bestriding the main street like an ancient warrior still on guard, helps to give the illusion an air of reality. The tower, however, was not built by Hotspur, but by his son. The names of the streets, too, are redolent of the days when the only safety for the inhabitants of a town worth plundering lay in the strength of its walls and gateways. Bondgate, Bailiffgate, and Narrowgate, still speak of the days of siege and sortie, of fierce attack and stout defence.