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
Bellingham is to-day the most considerable village of the
neighbourhood; it stands conveniently at the foot of the hills
where the little Belling Burn, or Hareshaw Burn, joins the main
stream. In Hareshaw woods is the beautiful Hareshaw Linn, where the
stream falls down through a break in the sandstone cliffs, and
forms a picturesque waterfall, fringed with ferns and trees and
cool mosses. It well repays one for the walk of a mile or so
through tangled underwoods by the side of the burn. Bellingham
gives its mime to the family of de Bellingham, whose chief seat,
however, is now in Ireland and no longer in the little
north-country town.
The massive church here, with its roof of stone, bears eloquent
testimony to the need for fireproof buildings in a village so near
to Scotland in the days of Border warfare. Outside the churchyard
wall is the well of St. Cuthbert, or “Cuddy’s Well,” which was
greatly venerated in early days, and many stories are told of the
miraculous power of its waters. Inside the churchyard a grave is
pointed out as the burial place of the robber whose tragic end was
told by James Hogg in his gruesome story of “The Long Pack.”
The village itself is plain and bare, as might be expected from a
settlement which would probably find that unattractiveness in
either wealth or appearance was a tolerable safeguard.
Below Bellingham the North Tyne is joined by its longest and most
noted tributary, the Rede Water, which also rises in the Cheviots.
Rising in the hills north of Carter Fell, it flows south-east,
through a wild region, passing, while still high up amongst the
hills, the little village of Byrness, and the new reservoir at
Catcleugh, where a supply of pure water is stored for the use of
the dwellers in distant Newcastle. On its way to the Tyne, it
passes many an old pele-tower, and the Roman stations of Bremenium
(Rochester) and Habitancum, near Woodburn. The ancient Roman road
of Watling Street crosses the Rede at Woodburn, leading from
Habitancum to Bremenium.
Many mountain streams, clear and sparkling, or peaty and brown,
join the Rede Water on its way, amongst others the little Otter
Burn, by whose banks took place that stirring episode in the
constant quarrels between the Douglases and Percies known as “Chevy
Chase,” from which the fierce battle-cries ring down the five
centuries that have passed since that time, with sounds that echo
still.
The pretty village of Redesmouth (or Reedsmouth) stands where the
Rede Water enters the North Tyne, and a few miles further on the
rapid little Houxty Burn pours its peaty waters into the main
stream.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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