For the rest, Aycliffe is quite unremarkable. Leaving it, and coming downhill over an arched crossing over a marsh, dignified by the name of Howden Bridge, we reach Traveller’s Rest and its two inns, the “Bay Horse” and “Gretna Green Wedding Inn.” An indescribable air of romance dignifies these two solitary inns that confront one another across the highway, and form all there is of Traveller’s Rest. The “Wedding Inn,” the more modern of the two, has for its sign the picture of a marriage ceremony in that famous Border smithy. The “Bay Horse” is the original Traveller’s Rest. Dating back far into the old coaching and posting times, its stables of that era still remain; but what renders the old house particularly notable is its sign, the odd figure of a horse within an oval, seen on its wall, with the word “Liberty” in company with the name of “Traveller’s Rest” and the less romantic than commercial announcement of “Spirituous Liquors.” Once, perhaps, painted the correct tint of a “bay” horse, the elements have reduced it to an unobtrusive brown that bids fair to modestly fade into the obscurity of a neutral tint, unless the landlord presently fulfils his intention, expressed to the present historian, of having it repainted, to render it “more viewly”; which appears to be the North-country phrase for making a thing “more presentable.” To this old sign belongs the legend of a prisoner being escorted to Durham Gaol and escaping through the horse ridden by his mounted guard throwing its rider near here. Hence the word “Liberty.” [Picture: Traveller’s Rest]